SCOTUS Denial Won't Mean Immediate Release of Ariz. GOP Chair's Phone Records

Monday’s Supreme Court denial of Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward’s application for a stay and injunction blocking enforcement of the House Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena won’t necessarily mean the immediate release of Ward’s T-Mobile phone records to committee investigators. T-Mobile said in a Nov. 8 letter that if SCOTUS denied Ward’s application, it would then ask the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to remand the case to the U.S. District Court for Arizona for the “limited purpose” of granting T-Mobile’s request for clarification of the subpoena’s scope. If remanded, the district court would “clarify that T-Mobile shall produce the records listed” in the subpoena, “whether patient or non-patient numbers,” said an order signed Nov. 4 by U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa in Phoenix. Ward, a practicing physician, said she fought the subpoena on constitutional grounds but also to safeguard doctor-patient privilege.