Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked a lower court order that would have required the release of former president Donald Trump’s tax returns to a Democrat-led House committee.
Roberts’s order comes just days before the House Ways and Means Committee was set to obtain Trump’s tax records from the IRS. The committee is rushing to obtain the records while Democrats still have control of the House; Republicans are likely to win back control in next week’s midterm elections.
Roberts, who supervises the lower court that issued the initial order, asked for a response by November 10.
The order is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle between Democrats and Trump over his tax information.
Committee chairman Richard Neal (D., Mass.) first tried to obtain the tax returns from the IRS in 2019, while Trump was still in office.
While the IRS under the Trump administration pushed back against turning over the information, the agency did an about face in 2021 under the Biden administration.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused last week to reconsider a ruling from August that would allow the committee to obtain the tax returns.
Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the committee’s rationale for obtaining the records — that it needs the information to review how the IRS conducts audits on presidents — is invalid. They argue that the Biden administration’s decision to release the records was an act of retaliation in violation of Trump’s First Amendment rights.
While tax returns are confidential under federal law, one of several exceptions to the law allows the chairman of the committee to request them.