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Battle over Trump’s taxes renewed
Dems, GOP at odds on proposals for president’s returns
Democrats and Republicans are at odds over proposals to compel presidents to make their returns public.
WASHINGTON — With Democrats controlling the House and holding the legal key to seeking President Donald Trump’s tax returns, Republican lawmakers are invoking privacy in defending his 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.
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 quickly set the quest in motion.
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 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 would be unprecedented. It 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,” Kelly said. “Such an abuse of power would open a Pandora’s box.”
The tax returns of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, other lawmakers or federal employees could be in jeopardy, he warned.
But Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., insisted that no one, including the president, is above the law.
At a news conference Thursday, Pelosi said the public “overwhelmingly” wants to see Trump’s tax returns, but the move cannot be made in haste.
“In terms of the tax returns, it’s not just a question of sending a letter; you have to do it in a very careful way. And the chairman of the committee will be doing that,” the Democrats’ leader said.
The hearing came two days after Trump faced a divided Congress in his State of the Union address, imploring the Democrats to step away from “ridiculous partisan investigations.”
On Thursday, Trump took fresh aim Thursday at House Democrats, claiming in a series of morning tweets that they are going “nuts” with unprecedented investigations into his administration and businesses that are starting to unfold on Capitol Hill.
“The Republicans never did this to President Obama,” Trump wrote, “there would be no time left to run government.”
Without elaborating, Trump also tweeted that they were “even stealing people from the White House!”
It’s unclear who the president was talking about, but the tweet comes as House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff appears to have hired at least one staff member who served on the National Security Council under Trump. The staff member, Abigail Grace, is listed in a House directory as working for Schiff on the intelligence panel. A person familiar with the committee’s staff confirms that she is working for the panel and used to work for the NSC.
Grace worked for a bipartisan think tank, Center for a New American Security, after working for both former President Barack Obama and Trump on the National Security Council from 2016 to 2018.
Schiff wouldn’t confirm any hires Thursday, but hinted at them.
“We have a long tradition of hiring out of the intelligence community, out of the National Security Council, and if the president is worried about our hiring any former administration people maybe he should work on being a better employer,” Schiff said.
In private, Trump and his aides grew increasingly anxious and angry over Democrats’ maneuvering, according to people familiar with the matter.