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The US supreme court’s chief justice, John Roberts, on Tuesday put a temporary hold on the handover of Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee.
Roberts’s order gives the supreme court time to weigh the legal issues in the former president’s emergency appeal to the high court, filed on Monday.
Without court intervention, the US treasury department could have provided the tax returns to the Democratic-controlled House ways and means committee as early as Thursday.
Roberts gave the committee until 10 November to respond. The chief justice handles emergency appeals from Washington DC, where the fight over Trump’s taxes has been going on since 2019.
Lower courts ruled that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping.
If Trump can persuade the nation’s highest court to intervene in this case, he could delay a final decision until the start of the next Congress in January. If Republicans recapture control of the House after the 8 November midterms, they could drop the records request.
