Donald Trump has spent years fighting to keep his financial information under wraps, but today the Department of Justice said the IRS is required to release his tax returns to Congress. CNBC writes:
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee had made a request with a legitimate legislative purpose to see Trump’s tax returns, with a stated objective of assessing how the IRS audits presidents’ tax returns.
That 39-page opinion is a reversal of an opinion by the same office, during the Trump administration, which had backed the IRS’ refusal to give the committee Trump’s returns.
Earlier this year the Supreme Court also dealt Trump a blow on a related matter, refusing to intervene in New York’s request for the former president’s tax returns. In that case, the records have been released to a Manhattan grand jury, but kept under wraps. If Congress gets a hold of the records, the information could eventually go public. The New York Times writes:
Rules governing the sharing of sensitive tax information with the Ways and Means Committee require the panel to hold formal votes if it wants to share any of the information with the broader House or the public, or even include it in a committee report released to the public.
None of this is going to happen overnight. The Times adds “Trump could still take legal action to try to get a judge in the case to block their transfer. That could take months or longer to work out.”
In the meantime, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is among those hailing the DOJ’s decision.