Mick Mulvaney says Democrats will never see them

White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said Sunday that congressional Democrats would "never" see President Donald Trump's tax returns and called their attempts to obtain copies of these statements. of "political coup".

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee Chair, Richard Neal, asked the IRS to hand over six years of Trump 's tax returns by April 10. Neal cited his authority to request declarations under a law designating the Treasury Department's "must provide" committee with "any return or return of information" upon request.

Mulvaney said in an interview with "Fox News Sunday" that Democrats "knew they would not touch those taxes" and that "one of the fundamentals of the IRS is protect the privacy of your life and the lives of anyone who files tax files. "

Democrats "know the terms of the law under which the IRS can provide them with the documents, but the great political success is not one of those reasons," Mulvaney said.

"To be clear, do you think the Democrats will ever see the president's tax returns?" Facilitator Bill Hemmer asked Mulvaney.

"Oh, no, never, they should not either," Mulvaney replied. He added that the pressure for Trump's taxes was motivated by the president's hatred, which he called "Trump Disruption Syndrome".

"If they do not get what they want in the Mueller report, they are going to ask for taxes.If they do not get what they want, they ask for something else, "Mulvaney said. He added that the issue of Trump's tax returns "had already been pleaded in the elections."

"The voters knew that the president could have given his tax returns, they knew it and they elected him anyway, which, of course, makes the Democrats crazy," Mulvaney said.

During the campaign, Trump stated that he could not publish his tax returns because he was audited and that he would publish them once the audit was completed. He has repeated this position since taking office. On Friday, during his visit to the US-Mexico border, Trump said, "I'm under audit, if you're under audit, you're not doing it."

Officials at the IRS have stated that the taxpayers audited are free to publish their statements.

In his statement announcing Trump 's request for a return, Neal said that one of the main motives of the committee was to make sure that "audits are done fully and appropriately" and that "there is no need for it. IRS discharges its responsibilities ".

"This request is about politics, not politics," said Neal, and "was by no means based on the moment's emotion or partisanship."

Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said on Sunday on ABC's "This Week" show that the petition did not have "a legitimate legislative purpose" and accused Democrats of 39, try "to use the IRS as a political weapon".

On Friday, Trump's lawyers sent a letter to the Treasury Department's general attorney stressing the importance of protecting the privacy of taxpayers and arguing that handing over the returns would create "a dangerous precedent".

& # 39; A gross abuse of power & # 39 ;: Trump's lawyer denounces the demand for tax returns and asks for a delay

Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin at Congress: "We will protect the president" if tax returns are requested

Representative Dan Kildee, D-Mich., Who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, disputed this argument in an interview Sunday.

"This is definitely not a Pandora's box," Kildee told ABC's "This Week" show. He added that Congress exercised its "legitimate authority" to oversee "the least transparent president we have had in half a century."

"He broke the precedent by not publishing his tax returns," Kildee said. "We would not need to do this exercise if he had simply done what he had promised to do."

"This is not an autocracy.The president should not decide for himself and for Congress what might be a legitimate subject of investigation," he said.

Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" channel that he wanted "the president to follow and show his tax returns".

But he described the Democrats' efforts to obtain tax returns as "stupid" and said "this is not going to happen".

"The courts will not say that you can force a candidate to the judiciary to disclose his income tax returns, so he will win this victory," Romney predicted.

"I think the Democrats are just playing with his textbook," he said.

Contribute: The Associated Press

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