WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice John Roberts is ordering an indefinite delay in the House of Representatives' demand for President Donald Trump's financial records to give the Supreme Court time to figure out how to handle the high-stakes dispute.
Roberts' order Monday put on hold "until further order" a lower court's ruling that said the accounting firm Mazars USA must turn over eight years of personal and business financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
The House itself had acquiesced to such a move earlier on Monday. Without the court's intervention, the firm would have been required to turn over the records on Wednesday.
Trump last week asked the high court to stop the order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The president's lawyer William Consovoy told the Supreme Court that under the lower court's decision, "any committee of Congress can subpoena any personal information from the president; all the committee needs to say is that it's considering legislation that would force presidents to disclose that same information."
House General Counsel Douglas Letter said in a letter to the court Monday morning that the committee will oppose Trump's motion. But "out of courtesy to this court," the letter said the committee did not oppose putting the D.C. Circuit's ruling on hold temporarily.
Roberts said in his short order that the House's opposition to Trump's filing should be filed by Thursday.
The case is one of two at the Supreme Court in which Trump is fighting to keep his financial records and tax returns secret. He has also asked the court to review a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that said roughly the same materials must be turned over to state prosecutors in New York.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has said his office is investigating whether state laws were broken by alleged hush-money payments during Trump's 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, and to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both say they had affairs with Trump; he has denied the affairs and any wrongdoing.
A panel of the appeals court ruled unanimously that Mazars should turn over the records, and that the president has no power to prevent such investigations.
It added that "the past six presidents, dating back to President [Jimmy] Carter, all voluntarily released their tax returns to the public. While we do not place dispositive weight on this fact, it reinforces our conclusion that the disclosure of personal financial information, standing alone, is unlikely to impair the president in performing the duties of his office."
Vance has agreed not to try to enforce the order while the Supreme Court decides whether to review the ruling. The prosecutor has until Dec. 18 to file his brief with the court.
The justices are not under any obligation to review either court decision. But the president's pleas to intervene and his argument that the decisions raise important, perhaps historic, separation of powers questions seem to make such a review a strong possibility.
AUDIT QUESTIONS
Two senators are probing a whistleblower's allegations that at least one political appointee at the Treasury Department may have tried to interfere with the audit of Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Staff for Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chair and ranking Democrat on the Senate finance committee, met with the Internal Revenue Service whistleblower earlier this month, those people said. Follow-up interviews are being scheduled to further explore the whistleblower's allegations.
It could not be learned to what extent the senators view the whistleblower as a credible source. Trump administration officials have previously downplayed the complaint's significance and suggested it is politically motivated.
The whistleblower, a career IRS official, initially filed a complaint in July, reporting that he was told at least one Treasury political appointee attempted to improperly interfere with the annual audit of the president's or vice president's tax returns. In recent weeks, the whistleblower filed additional documentation related to the original complaint, which was given to congressional officials in July, the two people said. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the complaint, which pertains to a confidential IRS audit that cannot be disclosed under federal law.
The contents of the additional information provided by the whistleblower were not known.
The IRS whistleblower complaint was first disclosed in an August court filing by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. It raises the prospect that Trump administration officials at Treasury tried to improperly interfere with the IRS audit process. That process is supposed to be walled off from political interference.
Neal made the disclosure in court filings as part of his battle with the Trump administration over the president's tax returns, which the Treasury Department has refused to furnish. At the time, Neal said the whistleblower complaint raises "serious and urgent concerns" about the integrity of the IRS audit process. A person close to Neal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the office's position on the complaint is unchanged and its investigation is ongoing.
The Treasury inspector general has opened a review of the Treasury Department's handling of House Democrats' request for Trump's tax returns. Asked whether that review would look at the IRS whistleblower's complaint, Rich Delmar, the acting inspector general, said in an email that "the inquiry is ongoing, and will take into account that aspects of the underlying matter are the subject of litigation."
The whistleblower also previously told The Washington Post that he had sent his complaint to Grassley, Neal, and the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration, a separate watchdog at the Treasury Department.
Spokesmen for Grassley and Wyden declined to confirm their meeting with the whistleblower, citing strict federal privacy laws related to taxpayer information. The White House, Treasury Department, and Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration also declined to comment.
Information for this article was contributed by Mark Sherman of The Associated Press; and by Robert Barnes, Jeff Stein and Tom Hamburger of The Washington Post.
A Section on 11/19/2019