Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday Democrats will ‘never’ get ahold of President Donald Trump’s tax returns ‘and they know it.’
Mulvaney laid down the gauntlet during an appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday.’
‘Never, nor should they,’ he said when asked if Democrats will get their eyes on the president’s tax forms.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday Democrats will ‘never’ get ahold of President Donald Trump’s tax returns
Democrats are requesting six years of President Donald Trump’s tax reforms from the IRS
‘That is not going to happen and they know it,’ he noted.
‘They just want attention on the issue because they don’t want to talk to us about policy,’ he added. ‘You always expect something from the Democrats.’
Mulvaney argued Democrats ‘know what the law is’ but were engaged in a ‘political hit job’ on the president.
‘They know what the law is. They know one of the fundamental principles of the IRS is to protect the confidentiality of you and me and everybody else who files taxes. They know that. They know the terms under law by which the IRS can give them the documents, but political hit job is not one of those reasons,’ he said.
And Trump’s person attorney Jay Sekulow argued Democrats don’t have a ‘legitimate legislative purpose’ for seeking the president’s returns.
‘It’s not the law for the United States. We don’t have a requirement that presidents do that. This president decided not to because he has an ongoing IRS audit,’ he said on ABC’s ‘This Week.’
The White House has held firm that President Trump doesn’t plan to release his income tax returns to Congress despite House Democrats’ demands to see his last six annual filings.
The Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee hasn’t asked Trump to turn over his own tax records. It requested the paperwork from the Internal Revenue Service.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (seen above at the Capitol on Tuesday) requested Trump’s personal and business tax returns in a letter to the Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday – which was not a request of the president himself
That’s a distinction that hasn’t been lost on Democrats who now believe they have a way around the president’s longstanding assertion that releasing complex tax returns during an audit would be unwise.
Wednesday’s request, in a letter from Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, is viewed by House Democrats as a vital first step toward oversight of Trump’s income taxes and business network, which some lawmakers believe could be rife with conflicts of interest and potential tax law violations.
‘It is critical to ensure the accountability of our government and elected officials. To maintain trust in our democracy, the American people must be assured that their government is operating properly, as laws intend,’ Neal said in a statement.
Neal based his request on his committee’s oversight jurisdiction of the IRS and used a section of the tax code that allows the tax-writing committees to view information on any filer.
It’s usually used to examine how changes to the tax code could affect tax payers or for investigative purposes. There is no precedent for using it to examine the president’s returns.
The IRS has not indicated how it will proceed. Neal gave them a week to comply.
Reporters pressed Trump on Wednesday about what is seen as a typical expression of government transparency for presidents and candidates for the job.
‘I’ve been under audit for many years because the numbers are big and I guess when you have a name, you’re audited. But until such time as I’m not under audit, I would not be inclined to do that,’ he said during a meeting with military leaders.
The president appeared surprised to learn how many years the Democrats’ IRS request covered.
‘Is that all?’ he asked. ‘Usually it’s 10, so I guess they’re giving up.’
Trump defied decades of precedent as a presidential candidate by refusing to release the tax documents and has continued to keep them under wraps as president, saying his returns were ‘under audit’ by the IRS.
Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen recently testified in Congress that he did not believe the president was being audited but may have used the audit claim to avoid scrutiny that could lead to an audit and IRS tax penalties.
President Trump on Wednesday shrugged off a congressional demand for his tax returns, saying he ‘would not be inclined’ to comply
The request, in a letter from Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, is viewed by Democrats in the House of Representatives as a vital first step toward oversight of Trump’s income taxes and business network
Trump defied decades of precedent as a presidential candidate by refusing to release the tax documents and has continued to keep them under wraps as president, saying his returns were ‘under audit’ by the IRS
Congressional Republicans oppose Neal’s effort, saying such a move sets a dangerous precedent by turning the confidential tax documents of a U.S. citizen into a political weapon.
‘This particular request is an abuse of the tax-writing committees’ statutory authority and violates the intent and safeguards of … the Internal Revenue Code,’ Representative Kevin Brady, the committee’s top Republican, said in a statement.
Independent analysts welcomed the move.
‘The Ways and Means Committee’s strongest oversight ability is making sure the IRS is operating properly,’ said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center think tank in Washington.
It was the third time this week a Democratic-led House committee exerted oversight pressure on Trump.
Earlier on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee authorized its chairman to subpoena Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full investigation report on Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed a former White House security chief on Tuesday.
Neal’s committee initially planned to request only Trump’s personal tax returns.
But some Democrats and independent analysts pressed for them to include business returns to better gauge the president’s activity in the private sector.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., is seeking financial documents to investigate claims Donald Trump ‘inflated’ his net worth when seeking loans
Rep. Cummings seeks all communications between Bender, the accountant, and Trump
The request includes returns for eight entities: Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, DJT Holdings LLC, DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC, DTTM Operations LLC, DTTM Operations Managing Member Corp, LFB Acquisition Member Corp, LFB Acquisition LLC and Trump National Golf Club.
A Democratic aide said the committee selected a manageable number of business entities that provide a vital window on Trump’s business activity.
Although Trump has never released his returns, the New York Times last year cited a ‘vast trove’ of returns and financial records saying it showed he engaged in tax schemes including cases of fraud in which he and his siblings helped their parents dodge millions of dollars in taxes.
The White House called the report misleading.