In Blow to Trump, Supreme Court Permits House to Obtain His Tax Returns

Follow our live coverage on a House Committee’s vote on Trump’s tax returns.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for a House committee to obtain former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns, refusing his request to block their release after a yearslong fight.

The court’s brief order, which was unsigned and did not note any dissents, was another decisive defeat for Mr. Trump delivered by a court that had moved to the right with his appointment of three justices. The decision means the Treasury Department is likely to soon turn over six years of his tax returns to the House, which has been seeking his financial records since 2019.

Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, who requested the files as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that his panel would “now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”

But Mr. Neal did not say whether the committee would publish the returns. An aide on the Ways and Means Committee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said no decision would be made until lawmakers received the files.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump, who announced last week that he would run for president again, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump has used the slow pace of litigation to run out the clock on various oversight and investigative efforts. His stonewalling and legal challenges have succeeded in keeping the House from obtaining his tax returns for nearly four years, but that strategy appears to have fallen just short. The House would almost certainly have dropped the request for Mr. Trump’s tax returns in January, when Republicans take control of the chamber.