Grigory Dukor/Reuters
The House Ways and Means Committee is reportedly preparing to request years of President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns, NBC News reports. Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) has reportedly contacted the committee’s attorneys to prepare the request, and asked other chairs of investigative House committees to “provide detailed arguments for why they need the president’s tax returns to conduct their probes.” The Ways and Means Committee is the only committee with the authority to ask for the returns, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will reportedly decide whether to grant the request.
This comes after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before the House Oversight Committee earlier this week and claimed Trump would deflate the value of his properties to “lower his tax bill.” Unlike every other president since Richard Nixon, the president has refused to disclose his tax returns. “These improprieties, and the lack of transparency around them, give the House legitimate legislative, oversight and legal reasons to review the President’s tax returns,” a spokeswoman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. “We will take all necessary steps, including litigation, if necessary, to obtain them.”