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Former President Donald Trump secured a win on Tuesday when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a Democratic-led House committee from obtaining years of his federal income tax returns.
But the Court also dealt a blow to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, by refusing to block a subpoena calling for his testimony before a Georgia grand jury later this month.
Roberts' decision on Tuesday is the newest development in a yearslong effort by the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain the former president's tax returns. The committee's chair, Democratic Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, sparked years of litigation when he first requested in 2019 that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hand over copies of Trump's returns as part of a probe into how that service handles presidential audits.
Trump broke with a tradition of his predecessors by becoming the first president since the 1970s not to make his tax returns public. On Thursday, a federal appeals court denied a request from Trump to delay the release of the returns, CNN reported, following lower court rulings that have determined the House Ways and Means Committee does have the authority to obtain the records.
Lawyers for Trump filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday again asking for a delay. In his decision to temporarily bar the release of the tax returns, Roberts gave the House Ways and Means Committee until November 10 to respond to Trump's application for the delay, CNBC reported.
CNBC quoted a spokeswoman for the committee as saying that it "maintains the law is on our side, and will file a timely response as requested."
Since February 2021, Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating alleged attempts by Trump and key members of his circle to thwart the 2020 election results. For the former president specifically, Georgia prosecutors have been looking into whether Trump violated election laws when he allegedly asked Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,800 votes in the aftermath of his 2020 election loss in the state.
In July, a Georgia grand jury convened as part of this probe subpoenaed a group of Trump associates that included Graham and members of the former president's legal team. Graham has been accused of pressuring a Georgia election official to toss out legal ballots, but has denied the allegations.
He has been fighting to block the subpoena, which calls for him to testify before the grand jury on November 17, CNBC reported.
Newsweek reached out to the House Ways and Means Committee and lawyers for Trump and Graham for comment.
About the writer
Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more