Former President Donald Trump stands on the 18th green during the Pro-Am tournament before the LIV Golf series at Trump National Doral, Oct. 27, 2022.
Jasen Vinlove | USA Today Sports | Reuters
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining years of federal income tax returns of former President Donald Trump from the IRS.
Roberts’ order came a day after Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court seeking the delay.
The chief justice gave the Ways and Means Committee until Nov. 10 to respond to Trump’s request for a longer delay of the order preventing them from getting his tax returns for the years 2015 through 2020.
A federal judge in December ordered the IRS to hand over Trump’s records to the committee, which has said it wants them as part of a probe of how the agency audits presidential returns.
Trump had appealed that order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit but lost that effort in August.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court, in a unanimous decision, noted that while tax returns as a rule are confidential under federal law, an exception is when the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee requests returns in writing from the secretary of the Treasury Department, the parent of the IRS.
Last week, the appeals court denied Trump’s request that a larger panel of judges on that court reconsider the case, leading to his emergency application asking the Supreme Court to intervene.
Roberts has authority over emergency applications issued from the D.C. circuit court.
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