An appeals court on Tuesday authorized a committee of the United States House of Representatives access the tax returns of former President of the country Donald Trump (2017-2021).
The District of Columbia Court of Appealsin which the city of Washington is located, dismissed the argument of Trump’s defense, which maintained that, according to the statutes, when a congressional committee requests tax returns it must have “a legitimate legislative purpose.”
In the opinion of the court, the request of that committee is in line with the objective of its investigation and does not violate “any of the principles of separation of powers”.
The House Ways and Means Committeewho requested Trump’s tax returns in 2019, celebrated on Twitter that the court has determined that the law is on his side and he hoped to receive those documents “immediately”.
Tradition of transparency
Trump was the first US president since Gerald Ford (1974-1977) who did not publish his tax return every year.a tradition that his predecessors considered part of their duty of transparency and accountability to the population.
The then Republican president alleged that his statements were subject to an audit by the US Internal Revenue Service. (Treasury), although numerous legal experts assured that no rule prevented him from disclosing them if he had wanted.
The aforementioned committee of the Lower House requested these records in 2019 to investigate their finances and possible conflicts of interest, but then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to provide them, sparking legal litigation.
In July 2021, the Department of Justice had already determined that the Internal Revenue Service should hand over those financial recordswhich brought closer the possibility of their being made public, now reinforced by the Court of Appeal.
The Justice Department’s decision came a year after The US Supreme Court will order Trump to hand over his tax returns to a prosecutor investigating his finances in New York.
This new legal setback for the former president comes a day after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago mansion for documents.in Palm Beach, in southeastern Florida, something that the Republican Party has branded as political persecution.
