It announced Tuesday that it will consider on Dec. 13 whether to schedule a full briefing and argument on the president’s request that it overturn a lower-court ruling giving New York prosecutors access to Trump’s tax returns and other financial records in their investigation of ­hush-money payments in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

There are many more such evaluations to come.

“This is a real existential test for this Supreme Court,” said Walter Dellinger, a longtime member of the Democratic legal establishment who argued for President Bill Clinton when the Supreme Court ruled he was not immune from a lawsuit.

“This will be a special moment for the independence of the judiciary and whether the hyperpartisanship that has infected so much of our culture has also infiltrated the Supreme Court.”