The Supreme Court dismissed a dispute on Monday surrounding Democrats‘ pursuit of government records stemming from the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
In a brief unsigned order, justices tossed out the case after Democratic lawmakers voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit in a lower court, which the Biden administration was defending.
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the pack, saying she would have used a different procedural mechanism to throw out the case.
The case stemmed from a 2013 agreement with the General Services Administration, which oversees federal real estate, to lease the Old Post Office building in Washington to the Trump Organization for it to operate a hotel.
The hotel operated throughout former President Donald Trump’s single term in office, prompting legal and ethical concerns from Democrats who speculated whether people buying rooms were seeking to influence the White House. Trump’s company sold the lease last year, and the hotel now operates as a Waldorf Astoria.
Had the justices taken up the case, it would have given them the opportunity to weigh if a minority party in Congress can scrutinize the administration using a federal law called the “Seven Member Rule.”
The Justice Department under President Joe Biden asked the high court to say that Democrats could not sue in court to enforce the rule, which allows any seven members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability or any five members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to ask for information within their scope of authority.
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When Trump won the 2016 election, 17 Democratic members of the Oversight Committee, led by the late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, wanted access to documents surrounding the lease agreement and wanted to know if Trump had a conflict of interest.
A federal judge initially tossed out the 2017 lawsuit, citing a lack of legal standing to bring the case. But a 2020 ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia revived the lawsuit, ruling 2-1 that the lawmakers had been harmed.
