Judge temporarily blocks NY from sharing Trump tax returns

A federal judge on Thursday issued an order that temporarily prevents New York from providing the House Ways and Means Committee with President Trump’s state tax returns.

The order from judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee to the federal district court in D.C., comes one day after Nichols said that he was leaning toward issuing such an order during a teleconference.

Trump last week filed a lawsuit against the Ways and Means Committee and two New York officials, challenging a new New York state law that allows the chairmen of Congress’s tax committees to request public officials’ state tax returns from the New York Department of Taxation and Revenue.{mosads}

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) has not yet made a final determination about whether he will seek Trump’s New York tax returns under the law.

The New York officials contend that the federal court in D.C. doesn’t have jurisdiction over them and that the proper venue for the case is New York, not D.C.

In his order, Nichols set a schedule for the New York officials to argue their motion to dismiss. And he ordered the New York officials to not provide the Ways and Means Committee with any requested tax information about Trump until one week after he issues a ruling on their motion.

Nichols also directed the New York officials to notify the court and Trump if Neal requests Trump’s state tax returns during the period of time in which the state can’t provide the returns under the order.

The order is in line with a proposal that New York officials had laid out in a court filing earlier this week. Trump’s lawyers had indicated during Wednesday’s conference that they were OK with the proposal as clarified during the conference. The Ways and Means Committee didn’t take a position.

New York laid out the proposal after Nichols asked the parties in the lawsuit to see if they could reach an agreement about how the case should proceed to ensure that it doesn’t become moot before it is litigated.

–Updated at 4:50 p.m.