In the legal dispute over the release of tax documents, former US President Donald Trump is now asking the country’s Supreme Court. Trump’s lawyers filed an urgent application with the Supreme Court in Washington on Monday to initially stop the IRS from disclosing the documents. An appeals court in Washington last week cleared the way for Trump’s tax records to be handed over to a House committee starting Thursday. Trump had already resisted this in lower instances in recent years.
The Treasury Department of Trump’s successor Joe Biden’s administration instructed the IRS last year to hand over the documents to the committee. In contradiction to political customs in the USA, the real estate entrepreneur Trump had not made his tax return public either as a presidential candidate or after moving into the White House. And to this day he tries to prevent disclosure. Critics therefore suspect that he has something to hide.
Trump had asked the Washington Court of Appeals to stop the release of the documents. The court had already rejected Trump’s application in August, thereby confirming the decision of a lower court. The ex-president then requested a re-examination, which was then also rejected last week. That left him to go to the Supreme Court.
On November 8th a new House of Representatives will be elected in the USA. Should Republicans win a majority in the Congress Chamber, Trump could hope that the committee, under new leadership, will back off from requesting the documents. The new Congress will convene in early January 2023.
Trump is currently struggling with a number of legal problems – including taking secret government documents to his private estate after leaving the White House.
