The House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday voted to release six years of former President Trump’s tax returns. In November, the Supreme Court rejected a bid by Trump to prevent Congress from accessing his tax information, ending years of legal wrangling. It’s not clear when the documents will be released, but the panel said it would take a few days to redact personal information, like Trump’s Social Security and bank account numbers. The committee voted along party lines.
Republicans warned that there would be severe consequences for the release of the returns.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means panel, warned in a press conference, “Longstanding privacy protections for all taxpayers have been compromised. Going forward, the majority chairman in the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target or make public the tax returns of private citizens—and not just private citizens: political enemies, business and labor leaders or even the returns of Supreme Court justices themselves.”
“No party in Congress should have that power,” he added. “No individuals in Congress should have that power. It’s the power to embarrass, to harass or destroy Americans through disclosure of their tax returns.”
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But Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) defended the move, insisting that “This is not about being punitive. This is not about being malicious.”
The vote to release Trump’s tax returns comes just days after the House January 6 committee voted to send criminal referrals for the former president to the Department of Justice.
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