Attorneys for President Donald J. Trump argued in a new court document on Wednesday that a House committee request to receive Mr. Trump’s tax returns for six years should be blocked, portraying the effort as politically motivated and illegitimate.
In a 37-page file, Mr Trump’s Legal Department picked up arguments put forward by the Trump-era Justice Department to block the Congressional request, but the Biden-era Justice Department abandoned it last week when it was told by the Treasury Department said the ministry was required by law to make the documents available to the legislature.
Mr. Trump’s Legal Department wrote that the former President’s tax filings are “unlawful and unenforceable because they have no legitimate legislative purpose, violate legal authority, violate the First Amendment, breach due process, and / or violate the separation of powers. ”
The lawsuit, which dates back to when Mr. Trump was still President, is formally a case between the House Ways and Means Committee and the Treasury Department. However, since the executive branch has now dropped its resistance to the fulfillment of the demand, the Trump legal profession, as an intervener, is calling for an injunction that blocks this step.
Submission was awaited; One of Mr Trump’s lawyers said Monday that he would fight against the clearance of his return to Congress.
The filing argues that even though Mr Trump is no longer the incumbent president, the case still needs to be assessed as if he were in office since it dates from that time. Many of the Democrats’ filings come from the 2016 campaign when Trump broke the norm for presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns. Democrats have repeatedly suggested that he must hide something politically harmful.
During the Trump administration, the Justice Department cited such statements to argue that the stated purpose of the committee’s motion – for Congress to weigh legislative reforms regarding the disclosure of the president’s tax return – was an excuse for a genuinely illegitimate purpose.
However, last week the Office of the Justice Department Legal Adviser, now appointed by Dawn Johnsen, one of Biden’s appointments, said the executive branch must accept the stated purpose of the committee as to why it is requesting the returns and that the law allows it to Them.
“Even if some individual congressmen hope that information from the former president’s tax returns will only be released publicly for ‘debunking’,” she wrote, “it would not defeat the legitimate aims of obtaining the information in question.”
But Mr. Trump’s Legal Department is asking the judge overseeing the lawsuit, Trevor N. McFadden, of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, to rule otherwise. Mr. Trump appointed Mr. McFadden in 2017.
The ongoing litigation means Congress will not receive Mr. Trump’s tax returns anytime soon; Mr. Trump’s committee or legal team can appeal negative decisions to the Supreme Court. Even if Congress finally got them, that wouldn’t mean they would go public immediately or at all.
