The Supreme Court Tuesday said that it would not halt lower courts’ orders that an unknown foreign-owned company comply with a subpoena believed to be linked to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Chief Justice John Roberts had previously halted the orders — included accruing fines for the company for continuing to defy the subpoena — while responses were filed to the company’s request that the Supreme Court intervened.
Tuesday’s order from the court said that administrative stay was being lifted, and the company’s request to immediately block the orders was being denied. Another entry in the Supreme Court’s docket Tuesday indicated the the company was also planning to petition the court to take up a full case on the merits of the dispute.
Mystery surrounds the case, where extreme measures have been taken to protect the secrecy of the proceedings. The case hasn’t officially been connected to the special counsel’s Russia probe, but sightings of lawyers from his team and other observations at the D.C. courthouse on the days of key proceedings have suggested his involvement.
Most of what is known about the dispute comes from a vaguely-word appellate court judgment upholding the subpoena. The company, owned by a country dubbed “Country A,” had sought to quash the subpoena under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The appellate court last month affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the matter fell within an exception in the law.
