Judge dismisses Trump’s battle to keep his taxes from Congress

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by former President Donald Trump that sought to block Congress from obtaining his tax returns, ruling that the law gives a House committee chairman broad authority to request them despite Trump’s status as a former president.

In a 45-page opinion, Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, held that the Treasury Department can provide the tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, which could vote to publish them. McFadden stayed his ruling for 10 days to give Trump time to file an appeal.

Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, first requested copies of Trump’s tax returns in early 2019, after Democrats took over the House.

A federal law gives the chairman of that panel broad authority to request any person’s tax returns.

The Trump administration refused to comply, however, and the House eventually filed a lawsuit. After Trump left office this year, Neal issued a fresh request for the ex-president’s tax returns from 2015 to 2020 and the Biden administration issued a Justice Department memorandum saying he was entitled to receive them.

Trump’s lawyers, however, sought an injunction to block the request, saying that it served no legitimate purpose and that the real motive was to expose Trump’s financial information for political gain. Lawyers for the House said there were legislative reasons to seek the returns, including studying whether changes are needed to an Internal Revenue Service program that audits presidents.

Even though many House Democrats have expressed a desire to expose Trump’s tax documents without mentioning the IRS program, that rationale was sufficient under the law, McFadden wrote.

The case traces back to Trump’s decision — first as a presidential candidate in the 2016 election and then in office — to break with modern precedent by refusing to make his tax returns public. When Democrats won control of the House, they began trying to investigate his finances using congressional oversight powers. Among other things, they heard testimony from Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who said that Trump had boasted about inflating the value of assets when it served him, and undervaluing them when it helped to lower his taxes.

As prosecutors in Manhattan weigh whether to charge Trump with fraud, they have zeroed in on financial documents that he used to obtain loans and boast about his wealth, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The same federal law that empowered Neal to request Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department also would permit House Democrats to publish them in the Congressional Record, although that power has rarely been used, McFadden wrote.