Trump tax returns ordered released to public by House panel

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday evening to release redacted versions of federal income tax returns filed by former President Donald Trump when he was running for and serving in the White House.

The 24-16 vote along party lines came after the Democratic-controlled committee spent more than four hours in executive session discussing whether to release the tax returns, which span from 2015 through 2020, and the manner of that release.

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The committee last month received the returns from the Internal Revenue Service after a multi-year court battle to obtain them over objections from Trump.

Tuesday’s vote was the latest in a series of negative developments for Trump, who last month announced he will seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

On Monday, a select House committee voted unanimously to refer Trump for criminal investigation and possible prosecution to the Department of Justice for his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, which included pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify several states’ Electoral College slate.

Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said lawmakers will have two days to file supplemental information or objections.

“After a long process, this was not about being punitive, this was not about being malicious, and there were no leaks from the committee,” Neal said. “We adhered carefully to the law.”

Neal advised lawmakers to adhere to the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment in discussing Trump’s returns with the public.

That clause protects lawmakers from being sued or arrested for what they say during legislative activities, but not necessarily political ones.

A police escort delivered documents that were presumed to be Trump’s tax returns shortly before the hearing began at 3 p.m.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican on Ways and Means, warned against the potential release of the returns before Tuesday’s hearing.

“Let me be clear, our concern is not whether the president should have made his tax returns public as has been tradition, nor about the accuracy of his tax returns,” Brady told reporters. “That is for the IRS and the taxpayer to determine.”

“Our concern is that if taken, this committee action will set a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reforms,” Brady said.

Trump broke decades of political precedent as a Republican candidate for the White House and then as president by refusing to release his tax returns to the public.

During his administration, the Treasury Department refused to release his returns to Ways and Means when they were requested by the panel’s chairman Neal. The department claimed there was no legitimate legislative basis for the request.

The committee has said it wants the returns as part of a review of how the IRS audits the tax returns of sitting presidents annually.

Treasury dropped its opposition to releasing the returns after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office.

Trump sued to block their release, but lost that effort in lower federal courts, and, ultimately, at the Supreme Court last month.

Tuesday’s hearing by the Ways and Means Committee comes less than a month before Republicans are set to take majority control of the House of Representatives. GOP lawmakers are expected to quash any further inquiry by the committee into Trump’s tax returns.

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