Democrats on Wednesday used the House Ways and Means Committee’s markup of legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare to make another unsuccessful push for the panel to request President Trump’s tax returns.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) offered an amendment for Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) requesting Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department so that the panel could review them.
But Brady ruled that the amendment was unrelated to the health legislation, and Republicans voted to table a Democratic appeal of Brady’s ruling.
{mosads}The vote came as Democrats have vowed to force Republicans to take repeated votes on Trump’s tax returns.
Trump is the first president in decades to refuse to make his tax returns public. He has said he won’t release his returns while he is under audit by the IRS, but the tax-collection agency has said an audit does not prevent people from releasing their own tax information.
Last month, Doggett offered an amendment on Trump’s tax returns to the Ways and Means Committee’s oversight plan, but the amendment failed on a party-line vote. Democrats have also twice offered resolutions on the House floor to request Trump’s tax returns, but they have been blocked on procedural votes.
Doggett said Wednesday that his amendment is important because of recent revelations of Trump advisers having contact with Russian officials. He also cited reports that Trump would get a tax benefit from GOP’s recently unveiled healthcare bill, known as the American Health Care Act.
“Every new revelation about Russian contacts, including meetings with the Russian ambassador by Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions, heightens the need to see the returns,” he said.
But Brady said that requesting the tax returns would be an abuse of the committee’s authority.