The Supreme Court on Tuesday paved the way for Congress to receive former President Donald Trump’s tax records, ending a nearly three-year legal fight to shield his records.
Chief Justice John Roberts declined to grant Trump’s emergency request to block his tax records from being sent to the House Ways and Means Committee, which initially sought such documents from the IRS in 2019 to investigate whether tax law surrounding presidents should be amended. The decision likely means the returns will be released to the Treasury Department immediately.
Roberts, who handles emergency appeals stemming from Washington, D.C., declined the request without comment after referring the matter to the full court, and there were no noted dissents. He previously granted Trump temporary relief on Nov. 1 after the former president appealed following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s rejection.
JUSTICE ROBERTS GRANTS TRUMP TEMPORARY RELIEF ON RELEASING TAX RECORDS UNTIL AFTER MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Trump sought to prevent the Treasury Department from giving six years of tax returns to the Democratic-controlled committee, which is led by Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA). The Democratic representative has said the committee wanted to examine whether the IRS audit of the former president was conducted “fully and appropriately.”
“This rises above politics, and the committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years,” Neal said in a statement.
Because Republicans took back the House following the midterm elections, the committee must move quickly to fulfill their goal, as the new GOP leadership will likely end any efforts to investigate the former president’s records.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the House looks forward to “promptly receiving” the documents to review and thanked Neal for “his deliberate, principled leadership in the fight to advance ethical, transparent governance For The People.”
Although the Treasury Department refused to provide records during Trump’s term in office, the Biden administration contended that federal law is clear and allows the committee to oversee any taxpayer returns, including the former president’s. The change of guard prompted Neal to renew his request for five years of income tax returns from Trump and his businesses from 2015-2020.
Trump argued his way through lower courts that the request was overly broad and that the committee only wanted the documents so that they could be made public. The legal fight over his tax returns is just one of many legal fights Trump faces in his fight to win back the Oval Office, with the former president announcing his 2024 aspirations last week.
The case was initially assigned to Trump-appointee Trevor McFadden, who took his time making a ruling but ultimately found last December that the committee had a legal right to the records. However, he said the records could not be released until the D.C. Circuit reviewed his decision.
In August, a panel on the appeals court upheld McFadden’s ruling, but Trump asked the full appeals court to reconsider the matter. The court rejected the request last month, prompting Trump to file an emergency application to the nation’s highest court.
The committee told the Supreme Court in a filing that Trump’s single term in office raised concerns about the IRS’s ability to enforce federal tax law on presidents.
“Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Trump owned a complex web of businesses, engaged in business activities internationally, had a history of aggressive tax avoidance (as he has boasted), claimed to be under ‘continuous audit’ since before his presidency, and repeatedly denounced IRS audits of him as ‘unfair,'” it wrote, adding that its “substantial concerns” prompted Neal to begin an investigation of the IRS’s presidential audit program about Trump’s returns.
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Despite the 6-3 Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority that was shaped in part by Trump’s three high court nominees, the justices have a record of denying several of Trump’s legal bids.
The Supreme Court rejected his efforts to challenge the 2020 election, to prevent prosecutors from obtaining financial records, and to have an outside arbiter review sensitive records seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago home in August.
