ON THE FENCE

Kavanaugh Urged Supreme Court Justices to Sit Out Trump Tax Returns Case, Report Says

Move could have left the president with no choice but to hand over his financial documents to House investigators, if Supreme Court avoided a ruling.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh reportedly tried to persuade his colleagues not to rule either way in its high-profile case on President Trump’s tax returns. An in-depth report from CNN published Wednesday states that Kavanaugh sent a series of private memos to his fellow justices in an attempt to dissuade them from ruling on whether the president should be compelled to give his financial records to House investigators. He reportedly argued that courts shouldn’t get involved in political questions, but his strategy could have left Trump with no legal route to stop his banks from handing over his tax returns to Congress. CNN also reports that Kavanaugh lobbied his colleagues to stay out of the Louisiana abortion case—if successful, the move would have prevented the law from going into immediate effect. Ultimately, Kavanaugh was unsuccessful and the court struck down the law that opponents said would have closed all but one abortion clinic in the state.