Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has stepped in and blocked the Democrat-controlled House from getting President Donald Trump’s taxes.
Roberts issued a temporary stay placing the lower court ruling on hold while the full Supreme Court can decide whether to honor Trump’s request or not.
On Monday, Trump filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court to block the House Ways & Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.
A D.C. Circut court ruled earlier that the Democrats on the committee could access the records.
“John Roberts has granted a temporary ‘administrative’ stay in Trump’s bid to stop a House committee from obtaining his tax returns,” ScotusBlog reported
“This is not a ruling on the merits of Trump’s request; it merely keeps the lower-court ruling on hold while SCOTUS considers the request.”
John Roberts has granted a temporary “administrative” stay in Trump’s bid to stop a House committee from obtaining his tax returns. This is not a ruling on the merits of Trump’s request; it merely keeps the lower-court ruling on hold while SCOTUS considers the request. https://t.co/7WrSBrZlFh pic.twitter.com/CVweLTl9S0
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 1, 2022
This is not the first emergency stay from the court related to Trump.
Justice Elena Kagan issued such a stay on October 26, temporarily blocking a subpoena from the House select committee for phone and text records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.
Justice Clarence Thomas also froze an order on October 24 requiring the testimony of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham before a Georgia grand jury.
According to CNN:
The committee chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, first sought the tax returns from the IRS in 2019, and the IRS, under the Trump administration, initially resisted turning them over.
The case moved slowly until 2021, when, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department changed its legal posture and concluded the IRS was obligated to comply with the committee’s request.
A Trump-appointed judge ruled in the House’s favor late last year and the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to reverse that ruling, most recently with the full appeals court declining last week to take up the case.
A separate legal case concerning the House Oversight Committee’s pursuit of Trump tax information from his then-accounting firm ended in a settlement earlier this year, after a trip to the Supreme Court in 2020.
In bringing the dispute with the Ways and Means committee to the Supreme Court, Trump is arguing that lower courts have run afoul of that 2020 case, known as Mazars.
NEW: Chief Justice Roberts enters administrative stay — temporarily blocking turnover of Trump tax returns while court decides how to handle case. He requests a response from House panel by Nov. 10. https://t.co/WH9V5Ea0ze pic.twitter.com/alNVuRUhF6
— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) November 1, 2022
