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For more than four years, President Donald Trump has refused to publish his federal tax returns. On Friday, his lawyer said the president planned to continue in this direction, despite pressure from the House Democrats to make the results public.
In a letter to the Treasury Department, Trump's lawyer, William Consovoy, asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to reject a request from the House Ways and Means Committee to disclose personal income tax returns and of the President.
"It would be a blatant abuse of power for the majority party to use tax returns as a weapon to attack, harass and intimidate their political opponents," Consovoy wrote Friday. "Once this Pandora's box has been opened, the resulting coup de grace will cause lasting damage to our country."
Representative Richard Neal (D-MA), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, on Wednesday called for Trump to return after several months of slowness and thoroughness in the number of Democrats' investigations. recently controlled by the Democratic Party. House of Representatives.
Neal wants six years of Trump's personal income tax returns and company-related returns related to his name, from 2013 to 2018. The Speaker has set April 10 as the deadline for the release of returns.
The president's legal team made it clear this week that they intend to fight hard against House Democrats. The team has already indicated its willingness to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
Trump's argument that he should not publish his statements keeps changing
Trump has challenged decades of precedent by refusing to publish his statements – every candidate in the modern presidential party has released his tax return at one time or another. The president has justified his refusal to follow, but his justifications are constantly changing.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump wondered whether he would actually make his statements public. Before formally announcing his campaign, Trump promised the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would issue his statements when he ran for president. The president then criticized the issue after formally announcing his candidacy several months later, in August 2015, claiming he would release them "at some point".
Trump teased a big tax statement reveals during the Republican primary season. As Vox's Andrew Prokop notes, Trump's story began to change around the time he approached to win the party's nomination. Trump began to argue that he was prohibited from publishing his statements because he was audited by the IRS. He stated that only after the end of the audit could he make the statements public.
Tax experts in the media agree that no sensible person would give his tax return during an audit. After the audit, no problem!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2016
Tax experts, including at the IRS, have qualified these claims as false. Nevertheless, it is a justification that Trump continues to use today. "Until I'm not audited, I will not do it, thanks," Trump said this week, according to Politico.
Democrats in the House are now trying to use the verification process against the president. They use a somewhat new approach, seeking to obtain Trump's statements by verifying whether the IRS is properly verifying its taxes.
In a letter sent Wednesday to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, Neal wrote that although the agency has always been checking the income tax returns of presidents and vice-presidents, the process is poorly known. The President pointed out that the House needed the reports to fulfill the congressional duty to "oversee departments and officials".
Trump's legal team responded by calling on the Department of Justice to intervene; He also asked the Treasury Department to reject Neal's request until the DOJ submits a formal legal opinion.
As a New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman Stresses, at the heart of the lawyers' argument, there is an assertion that Trump is both an ordinary citizen and a president in office. On one side, they claim that it is a simple citizen and that Neal's committee has "no power to conduct its own taxpayer review". On the other hand, Trump used his power of president to endow federal agencies with political appointments, including Rettig.
As Emily Stewart of Vox reports, before leading the IRS, Rettig said he would not advise Trump to release his statements during his audit. "Would an experienced tax lawyer representing Trump in an IRS audit advise him to publish his tax returns at the audit? Absolutely not, "said Rettig in 2016.
Trump's lawyers have consistently raised the concept of his rights as a private citizen when critics have raised questions about certain aspects of his behavior. The most extreme example of him trying to be two things at once. https://t.co/BtvbWdhatO
– Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 5, 2019
The near-imminent legal battle around the president's tax returns is likely to drag on for months, which means it's likely that even if the Democrats get it, it will only be after presidential election of 2020.
Trump has been able to stall by releasing his returns for so long – even if House Democrats have put pressure, it will not be his last position.
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