Roberts Delays Handover of Trump’s Tax Returns to House Panel

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice Roberts on Tuesday put a temporary hold on the handover of former President Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee.Chief Justice Roberts’ order gives the Supreme Court time to weigh the legal issues in Mr. Trump’s emergency appeal to the high court, filed Monday.Without court intervention, the tax returns could have been provided as early as Thursday by the Treasury Department to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.The chief justice gave the committee until November 10 to respond. He handles emergency appeals from the nation’s capital, where the fight over Mr. Trump’s taxes has been going on since 2019.Lower courts ruled that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Mr. Trump’s claims that it was overstepping.If Mr. Trump can persuade the nation’s highest court to intervene in this case, he could potentially delay a final decision until the start of the next Congress in January. If Republicans recapture control of the House in the fall election, they could drop the records request.The temporary delay imposed by Chief Justice Roberts is the third such order issued by justices in recent days in cases related to Mr. Trump.The court separately is weighing Senator Graham’s emergency appeal to avoid having to testify before a Georgia grand jury that is investigating potential illegal interference by Mr. Trump and his allies in the 2020 election in the state.Also before the court is an emergency appeal from the Arizona Republican party chairwoman, Kelli Ward, to prevent the handover of phone records to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.The House Ways and Means panel and its chairman, Congressman Richard Neal of Massachusetts, first requested Mr. Trump’s tax returns in 2019 as part of an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s audit program and tax law compliance by the former president. A federal law says the Internal Revenue Service “shall furnish” the returns of any taxpayer to a handful of top lawmakers upon request.The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, had defended a decision by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to withhold the tax returns from Congress. Mr. Mnuchin argued that he could withhold the documents because he concluded they were being sought by Democrats for partisan reasons. A lawsuit ensued.After President Biden took office, the committee renewed the request, seeking Mr. Trump’s tax returns and additional information between 2015 and 2020. The Biden White House took the position that the request was a valid one and that the Treasury Department had no choice but to comply. Mr. Trump then attempted to halt the handover in court.The Manhattan district attorney at the time, Cyrus Vance Jr., obtained copies of Mr. Trump’s personal and business tax records as part of a criminal investigation. That case, too, went to the Supreme Court, which rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that he had broad immunity as president.Mr. Trump had most recently sought the justices’ intervention in a legal dispute stemming from the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August. The court rejected that appeal.

Roberts Delays Handover of Trump’s Tax Returns to House Panel

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