A lawyer for former President Donald Trump is looking to stonewall a yearslong gambit from the House Ways and Means Committee to get its hands on his tax returns.
Trump’s lawyer, Cameron Thomas Norris, urged a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to block the committee’s bid to procure the documents from the Treasury Department, accusing it of harboring political motives and insisting it does not have legitimate legislative reason to need them, per the Hill and Reuters.
“The key question in these cases is whether the committee has a legitimate legislative purpose,” Norris said, according to the Hill. “Instead, we have alleged, plausibly, that the goal here is to immediately publicly expose and release President Trump’s tax returns.”
Some of the judges appeared skeptical of Norris’s arguments during Thursday’s oral hearings. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson inquired about sending the case down to a lower court to establish a different framework for the case, Reuters reported. Judge David Sentelle, a conservative jurist, asked whether it was possible the committee had a legitimate interest in obtaining the documents beyond politics.
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“Pleading may not carry the ball for you because there may be a legislative actor who has two purposes,” Sentelle said. “You allege they have one. And I’m asking you: Why isn’t it possible they have two?”
Norris maintained that members of the committee, including Chairman Richard Neal, have shown animus against Trump and have not been specific enough about their intentions for the tax returns.
House general counsel Douglas Letter countered that the committee stated its intentions to the Treasury Department and that “allegations of an additional purpose is irrelevant.”
Trump was the first president in over four decades who did not release his tax returns. He has repeatedly defended the decision to keep the documents to himself, arguing his hands are tied because he has routinely been subjected to tax audits.
Trump’s efforts to stonewall compliance with the committee and turn over the documents have not been met with much success. The current appeal stems from a ruling from last December, when Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled against the former president and cleared the way for the IRS to release the tax returns.
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Last year, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained his tax returns following a Supreme Court ruling denying Trump’s bid to conceal the documents from it. But none of that activity affected the House Ways and Means Committee case.
In 2019, the committee filed a lawsuit against the IRS for not turning over Trump’s tax returns, citing a law requiring the Treasury Department to comply with such records requests. The Trump administration challenged the lawsuit in court, but President Joe Biden bucked his predecessor and backed the committee efforts after taking office.
