Dems push to get Trump’s tax returns (three years after Trump promised
to disclose them)
A month after taking control of the
U.S. House, Democrats are taking steps to hold President Donald Trump
accountable for his past financial dealings, with two House committees
beginning investigations that they hope will result in the release of Trump's
tax returns.
A House Ways and Means subcommittee
will hold its first hearing on a
portion of H.R. 1, the Democrats' ethics reform bill, which demands that all
presidential and vice presidential nominees from a major political party
release 10 years of tax returns in order to shed light on any financial
conflicts of interest including foreign investments.
The panel will investigate
"whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage,
financial or otherwise, over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his
associates," Schiff said in a press release.
Last year, Schiff expressed interest
in investigating money laundering allegations involving the
Trump Organization's sale of properties to Russian nationals.
The broadening of the Intelligence
Committee's probe follows Trump's State of the Union address in which he slammed so-called "ridiculous
partisan investigations." In a tweet he called Schiff's
actions "presidential harassment."
Schiff said Democrats
will not "be intimidated or threatened" by the president's hostility
to oversight, of which a majority of Americans approve, according to a recent Washington
Post-ABC poll.
"For the last two years, the
Republican majority has essentially been missing in action when it comes being
a coequal branch of government," Schiff said. "That ended with the
midterms. We're going to do our jobs."
Government watchdog groups applauded
the committee for holding a hearing on the importance of transparency regarding
presidential tax returns—which all major presidential nominees since 1976 have
released to the public, other than Trump—and urged the Ways and Means Committee
to act quickly to obtain the returns.
"Americans all across the
country have marched in their communities, signed petitions, or made calls to
their lawmakers demanding that Trump's tax returns be released," said Susan Harley, deputy director of
Public Citizen's Congress Watch division.
"Since the Ways and Means Committee already has the power to request the tax returns of any taxpayer—including the president—there's no need to wait for passage of H.R. 1 to act. Congress must not delay and should act now to obtain the tax information it needs to better protect our democracy against the glaring conflicts of interest that plague the current presidency."
"Since the Ways and Means Committee already has the power to request the tax returns of any taxpayer—including the president—there's no need to wait for passage of H.R. 1 to act. Congress must not delay and should act now to obtain the tax information it needs to better protect our democracy against the glaring conflicts of interest that plague the current presidency."
Maura Quint, executive director of
the national tax fairness coalition Tax March, told The Hill that the
group is "on the edge of our seats" waiting for the release, as
committee chairman Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) takes a "cautious"
approach in building a case to force the release.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), who has
pushed for the release of Trump's tax returns since the 2016 election, told The Hill that he
predicts they'll be released within the next two to three months.