Treasury making Trump tax returns available to House committee

THIS RISES ABOVE POLITICS, AND THE COMMITTEE WILL NOW CONDUCT THE OVERSIGHT THAT WE’VE SOUGHT FOR THE LAST THREE AND A HALF YEARS. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday it has complied with a court order to make former President Donald

Trump’s tax returns available to a congressional committee.

The Supreme Court last week rejected Trump’s request for an order that would have prevented the Treasury Department from giving six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

The court, without dissent, cleared the legal obstacle to disclosure of Trump’s tax returns.

A department spokesman said “Treasury has complied with last week’s court decision” but declined to say whether the committee had accessed the documents. The spokesperson declined to be identified by name because of privacy constraints.

Trump refused to release his tax returns during his 2016 presidential campaign or his four years in the White House.

After the Supreme Court action, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, DMass., said in a statement that “since the Magna

Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different. This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the dispute over his tax returns, the Treasury Department had refused to provide the records during Trump’s presidency.

Lower courts agreed that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping and only wanted the documents so they could be made public.