Dems, GOP square off on Trump’s tax returns

WASHINGTON — With Democrats now controlling the House and holding the legal key to seeking President Donald Trump’s tax returns, Republican lawmakers are invoking privacy in defending Trump’s flank.

At an oversight hearing Thursday, lawmakers examined proposals to compel presidents and presidential candidates to make years of their tax returns public. And they discussed the authority under current law for the head of the House Ways and Means Committee — now Democratic Rep. Richard Neal — to make a written request for any tax returns to the Treasury secretary.

The law says the Treasury chief “shall furnish” the requested information to members of the committee for them to examine behind closed doors.

Republicans accused the Democrats of using powers in the tax law to mount a political witch hunt for Trump’s tax returns.

“In reality, this is all about weaponizing our tax laws to attack a political foe,” Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana said at the hearing by the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.

Getting Trump’s returns has been high on the Democrats’ list of priorities since they won control of the House in November’s midterm elections, but asking for them will probably set off a huge legal battle with his administration.

The Democrats tried and failed several times to obtain Trump’s returns as the minority party in Congress. Their newly energized leftward wing is pushing Neal to set the quest in motion, and fast.

Rep. John Lewis, D-GA., chairman of the oversight subcommittee, said the American public is intensely interested in the subject. “We ask the question: Does the public have a need to know that a person seeking or holding the highest office in our country obeys the tax laws?”

George Yin, a professor of law and taxation at the University of Virginia Law School, testified to the panel that he doesn’t see any “wiggle room” in the law for the Treasury secretary to refuse Neal’s request for Trump’s returns.

If the Trump administration refused the request, “We would be in uncharted

territory,” Yin said.

The legal battle that could ensue over Trump’s tax filings could take years to resolve, possibly stretching beyond the 2020 presidential election.

Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, the subcommittee’s senior Republican, accused the Democrats of gearing up to obtain the president’s returns — and release them.

“Congress is prohibited by law from examining and making public the private tax returns of Americans for political purposes,”

said Kelly. “Such an abuse of power would open a Pandora’s box. It would set a very dangerous precedent.”

But Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., insisted that no one, including the president, is above the law. “The law is on our side,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “will review any request with the Treasury general counsel for legality,” the department has said.

Democrats want to dive in and explore numerous questions about Trump’s personal financial webs.

Among them: whether there are conflicts of interest between his companies and his presidential actions; what are the sources of his income and to whom might he be beholden as a result; whether he’s properly paid taxes; and whether he benefited from the sweeping Republican-written tax law enacted in late 2017.

The subcommittee also examined a proposal that would require all presidents, vice presidents and candidates for those offices to make public 10 years of tax returns. It’s part of House Democrats’ comprehensive election and ethics reform package — their first major bill for the new Congress this year. The legislation also would make it easier for citizens to register and vote, and it would ban executive-branch officials from lobbying their old agency for two years after they leave government.

Some elements of the bill have bipartisan support, but the overall package is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate.