According to a report from Bloomberg, a federal court recently blocked former President Donald Trump’s attempts to shield his tax returns when they paved the way for a Democratic-led House committee to review the returns, although there is still the chance that the Supreme Court could block the action.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judges upheld a ruling that courts can’t stand in the way of the chief tax committee of the House of Representatives seeing Trump’s financial records, denying an appeal by Trump to reconsider a different ruling.
Democrats on the House committee were very enthusiastic about the ruling.
Richard Neal (D. MASS), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, weighed in:
“The law has always been on our side. Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”
Ways and Means oversight subcommittee Chairman Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey said that the records should be available for public viewing:
“It has been 1,303 days since we made a legal demand for Trump’s tax returns – nearly as long as the Civil War. I’ve been leading this fight and never given up. Americans deserve to know exactly how far Trump’s crimes go.”
Bloomberg explains further:
“Neal, a Democrat, requested six years’ worth of Trump’s returns from the Internal Revenue Service in 2019, citing a 1924 law that allows the leaders of three tax committees in Congress to ask the US Treasury secretary for the returns of any taxpayer.
The Treasury Department under Trump refused to comply, so the committee filed suit. Last year, under the Biden administration, the Justice Department directed Treasury to hand over the tax returns to Congress. Trump sued to block the release.
A district court in December rejected that effort, saying Supreme Court precedents require “great deference” to valid congressional inquiries.”
