The House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday sued the IRS and Treasury Department in the Dems latest effort to obtain President Trump’s tax returns.
This lawsuit by House Democrats is after the White House and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have defied Congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in May formally rejected House Democrats’ request for President Trump’s tax returns.
Fox Business reported:
The panel did not cite a justification for the lawsuit but said it had “multiple oversight and legislative purposes” for seeking the material, including assessing the IRS’s own evaluation of Trump’s compliance with U.S. tax law.
“The Committee is particularly disadvantaged in its present inquiry because President Trump is the first President in modern times that has not made his returns public,” the panel wrote.
Last month, the Justice Department released a 33-page legal opinion backing Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s refusal to release the last six years of Trump’s tax returns.
“While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, Treasury was not obliged to accept the Committee’s stated purpose without question, and based on all the facts and circumstances, we agreed that the Committee lacked a legitimate legislative purpose for its request,” Steven Engel, an assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, said in the 33-page opinion.
Mnuchin told House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal in a letter that his committee’s request for Trump’s tax returns “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.”
“Out of respect for the deadlines previously set by the Committee, and consistent with our commitment to a prompt response, I am informing you now that the Department may not lawfully fulfill the Committee’s request,” Mnuchin said last month, citing legal guidance from the Department of Justice.
The Democrats no longer legislate. All they do is use time and resources to harass and sue President Trump and his associates.
