US Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has temporarily blocked a congressional committee’s attempt to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns, effectively ending the legal battle over the former president’s records as the high court considers the issue. Roberts’ order on Tuesday came in response to an urgent motion by Trump’s lawyer to block the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining the tax returns. The chief justice set a November 10 deadline for the panel’s lawyers to respond. Trump broke with decades of tradition and refused to voluntarily release his tax returns as a candidate for president and then as president, arguing that they are being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US tax agency. An appeals court ruled in August that the congressional committee has the right to see the records. The committee has been trying to force Trump to release his tax returns since Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in 2019. Trump has said the push is politically motivated. “No Congress has ever exercised its legislative authority to require a President’s tax returns,” his lawyers wrote to the Supreme Court on Monday. But the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled earlier this year that the former president is a legitimate subject of congressional scrutiny. “While it is possible that Congress may attempt to threaten the sitting president with an intrusive demand after he leaves office, every president enters office knowing that he will be subject to the same laws as all other citizens after leaving office. his duties,” the court said. “This is a feature of our democratic democracy, not a bug.” The New York Times obtained some of Trump’s tax information in 2020 and reported that he paid little to no federal taxes in the years before he took office. The former president, a real estate mogul who has suggested he will run for the White House again in 2024, is facing a flurry of investigations. New York State filed a civil suit against Trump in September, alleging “numerous frauds and misrepresentations” at his company – the Trump Organization. Separately, the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the former president’s possible mishandling of classified government documents. A congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters also recently issued a subpoena for the former president to testify under oath before the committee. Trump, who has been impeached twice as president, has denied wrongdoing in all cases, claiming they were political attacks led by his Democratic rivals.
