Dem on tax returns request: Trump ‘least transparent president in half a century’
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) defended Ways & Means Committee Chair Richard Neal’s (D-Mass.) authority to request President Trump’s tax returns Sunday, calling Trump the “least transparent president in half a century.”
Contrary to language used by Trump’s attorneys in a letter to the Internal Revenue Service Friday, Neal’s request is “not a Pandora’s box” and derives from “legitimate authority,” Kildee told ABC’s George Stephanophoulos.
{mosads}”We are looking very carefully right now as to whether or not the IRS is properly auditing and enforcing tax law on the President of the United States, and we’re considering legislative changes to that end,” Kildee said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Rep. Dan Kildee, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee: “We are looking very carefully right now as to whether or not the IRS is properly auditing and enforcing tax law on the President of the United States” https://t.co/koQUGuN2wR pic.twitter.com/RSmFFsNhhb
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 7, 2019
“It is not up to President Trump to determine whether or not this coequal branch of government has the tools available to it to make the deliberations necessary in order to make policy.”
Kildee added that the American public “has a right to know whether the president’s interests are impacting the decisions that he makes” and telling Stephanophoulos Trump has “broken 50 years of tradition” by not releasing his returns.
“The president and the Congress [have] legitimate authority, the question is whether we’re using that authority for legitimate purposes,” Kildee said. “Anybody who knows Donald Trump should be concerned about his abuse of authority.”
On Friday, an attorney for Trump wrote that Neal could not legally request Trump’s tax returns until the IRS receives an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
On Sunday, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Democrats will “never” see the tax returns.
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