Former President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay the Internal Revenue Service’s release of his tax returns to a Democratic-led House committee.
Trump made the emergency request Monday to the high court after a federal appeals court cleared the way last week for the returns to be disclosed to the House Ways and Means Committee in the coming days.
The case is the most direct way for the House to obtain Trump’s federal tax returns after pursuing them through different avenues for years.
The Trump team wants the Supreme Court to halt the release of the tax returns while justices consider whether to take up a case that would review lower court rulings on their release.
The new filing asks the court to put an administrative stay on the release of the tax returns until Wednesday, as a ruling by the US District Court of Appeals for the DC District Court allowing their disclosure takes effect on Thursday.
“No Congress has ever exercised its legislative powers to require a President’s tax returns,” Trump argued to the Supreme Court, as he warned of the “far-reaching implications” of the D.C. Circuit ruling.
He wrote that the way lower courts have approached the House request is at odds with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Mazars case, about a subpoena the House issued to Trump’s accounting firm for his tax records.
This story has been updated with additional details.
