House Ways and Means Committee Votes to Release Trump’s Tax Returns – Watch
The House Ways and Means Committee met on Tuesday to make a decision about releasing former President Donald Trump’s confidential tax returns from 2015 to 2020. These are records protected by section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code.
The committee voted late Tuesday night along party lines to approve the motion to disclose Trump’s tax returns. This was one fleeting display of partisanship from Congress before the flip to the GOP on January 3 of next year.
Before the committee went behind closed doors, Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-TX) successfully requested unanimous consent to make a transcript of the executive session’s proceedings public if or when Trump’s taxes are released. So at least the public will know who on the committee was for making the former president’s taxes public and who objected to the latest Democratic move against the former president.
Before the meeting, Brady lashed out at his Democrat colleagues on the committee for “unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American. Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them.”
Brady warned. “This is not limited to public officials, but can target private citizens, business and labor leaders, and Supreme Court justices. If taken, this Committee action will set a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, & overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans.”
In legal filings from the past, Trump’s lawyers argued that Ways and Means Democrats’ efforts to obtain his tax returns “has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public.”
They also said this “will undermine the separation of powers and render the office of the Presidency vulnerable to invasive information demands from political opponents in the legislative branch.”
"If taken, this Committee action will set a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, & overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans…" –@RepKevinBrady pic.twitter.com/PNhNAnQ2nT
— Ways and Means GOP (@WaysandMeansGOP) December 20, 2022
