A Decerning Decision of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals against the Release of Ex-President Donald Trump’s IRS Tax Returns
The House Ways and Means Committee is set to receive former President Donald Trump’s IRS tax returns in one week after a federal appeals court on Thursday declined Trump’s request to hold up the release.
A DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel decided not to put on hold the handover of the former president’s tax returns after the full appeals court denied Trump’s request that they review an earlier decision allowing for the release of the returns.
The case is one of several long-running lawsuits where the Democratic-led House is trying to access years of financial records related to Trump, especially his tax returns.
“The decision here will control future disputes between Congress and the Executive – including those of sitting Presidents – almost all of which arise in this circuit,” Trump said.
The Thursday decision by the DC Circuit broke down legal protocol surrounding the presidency, as per CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor ShanWu, who spoke on “The Situation Room”.
“What’s really significant is this is a gradual whittling away at this kind of no-fly zone that’s developed around the presidency,” Wu said. “Congress can strengthen its oversight ability if the courts are saying, ‘yeah, this is legitimate oversight.’ The Supreme Court could use the chance to fix things here.
Under tax privacy laws, Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has limited options for what he can do next, but the chairman is also facing mounting political pressure to finish what he started and share information gleaned from the returns with the public before Republicans take control of the House in January.
Now that Trump is officially running for president, any move will be viewed through a political lens and could carry major ramifications of how Congress deals with politicians’ tax information going forward.
Public reporting on Trump’s tax returns have already unveiled a lot about the former president’s taxes. A massive New York Times report in 2020 revealed that Trump didn’t pay federal income taxes in 10 out of 15 years starting in 2000. The practice was allowed by tax law because of Trump’s reported losses.
Neal was able to tell the mystery to American voters by releasing the returns. The move could have political costs. Releasing the returns for the sake of it was never what Democrats argued in court. During their years-long legal battle, Democrats argued they needed the returns in order to understand how an arcane process of presidential audit program worked and if Congress needed to pass legislation that would more clearly outline how the program should be enforced.
While Neal could always use the information garnered in the returns to write legislation, Democrats are set to lose the House in a matter of weeks with little time to pass major legislation to overhaul the presidential audit program.
Neal requested tax returns for some of the business entities of Trump, which could shed new light on how the former president did business.
Neal: I’m all you. I’ll be with you, I promise. In the meantime, I am going to make it through
I intend to see this through. There is a period of time that we’re still in the majority for the next 33 days. I tend to see it through,” Neal said. “After that, everyone can speak to what they do after that. They don’t expect to check with me either.