The House Ways and Means Committee on Friday released six years of former president Trump’s federal tax returns after an arduous legal tug-of-war.
In a video statement posted last Friday to Truth Social, Trump slammed the decision to disclose his 2015 to 2020 tax returns as an “outrageous abuse of power” and “completely unconstitutional.” He lamented that the move is another demonstration of the government’s targeting of him since he entered the political scene in 2016.
“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action. And if you look at what they've done, it's so sad for our country,” Trump said. “It's nothing but another deranged political witch hunt which has been going on from the day I came down an escalator in Trump Tower.”
The battle for the documents began when the Ways and Means Committee chairman, Representative Richard Neal (D., Mass.), sued the Treasury Department in 2019 to acquire them. Trump departed from the norm when he refused to reveal his tax returns, which presidents have historically made public voluntarily. The committee requested the returns by invoking the authority of section 6103 of the U.S. tax code, which allows state agencies responsible for tax administration to access tax filings.
In November, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s petition to prevent Congress from obtaining his tax returns, allowing the committee to get ahold of them before the new GOP majority assumed control of the chamber.
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