The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee is seeking more information from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about his refusal to fulfill a congressional demand for President Trump’s tax information.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote Mnuchin Tuesday to question why he, and not IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, responded to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal’s request for Trump’s tax information.
“To my knowledge, since at least 1955, when the authority to respond to [tax information] requests was delegated to the IRS Commissioner, no Treasury Secretary has taken control of the response or questioned the legitimacy of the Chairman’s purpose,” wrote Wyden, calling Mnuchin’s involvement in the issue “unprecedented.”
Mnuchin declined Neal’s request on the grounds that it lacked a legislative purpose, leading Neal to subpoena Mnuchin and Rettig for the tax information late last week.
Wyden wrote that Mnuchin may be “failing to apply the law consistently with the statutory text and with longstanding practice.”
Wyden asked Mnuchin to answer how many tax return requests have been made by the Finance and Ways and Means Committees since 2000, how many of those requests have been refused, and how many requests the Treasury Department has consulted with the Justice Department about, as it did with the request for Trump’s tax information.
The Oregon Democrat also pressed Mnuchin to say whether the IRS and Treasury Department have weighed the views of the organizations or people whose tax information Congress has requested in the past. In his correspondence with Congress, Mnuchin appeared to echo concerns raised by Trump’s personal attorneys, who asked him to consult with the Justice Department over the request, which Mnuchin did.
“I also am concerned that your response to Chairman Neal’s request undermines the committees’ ability to obtain tax return information in the course of future investigations related to tax matters within their jurisdiction,” Wyden wrote.
In a separate congressional inquiry, a federal judge is weighing whether to temporarily halt the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s subpoena of Trump’s accounting firm for his financial records. The judge heard arguments on Tuesday morning and is expected to quickly decide whether or not to grant a request from Trump to halt the congressional subpoena.
