Judge rules Trump can't shield tax returns from House committee

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

published 15 December 2021

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Treasury Department can release former President Donald Trump's tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee.

U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden did put the ruling on hold, as he expects there to be an appeal. Trump's attorneys argued that the records were only requested by House Democrats as a way to expose Trump's finances, but McFadden rejected this, writing that the lawyers were "wrong on the law. A long line of Supreme Court cases requires great deference to facially valid congressional inquiries. Even the special solicitude accorded former presidents does not alter the outcome."

The committee has asked for six years of tax records as part of an inquiry into the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service's presidential audit program.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.