House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Democrats will keep fighting to obtain President Trump’s tax returns now that the Supreme Court refused to block their efforts.
“We have a path that the Supreme Court has laid out that we certainly will not ignore,” Pelosi said just moments after the high court sent the fight over Trump’s taxes back to the lower courts. “We will never stop our oversight. That is our responsibility under the Constitution of the United States.”
Pelosi said while some lawmakers in her party may not want Democrats to keep up the fight for Trump’s tax records in the months before an election, “some will tell me they want to go down that road.”
Pelosi brushed off the court’s refusal to allow Congress to access Trump’s tax records immediately, which means the information won’t be revealed before the November election and will require Democrats to continue to fight for the records in the lower courts.
“This isn’t so much about the president’s records, although we’d like to know, you know, how Russia funded his operational budget,” Pelosi said, referring to the Democrats’ unproven belief that Trump colluded with the Russians during his 2016 presidential campaign. “But that is not what was at stake. What was at stake, is the president above the law?”
Pelosi said the decision “is not good news for the president,” and said the ruling “speaks to the fact that the president is not above the law, and that was something that was proclaimed in the decision.”
Trump’s legal team Thursday pledged to fight the release of Trump’s tax returns in the lower courts based on legal and constitutional grounds.
Republicans criticized the court decision and said it would prolong the partisan attack against the president.
“For almost four years, Democrats have been singularly focused on attacking President Trump for political gain,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “Today’s decisions by the Supreme Court sadly will not end the Democrats’ partisan obsession. Americans around the country deserve better than the Democrats’ never-ending political games.”
