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Chief Justice Gives Trump Temporary Reprieve in Financial Records Case
John Roberts blocked an appeals court ruling requiring disclosure of the records while the Supreme Court considers how to proceed.
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that required President Trump to turn over financial records to a House committee. The brief order gave no reasons and served to maintain the status quo while the justices decided how to proceed.
In a letter to the court earlier on Monday, lawyers for the committee said they did not oppose a brief interim stay. In entering one, the chief justice ordered the committee’s lawyers to file papers on whether to grant a longer stay by Thursday. If the justices grant a longer stay, they will next consider whether to hear Mr. Trump’s appeal.
The case, concerning a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, is one of two cases before the Supreme Court in which Mr. Trump is seeking to halt disclosures of his financial records by his accounting firm, Mazars USA. The other case concerns a subpoena from Manhattan prosecutors to the firm seeking eight years of his personal and business tax returns.
The Supreme Court is expected to announce whether it will hear the appeals in the coming weeks. If it declines to step in, appeals court rulings requiring disclosure will stand, and Mazars has indicated that it will supply the requested records. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the cases, it will probably hear arguments early next year and issue decisions by June.
No stay from the Supreme Court was needed in the Manhattan case because prosecutors there had agreed not to seek immediate release of the records in exchange for a prompt request for Supreme Court review. There was no such agreement in the House case.
“It has now been seven months since the Oversight Committee asked for these records,” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat and the committee’s acting chairwoman, said in a statement last week. “It is time for the president to let us do our job and stop blocking Mazars from complying with the committee’s lawful subpoena.”
Both subpoenas sought information concerning hush-money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed the president’s former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, for payments to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. The president has denied the relationship.
The House subpoena also sought records prompted by Mr. Cohen’s testimony that Mr. Trump had inflated and deflated descriptions of his assets on financial statements to obtain loans and reduce his taxes.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the House committee was powerless to obtain his records because it had no legislative need for them. They said the panel was engaged in an improper criminal inquiry and was not seeking information to help it enact legislation.
Lawyers for the committee responded that the records were needed for multiple, proper reasons; that courts should not second-guess congressional decision-making; and that the committee had the authority to issue subpoenas without separate authorization by the full House.
In October, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to block the subpoena.
“Having considered the weighty interests at stake in this case, we conclude that the subpoena issued by the committee to Mazars is valid and enforceable,” Judge David S. Tatel, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote for the majority. Judge Patricia A. Millett, appointed by President Barack Obama, joined the majority opinion.
In dissent, Judge Neomi J. Rao, appointed by Mr. Trump, wrote that “allegations of illegal conduct against the president cannot be investigated by Congress except through impeachment.”
In the case concerning the grand jury subpoena in New York, Mr. Trump’s lawyers made a different argument, saying that he was immune from all criminal proceedings and investigations so long as he remained in office. But even if some federal investigations may be proper, they said, the Supreme Court should rule that state and local prosecutors may not seek information about a sitting president’s conduct.
“That the Constitution would empower thousands of state and local prosecutors to embroil the president in criminal proceedings is unimaginable,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers noted that the Supreme Court heard cases concerning claims of immunity from Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Clinton.
“The court should do the same here,” the petition said. “Whether the Constitution permits an assertion of this kind of authority over the chief executive raises a momentous question of first impression about the scope of presidential immunity.”
In the two earlier cases, United States v. Nixon in 1974 and Clinton v. Jones in 1997, both presidents suffered unanimous losses.
On Nov. 4, a unanimous three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled against Mr. Trump. The court, in a focused ruling, said state prosecutors may require third parties to turn over a sitting president’s financial records for use in a grand jury investigation.
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