Former US President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to prevent the Treasury Department from turning over years of his financial papers to a congressional committee, which some say could reveal tax fraud.
Trump’s lawyers protested in a court filing in Washington last week to a Justice Department order that the Treasury, after years of dithering, supply the House Ways and Means Committee with six years of information that Trump has long refused to make public.
While the committee claims to be looking at how the Internal Revenue Service handles cases like Trump’s — the former president has claimed for years that his taxes are being audited — the lawyers believe that the request is motivated by politics.
According to the complaint, the goal of the Democratic-controlled panel is to “expose the private tax information of one individual — President Trump — for political benefit.”
It goes on to say that “the demands single out President Trump since he is a Republican and a political opponent.”
“They were created in retaliation for President Trump’s policy positions, political beliefs, and protected expression, including statements he stated during the 2016 and 2020 elections,” the statement claimed.
On Friday, the US Justice Department ordered the Treasury to send over Trump’s tax papers to the congressional committee that had requested them in 2019.
Chairman Richard Neal claimed that the returns were necessary for his members to understand how the IRS conducts presidential audits and whether Trump has exerted “undue influence” over the agency.
For years, Trump claimed that he couldn’t make the records public because they were under audit, and the Republican-controlled Treasury and Justice Departments backed him up on the assertion when he was president.
The Justice Department claimed last week that the committee had a legitimate interest in seeing Trump’s records, despite the fact that both departments are now overseen by Democrats.
Some believe the papers will reveal how the wealthy real estate magnate twisted the tax code to pay very little over a lengthy period of time.
Trump is being investigated in New York for tax fraud and other wrongdoings involving his Trump Organization’s finances.
The Supreme Court declined in February to overturn a New York prosecutor’s subpoena for Trump’s tax returns.
Since Richard Nixon took office in 1969, every US president has made their tax and wealth information public.
