Dems shift financial debate to spotlight Trump’s empire

GOP effort to scrap Dodd-Frank runs up against push for president’s tax returns

WASHINGTON — The Republican drive to overhaul financial regulations on Wednesday turned into a contentious debate over Democratic efforts to cast a spotlight on President Donald Trump’s business empire and his refusal to release his tax returns.

House Republicans are working to undo much of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that put the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the 1930s Depression. Democrats don’t have the numbers to stop their efforts in the House, but they are intent on making them pay a price if any conflicts of interest emerge for Trump down the road.

A House panel spent much of the day Wednesday debating an amendment that would bar the GOP replacement for the law from going into effect until the Office of Government Ethics certifies that the changes in the bill would not directly benefit Trump or any of his appointees with influence over federal regulations.

“As members of Congress develop a public policy, you have a responsibility to ensure this president is not benefiting,” said Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “Why hasn’t he shown his tax returns? That would help us understand whether or not he’s benefiting from any of our work.”

Republicans called the amendment as “partisan as it gets.”

“One thing after the next, I see my colleagues on the other side do everything in their power to undermine this president and it’s wrong,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y.

Presidents are not subject to the conflict of interest laws that their own appointees must follow, but until now they have followed them anyway to set an example. Trump is blazing a different trail by refusing to give up a financial interest in his company while turning over the reins to his adult sons and a senior executive.

On the second day of its contentious, marathon session, the GOP-led Financial Services Committee also rebuffed Democratic attempts to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the five-year-old agency that enforces consumer protection laws and scrutinizes the practices of virtually any business selling financial products and services.

Democrats said that when they created DoddFrank, they wanted to make the consumer agency as independent from political influence as possible.

Republicans complained that Congress has too little say over how the bureau operates.