The Justice Department on Friday said the Treasury Department must hand over former President Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, putting an apparent end to the yearslong battle over the records.
In April 2019, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat, requested from the Treasury Department Mr. Trump’s individual tax records and those of eight Trump-related businesses for 2013 to 2018 to examine IRS enforcement of tax laws that applied to the president. Then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asked the OLC how to respond.
At that time, the OLC advised Mnuchin that the committee had to “demonstrate a legitimate legislative purpose” for its request, and went on to say that since Treasury had concluded that the committee’s request was a “pretext” and had requested Mr. Trump’s tax records “for the purpose of public release,” the OLC agreed with Treasury that the request was not a legitimate one and banned Treasury from providing House Ways and Means with the tax records.
