The House of Representatives committee seeking to review former President Trump’s tax returns will have to wait a few weeks longer, at least, due to an order issued by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the New York Times and others reported.

Roberts’ order gave lawyers for the House Ways and Means Committee until Nov. 10 to respond to the latest move by Trump’s lawyers. That move was a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to freeze the years-long proceedings as the lawyers prepare a formal appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the committee had a right to see the former president’s tax returns.  The setting of a deadline suggests that the full Supreme Court will rule on the matter, according to the Times.

The chief justice was acting in his capacity as the overseer of appeals that come out of the D.C. Circuit. 

The decision has the effect of extending an order by Federal District Court Judge  Trevor N. McFadden in the case. The judge first heard the case in July 2019 but did not decide on it until December 2021, almost two and a half years later. He ruled that the committee has a legal right to obtain the records, which the former president appealed. A panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld the decision in August, prompting Trump to ask the full circuit court to rehear the case. It declined to do so last week, leading Trump to make his request to the Supreme Court.

The long-running battle over Trump’s tax records goes back to 2016, when the newly elected president refused to make his finances public. When Democrats became the House majority in 2019, they tried to investigate his finances. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), citing a federal law that gives his panel the authority to see any taxpayer’s documents, requested the president’s returns. He was rebuffed by the Treasury Department acting at the behest of the administration. That begat the legal battle.

Rep. Neal “looks forward to the Supreme Court’s expeditious consideration,” according to a statement from a Committee spokesperson.