House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered a warning to President Trump on Thursday that Democrats will not give up on their quest to obtain his tax returns or the entire report into Russian collusion authored by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Show us the Mueller report, show us the tax returns, and we are not walking away just because you say no the first time around,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
Democrats on Wednesday sent a formal request to the IRS to obtain six years of Trump’s tax returns. The president told reporters later he was not “inclined” to release them, citing an audit.
But Pelosi told reporters it won’t be up to him.
[Related: AOC tells Trump he has no choice over tax returns: ‘We didn’t ask you’]
A decades-old law provides Congress with oversight over the tax returns of the president and vice president.
“The law is very clear,” Pelosi said, citing a 1924 law that compels the Treasury secretary to turn over the tax returns if requested by Congress.
The Congress also has an obligation to oversee the IRS on its own scrutiny of the president, Pelosi said. “The IRS manual requires an audit of the president and Congress has the duty to ensure that it has been done and done properly,” she said.
Pelosi also promised Congress would see the entire Mueller report.
A four-page summary by Attorney General William Barr has been rejected by Democrats.
The House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution Wednesday approving the use of subpoenas to force Barr to turn over the entire report. But the subpoenas haven’t been sent yet.
Barr, in a letter to Congress, said he planned to turn over more of the Mueller report by mid-April or earlier, but that it could contain redactions.
“The Mueller report will be released,” Pelosi said.
“To us it is inevitable, to them it is inconceivable,” she added. “We need to shorten the distance between the inevitable and the inconceivable.”
