Donald Trump asks Supreme Court to keep tax returns from US lawmakers
- The ex-US president has filed an emergency appeal asking for a hold on the Treasury Department handing the documents to a Democrat-controlled committee
- If the top court intervenes, it may delay the case until January, by which time the Republicans might control the House and could axe the records request
Former US president Donald Trump is going to the Supreme Court, again, this time to try to stop his tax returns from being handed to a congressional committee.
In an emergency appeal filed on Monday, Trump wants the court to order at least a temporary hold on the Treasury Department turning over his returns to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.
Trump said the handover could happen as soon as Thursday, without the court’s intervention.
Lower courts ruled that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping.
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.
If 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.
