The Daily Fuckup

The Supreme Court on November 22, 2022, denied former President Donald Trump’s emergency request to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns. The court did not decide the case on the merits. It simply left in place the lower-court rulings that had allowed the committee to pursue the records.

The order closed Trump’s last emergency path to stop the handoff. In the docket entry, the justices recorded that the application for a stay of the mandate had been referred to the Court and then denied, and the chief justice’s earlier order was vacated. That meant the underlying appeals rulings remained in effect. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22A362.html))

The dispute turned on Congress’s power to seek the returns for legislative oversight. Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee said they needed the material to examine how the IRS audits presidents and to assess whether tax laws or procedures needed changes. Trump argued the request was political and unlawful. The court’s action did not endorse either side’s broader case. It only removed the emergency block Trump had asked for. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22A362.html))

What the committee did next was still a separate question. The Supreme Court’s order did not itself make the returns public, and it did not resolve later congressional handling of the material. It only cleared the way for the committee to receive the records under the existing court rulings unless some further legal or legislative step changed the situation. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22A362.html))