WASHINGTON (CN) — A week after the Justice Department ordered the Treasury to release his records to House investigators, former President Donald Trump is arguing that improper political motives make the legislative subpoenas invalid.
The claims appear in a new answer to one of several court battles that erupted over Trump's precedent-shattering decision to keep his tax returns a secret while running for president. Separate from suits involving a Manhattan grand jury probe and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the House Ways and Means Committee argues in this case that it needs the tax returns to study legislation concerning audits.
Because of yet more suits involving similar themes of executive privilege, however, the Ways and Means Committee suit never really got off the ground. When he was president, Trump and his appointed Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said that lawmakers lacked a legitimate purpose to obtain the records they declined to make public because of an unspecified IRS audit. Eventually though, various pieces of Trump's financial records have come to light in recent years through other channels, including New York Times investigations and the Manhattan district attorney's Supreme Court success.
The House and Ways and Means Committee finally got a leg up in its case meanwhile with an order on Friday from Biden’s Justice Department. The 39-page-opinion from that agency's Office of Legal Counsel concludes that Democrats “invoked sufficient reasons” for requesting the tax returns when they subpoenaed the documents first in 2019 and then again this year.
Trump pushes back on that characterization in the new court filing.
"The primary purpose of the requests is to obtain and expose Intervenors' information for the sake of exposure, to improperly conduct law enforcement, or some other impermissible goal — not to study federal legislation," attorneys for Trump with the firm Consovoy McCarthy wrote. "The requests are not pertinent to legislation that is within the Committee's jurisdiction and constitutionally valid."
Failing to mention that Trump is the first major-party presidential candidate to not release his tax returns in over 40 years, the attorneys also question why Congress isn’t seeking the tax returns of other presidents.
“The requests are tailored to, and in practical operation will affect, only President Trump,” the filing says. “The requests single out President Trump because he is a Republican and a political opponent.”
Trump’s lawyers want the court to block the Treasury Department from handing over the tax returns, and to order the Ways and Means Committee to end all ongoing investigations of Trump.
“There is no evidence of any wrongdoing here and I object to the release of the returns not only on behalf of my client but on behalf of all future holders of the Office of the President of the United States,” Trump’s lawyer Ronald Fischetti said in a statement on Tuesday.
After the Supreme Court declined in February to stop the Manhattan district attorney's subpoena of Trump’s tax returns, the ongoing criminal investigation of the Trump Organization netted its first indictment last month.
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