A Democrat on the House Oversight and Reform Committee said Monday that President Trump should release his tax returns and “get it over with” if he has nothing to hide.
“This president resisted the Mueller report for so many months and now he’s saying that the Mueller report vindicates him. So if he has nothing to hide then why not just release his taxes and get it over with?” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
Hanna’s comments come after Attorney General William Barr sent Congress his summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia investigation, which found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. However, the summary stopped short of exonerating the president of obstruction of justice allegations.
House Democrats, meanwhile, are inching closer to demanding Trump’s tax returns.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said he intends to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin formally requesting Trump’s tax returns. If Neal moves forward with his plan, his request would mark a rare exercise of power by Congress, one that could end up in the courts.
Trump has been criticized for not voluntarily making his tax returns public, something every other major party nominee has done in recent decades. The president has said he won’t release his tax returns while they are under audit, even though the IRS has said audits don’t prevent people from making their own tax information public.
House Democrats recently passed legislation, H.R. 1, that would require presidents, vice presidents and major-party nominees for those positions to release 10 years of their individual tax returns.
The measure has little chance of being taken up in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he has no plans to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.
— Tess Bonn
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