SCOTUS Reverses Course, Will No Longer Hear Moot Case on Trump’s DC Hotel Files

© AFP 2023 / KEVIN DIETSCHThe Trump International Hotel is seen on June 02, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Trump Organization is attempting to sell the lease to the hotel after failing to in 2019 before the pandemic hit. © AFP 2023 / KEVIN DIETSCHSubscribeInternationalIndiaAfricaFantine GardinierAll materialsAfter agreeing earlier this year to hear a years-old case about the ability of Congressmembers to sue for documents related to the lease for the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, the US Supreme Court has reversed its decision and ordered the lower court to dismiss the case entirely. In a brief, unsigned order on Monday, the high court said it would no longer hear the case in its coming 2024 session and instead sent the case back to the lower court with orders to dismiss it.The decision is in line with petitions by both former US President Donald Trump and US President Joe Biden, both of whom urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case as it concerns the oft-debated

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SCOTUS Reverses Course, Will No Longer Hear Moot Case on Trump’s DC Hotel Files

© AFP 2023 / KEVIN DIETSCHThe Trump International Hotel is seen on June 02, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Trump Organization is attempting to sell the lease to the hotel after failing to in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

Fantine Gardinier

After agreeing earlier this year to hear a years-old case about the ability of Congressmembers to sue for documents related to the lease for the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, the US Supreme Court has reversed its decision and ordered the lower court to dismiss the case entirely.

In a brief, unsigned order on Monday, the high court said it would no longer hear the case in its coming 2024 session and instead sent the case back to the lower court with orders to dismiss it.

The decision is in line with petitions by both former US President Donald Trump and US President Joe Biden, both of whom urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case as it concerns the oft-debated “Seven Member Rule.” However, the case was actually dismissed because the lawmakers who had brought the case decided to drop it, not because of the pleadings of current or former heads of state.

The group of Democratic lawmakers who were suing the General Services Administration (GSA) for the files on behalf of a minority of the House Oversight Committee in case that goes back to 2018. The lawmakers sought to obtain documents related to Trump’s deal to lease the Old Post Office Building in Washington, DC, and open a luxury hotel bearing his name.

At the time, the Democrats were the minority party in both House and Senate, and thus typically shut out of committee decisions to seek documents from other entities.

However, a 1928 law gave that authority to any seven members of the minority party in the House Oversight Committee and any five minority party members in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, becoming known as the “Seven Member Rule” as a result. This allowed the lawmakers to request the files anyway, although the Trump administration disagreed and refused to cooperate.

After Biden, a Democrat, became president in 2021, he sided with Trump’s interpretation, since at that point Democrats had become the majority in both houses of Congress and the Seven Member Rule would be used by Republicans to attack his administration.

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 in 2020 to support use of the “Seven Member Rule,” but as the federal government continued to refuse cooperation, the lawmakers brought the case to the high court, which agreed in May 2023 to hear the case in their upcoming session that begins in October.

The case has become largely erroneous for a number of reasons, ranging from the deaths of several of the lawmakers who made the requests to the fact that Trump is no longer president, and the fact that in May 2022, the Trump Organization, which Trump set up to handle his business affairs while he was president, sold the property for $375 million, which has since reopened as a Waldorf-Astoria.