Supreme Court rejects House bid to quickly get Trump’s taxes

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled it would not speed up the release of President Trump’s long-sought tax returns and business records and that the matter would be sent back to the lower courts.

The House’s lawyers had asked the court to put into effect immediately its decision earlier this month that said Trump did not have an absolute right to refuse to comply with legitimate congressional subpoenas for documents.

The court ruled earlier that Congress did not have unlimited authority to get materials from a president because its demands must have a legitimate legislative purpose.

The ruling sent the case back to the lower courts, where the scope of the House subpoenas is likely to be narrowed.

Supreme Court decisions generally take effect 25 days after the rulings are issued, which in this case would be Aug. 3.

Three House committees seeking Trump’s taxes and other records told the court that their investigations “are ongoing, remain urgent, and have been impeded by the lack of finality in these litigations, which were initiated in April 2019.”

But on Monday, in a one-sentence order, the court denied the request, with only Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying she would have granted it.

The court took the opposite course with a request from Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., who also wants Trump’s business records.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday granted Vance’s request to immediately issue the Supreme Court’s judgment in that case.

There were no dissents from his order.

The court was possibly persuaded by Vance’s argument that he needed to get back into court quickly because the grand jury could lose its ability to bring charges due to statutes of limitation.

The New York grand jury is seeking Trump’s business and personal tax records for an investigation of hush money payments made to two women who claimed they had affairs with him, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

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