The US Supreme Court has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a group of congressional Democrats who were seeking information about a government lease for a Washington hotel

during former President Donald Trump's ownership. The lawmakers dropped the case voluntarily earlier this month, leading to the court's action. Previously, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear President Joe Biden's administration's request to block the lawsuit.

The lawsuit originated in 2017 when 17 Democratic members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee sued the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal government real estate. The lawmakers were seeking details about a 2013 lease of the Old Post Office building to Trump's company for its conversion into a hotel.

The GSA had denied multiple requests from the group of Democrats, who were then in the minority in the House, stating that individual members did not have the authority to conduct oversight.

The lawsuit raised the question of whether small groups of legislators have the legal standing to sue in order to enforce a federal law aimed at obtaining information from government agencies.

A federal judge had previously dismissed the case, ruling that the committee members did not suffer the necessary legal injury as legislators to justify a lawsuit.

However, in 2020, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revived the case, stating that a denied request for information, to which the requester is entitled by statute, constitutes a concrete and individualized injury.

The Biden administration's Justice Department, representing the GSA, appealed the case to the Supreme Court, expressing concern that allowing a few members of Congress, even from a minority party, to harass executive branch officials could set an undesirable precedent. Photo by Joe Ravi, Wikimedia commons.