US President Donald Trump does not have to hand over his tax records to the House House Control Committee. The Supreme Court issued a request for an urgent petition from Trump's lawyers. Earlier, an appeals court had ruled that the so-called subpoena of the control committee was enduring. Under threat of punishment, documents from Trump's accountancy firm had been requested for a period of eight years.
However, the US Supreme Court did not make a final decision. The decision of the Court of Appeal in Washington is only suspended until the nine Supreme Court judges have discussed further action.
The House of Representatives had summoned Mazars LLP earlier this year to keep track of Trump's finances. The US President refuses to give details of his financial situation. Contrary to usual practice in the US, Trump did not publish his tax return during the presidential campaign. That gave his critics the suspicion that he has something to hide.
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Trump's lawyers argue that any future committee chairperson in Congress could request any personal information from a US president under penalty of punishment should the subpoena be allowed against Mazars.
Another application to the Supreme Court
With a further application to the Supreme Court Trump wants to prevent the release of his tax documents to the New York prosecutor. She had also requested tax documents from Trump and his companies over a period of eight years, the occasion for the investigation into the silent payments to Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump is said to have had an affair.
Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen is said to have paid $ 130,000 to Daniels to keep the accusations secret during the election campaign. Trump denies that Cohen has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for violating the campaign finance law.
However, Trump's papers would not be publicly available if the prosecution received them. Only if they were presented as evidence in a criminal case, they would be published.