White House Lawyers Discussed Trump Tax Returns With Treasury Department

Peter Overby

April 09, 2019 / 9:08 am

caption: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the U.S. House of Representatives last month.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that White House lawyers communicated with the Treasury Department about how to handle a request for President Trump's tax returns from House Democrats even before they made the request last week.

The law invoked by House Ways and Means chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., empowers Congress to obtain the returns of any taxpayer directly from the Internal Revenue Service. The process was designed to bypass the White House and give Congress equal authority.

Neal gave the IRS until Wednesday, April 10, to respond to the committee's request. Mnuchin told reporters after the hearing that the official response to Neal's letter could come Wednesday.

Under questioning by Rep. Michael Quigley, D-Ill., at a House subcommittee hearing, Mnuchin said, "I want to be very clear and not misleading. I acknowledge that there were conversations. I am not briefed on the full extent of those conversations."

Quigley told Mnuchin "we would greatly appreciate it" if Treasury would report what White House officials had said.

President Trump has turned away all requests that he voluntarily disclose his taxes, as other recent presidents have done. Democrats contend he's withholding them to hide financial details that could lead to political or legal problems.

Some Democrats, such as Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, have been working toward this request almost since the day Trump took the oath of office in 2017.

The Trump administration has launched several counterattacks.

One of Trump's personal lawyers, William Consovoy, said that the House Ways and Means Committee "cannot legally request" the information.

Last Sunday, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney gave a political assessment, saying on Fox News the issue was "already litigated" during the 2016 election. "Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns, they knew that he didn't and they elected him anyway, which is, of course, what drives the Democrats crazy.

When asked whether Democrats would ever get access to the president's tax returns, Mulvaney said: "Never. Nor should they."

But George Yin, a tax law professor at the University of Virginia, said past case law should give the administration no leeway.

"The provision does not give any basis for the Secretary of the Treasury to refuse the request," he said.

He said the provision appears to have been used in cases ranging from President Richard Nixon's tax returns in the 1970s to the alleged IRS targeting of conservative tax-exempt groups in the Obama administration. The evidence is circumstantial, since records and correspondence haven't leaked and are exempted from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The provision dates back to 1924, when Congress was investigating scandals from the administration of President Warren G. Harding, who had died the year before. Among the scandals: Millionaire banker and investor Andrew Mellon had held on to investments when he became Treasury secretary, and had allegedly used inside information to profit.