The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the IRS can give former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Trump has time to appeal since the court stated its “judgment would not [be] issued for seven days.”
It is important to remember that the request is not connected to the January 6th investigation.
In April 2019, Chairman Richard Neal demanded Trump’s tax returns along with some for his businesses for the past six years because “Congress, and his committee in particular, need to conduct oversight of the IRS, including its policy of auditing the tax returns of sitting presidents.”
Neal cited law 26 U.S.C. § 6103(f)(1):
(1)Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on TaxationUpon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.
Tax returns won’t show anything. Haven’t we learned this from Rachel Maddow?
Trump’s administration claimed that “the request posed a threat to the First Amendment and the separation of powers.”
Circuit Judge David Sentelle, the author of the majority opinion, said the request was within the scope of the inquiry:
The Chairman’s Request has not clearly gone beyond the scope of the Committee’s inquiry. It is understandable that the Committee would want to compare returns filed during the presidency with those filed in the years before and after to see what effect, if any, Mr. Trump being the sitting President had on how his returns were treated by the Presidential Audit Program. Further, there is no reason that the Chairman’s Request should be confined to a single year of returns and return information. The Chairman has stated that the value of requesting six years of information is the ability to compare one year with another. And while it is possible that not every document requested by the Chairman will provide the Committee with the sought-after information, that is of no consequence. The Committee is permitted to go “up some ‘blind alleys’ and into nonproductive enterprises.” Eastland, 421 U.S. at 509.
Judge Karen Henderson concluded, “that the burdens borne by the Executive Branch are more severe and warrant much closer scrutiny than my colleagues have given them.”
Henderson brought up Neal’s promise to continue his investigation no matter who won in 2020. It sounds like she is issuing a warning about future investigations, especially if Trump wins in 2024:
Although we cannot know the extent to which the requests and investigations influenced—or were intended to influence—President Trump’s conduct while in office, it is not far-fetched to believe that such intrusive inquiries could have a chilling effect on a President’s ability to fulfill his obligations under the Constitution and effectively manage the Executive Branch.
The judge wrote that her decision didn’t come from Presidents vs. Chairmen of committees. It’s all about checks and balances:
This dispute pits the Executive Branch against the Legislative Branch as institutions, not current or former Presidents against the chairmen of various congressional committees. And “the interbranch conflict here does not vanish” simply because the current Administration says so, the political winds shift or different parties control one or the other rival branch. Cf. Mazars, 140 S. Ct. at 2034. The constitutional principle at stake is separation of powers, not separation of parties.
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