Former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
PA
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the delivery of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee, after a three-year legal battle.
The top court, without comment, rejected Trump’s request to issue an order that would have prevented the Treasury Department from turning over six years of tax returns from Trump and some of his businesses to the House Ways and Means Committee.
It was Trump’s second Supreme Court setback in two months. In October, the court refused to interfere in a legal dispute over the FBI’s raid of the former president’s home in Florida, where classified documents were found.
In the dispute over tax returns, the Treasury Department had refused to turn over the records during the Trump presidency. But the current Joe Biden administration has said the law is clear that the commission has the right to examine the returns of any taxpayer, including the president.
Lower courts had agreed that the commission has the authority to obtain the tax returns and had rejected Trump’s claims that it was an excess of authority and a ploy to release the documents.
Chief Justice John Roberts ordered a temporary stay of the matter on November 1 to give the court time to weigh the legal issues raised by Trump’s lawyers and the administration’s and House arguments.
But about three weeks later, the court lifted Roberts’ order, recording no dissent.
The Trump campaign has not commented on Tuesday’s ruling.
The lower house argued that an order preventing the IRS, the country’s tax agency, from turning over the documents would leave lawmakers with “little or no time to complete their legislative work during this legislative term, which is drawing to a close.”
Had Trump persuaded the Supreme Court to intervene in the case, he would have let the clock run out for the Democrats, as Republicans will control the House starting in January. They would almost certainly have revoked the request for the documents if the issue had not been resolved by then.
Source: El Nuevo Herald
