On Monday, November 1, former US President Donald Trump, apprehensive about a deadline for handing over his tax returns to a Congressional Committee, appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the order.
He got a very quick response from Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday. Some people have a direct line to the top.
Trump filed the emergency appeal on Monday, requesting the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on the IRS turning over his financial records to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Just a few days before, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump’s attempts to stall the order.
Trump’s lawyers said that the case had raised critical questions about the separation of powers that could affect US presidents in the future. They said handing over the tax returns was expected to be carried out on Thursday and asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the matter by Wednesday to delay the handover.
Trump’s lawyers claimed that the Congressional Committee wants Trump’s tax returns so they can publish them publicly and that they have a political motive. The Committee consists mostly of Democrats.
In his order, Chief Roberts told the lawyers for the House Ways and Means Committee, which has been trying to get Trump’s tax returns since 2019, that they had to file a response to Trump’s claims by November 10. It is speculated that the Supreme Court will rule on the case and make a final decision.
Now that the midterm elections have ended, and it is almost certain that the Republicans will take back control in the House, it could end the three-year-old bid by the House Ways and Means Committee to get Trump’s tax returns.
The Congressional Committee, led by Chairman Representative Richard Neal from Massachusetts, first requested Trump’s returns in 2019 while they were investigating the IRS’s audit program and former President Trump’s compliance with tax laws.
The IRS is legally required to audit the tax returns of presidents, and federal law says that the IRS can give the returns of any taxed citizen to some top legislative officials.
Former Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, decided to withhold then-President Trump’s tax returns from Congress, and the Justice Department supported that decision during Trump’s term.
After President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the Congressional Committee decided to renew the request for Trump’s returns for the four years he was president, from 2015 to 2020. The request was approved by the White House and the Biden administration asked the Treasury Department to comply. Trump has filed numerous suits and appeals in court trying to stop the handover of his tax information.
A Federal Court Judge from Washington, DC, Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled last December that the IRS had to hand over the requested returns to the House Committee. He said that even if it was true that the Committee’s motivations were political, the chairman of the Committee had presented valid legislative reasons for requesting the returns.
The other judges who rejected Trump’s request in his appeals gave the same opinion, saying that the Committee had legitimate legislative reasons for their requests.
