Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to temporarily put on hold a lower court ruling requiring the Internal Revenue Service to release former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a Democratic-led House committee.   

  The tax returns were set to go to the House Ways and Means Committee later this week.   

  Roberts asked for a response by November 10.   

  The “administrative stay” is temporary in nature and does not always reflect the final disposition of the dispute.  It’s a move often made when a deadline looms to preserve the status quo and give judges more time to act.   

  In a flurry of Trump-related emergency petitions in recent days, the justice with jurisdiction in the lower courts decided to issue such temporary relief.   

  Justice Elena Kagan, for example, issued such a stay on Oct. 26, temporarily blocking a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward’s phone records and text files. .   

  Judge Clarence Thomas froze an Oct. 24 order requiring Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to testify in a Georgia court.   

  Roberts oversees the lower court that issued the order in the Trump IRS case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.   

  The congressional effort is one that provides the Democratic-led House with the most direct route to the much-coveted tax information.   

  Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., first sought the tax returns from the IRS in 2019, and the IRS, under the Trump administration, initially resisted handing them over.  The case moved slowly until 2021, when, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department reversed its legal stance and concluded that the IRS was obligated to comply with the committee’s request.  A Trump-appointed judge ruled in favor of the House late last year, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn that decision, with the appeals court most recently declining last week to take up the case.   

  A separate legal case related to the House Oversight Committee’s pursuit of Trump tax information from his then-accounting firm reached a settlement earlier this year after a trip to the Supreme Court in 2020. In filing the dispute with the Ways and Means to the Supreme Court, Trump argues that lower courts struck down this 2020 case, known as Mazars.   

  This story has been updated with additional details.