The Supreme Court announced Monday that it’s temporarily blocking a lower court’s decision allowing the Democratic-controlled House to subpoena President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Trump has long refused to make the documents public despite the precedent set by every other modern president. Had the Supreme Court not issued a stay, the House would have had immediate access to the financial records through his accounting firm Mazars.
Trump’s legal team has until Dec. 5 to file a formal petition for the Supreme Court to hold a hearing on the case.
Though the justices’ order gives no indication of whether they would take the case, it seems likely they will take it up given the broad implications the ruling could have on how far Congress’s powers stretch.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee first issued a subpoena for Trump’s tax returns in April when it discovered that his ethics disclosure forms didn’t include a debt for hush-money payments during his 2016 campaign.
In a separate case, Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to block a lower court ruling directing his accountants at Mazars to give New York prosecutors eight years of his tax returns.
This article has been updated with details on the tax return issue.