Supreme Court dismisses Democrats' lawsuit over Trump's Washington hotel documents

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case that was scheduled to hear whether Democratic lawmakers should have been able to sue to obtain documents related to a Washington hotel that former President Donald Trump owned during his presidency.

The justices overturned a federal appeals court ruling that had allowed a lawsuit by Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee to proceed over the Trump administration's refusal to turn over leasing information by the Trump Organization. from the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capitol, the agency reportedAP.

The court's decision had been sought by Biden's Justice Department, which feared the appeals court ruling would lead to a flood of lawsuits by individual members of Congress against the administration.

Donald Trump's family no longer owns the hotel, now a Waldorf Astoria, and much of the information lawmakers sought was ultimately provided. The only documents in question were internal legal opinions.

The judges intervened in the case last month, at the behest of the Biden administration.

The Justice Department had argued that it was important to erase the appeal ruling from the books so as not to encourage too many other lawmakers to sue this administration or future ones in a similar way.

Typically, members of Congress cannot go to federal court individually or in small groups and claim that their status as legislators gives them the right to sue when the administration in power refuses to respond to their requests for information.

But a 95-year-old law allows any seven members of the House Oversight Committee or five senators on that body's similar committee to request and receive certain information from federal agencies.

In past years, the United States Supreme Court had already dismissed lawsuits accusing Donald Trump ofbecome unduly enriched during his term, under the argument that the matter is now irrelevant because he is no longer president.

The lawsuits demanded the release of records showing the money invested by foreign and local governments for their officials to use hotels and restaurants owned by Trump.

The cases had been brought by the state of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and several hotels and restaurants in the New York and Washington DC area that were, they alleged, "in the unfortunate position of having to compete with businesses that They are property of the president of the United States.”