House Democrats sought to build a case for using congressional power to obtain and disclose President Trump’s tax returns during a Thursday hearing.
The effort figures to be one of the central conflicts between the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the Trump administration. Democrats have vowed to step up oversight of Trump and his administration.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has pledged to seek a review of Trump’s tax returns for potential improprieties. Thursday’s hearing before the committee’s oversight subcommittee was the first step.
“In other words, we ask the question: Does the public have a need to know that a person seeking or holding the highest office in our country obeys the tax laws?” said Rep. John Lewis D-Ga., the chairman of the subcommittee.
Democrats have sought Trump’s tax returns since before the 2016 election, after Trump broke with a nearly 50-year-old precedent for presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns. Trump’s decision not to remove himself from control of his business, as past presidents have also done, has also raised questions over potential conflicts of interest.
[Related: Pelosi: Public “overwhelmingly” wants to see Trump’s tax returns]
Congressional Republicans have objected to Democrats’ efforts on the grounds that exposing Trump’s tax returns would set a dangerous standard for abuse of taxpayer information. Congress tightened privacy controls around tax information after President Richard Nixon attempted to use the Internal Revenue Service to target political opponents during his administration.
“Every American has a right to privacy for their tax information,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., the top Republican on the oversight subcommittee.
Few dispute that congressional committees with jurisdiction over tax policy have the authority to seek tax returns of individuals or companies, but their ability to disclose that information is a trickier subject and source of dispute.
“My reading of that is that Congress wanted to keep at least one vehicle open” to inform the public of that tax information, said George Yin, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
Ken Kies, the lone Republican witness and a former staff director for the Joint Committee of Taxation, another committee with jurisdiction over taxes, said that Ways and Means Republicans actually violated the law regarding taxpayer privacy in releasing information on conservative political nonprofit organizations in 2014. That action was taken as part of an investigation into whether the Obama administration illegally targeted those groups for audit or sought to deny them nonprofit status.
“This committee has never legally released a tax return under 6103,” said Kies, citing the specific statute that grants the authority.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has not said whether he’ll cooperate with a request for Trump’s tax returns, but experts expect that the administration may argue that inquiry an abuse of power, citing public statements by congressional Democrats.
Democrats have moved methodically thus far due in part to the expectation of a prolonged legal fight.
“This is not the end. This is just the beginning,” Lewis acknowledged at the close of Thursday’s hearing.
