Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by former President Donald J. Trump, attempting to stop Congress from obtaining his tax returns.
The New York Time reports that the judge ruled the law gives the House committee broad authority to request the former president’s tax returns despite him no longer being in the White House.
Judge Trevor McFadden of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia stated that the Treasury Department may hand over the tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee could then vote to publish them. Judge McFadden is allowing 10 days before the ruling would go into effect, which would give Trump plenty of time to file an appeal.
Trump’s tax returns were first requested by Representative Richard E. Neal back in 2019, to which his administration did not comply. After the former president left office, Neal once again requested his tax returns from 2015 to 2020, with the Biden administration issuing a Justice Department memorandum requiring him to receive them. Trump’s legal team stepped in, claiming no purpose for such a request.
The House stated it wanted to inspect them to decide if changes to the IRS program for auditing presidents would be necessary, though Judge McFadden said that was sufficient despite if that was their intent or not.
Additionally McFadden ruled that this case would be based off of Representative Neal’s 2021 request rather than 2019. Despite this, Trump’s strategy was successful in slowing down the time on congressional oversight efforts, as it took over two years to reach this ruling.
