WASHINGTON -- Democrats will "never" see President Donald Trump's tax returns, his acting chief of staff said Sunday, abandoning Trump's long-held position that he would someday release the documents for public inspection.
Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, accused Democrats of engaging in a "political stunt" and wanting "attention" after the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee -- Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. -- asked the Internal Revenue Service to provide six years of Trump's personal tax returns and the returns for some of his businesses.
"That is not going to happen, and they know it," Mulvaney told Fox News Sunday.
Asked whether he believed Democrats would ever view the president's returns, Mulvaney replied: "Oh no, never. Nor should they."
Neal, one of only three congressional officials authorized to request tax returns, last week requested Trump's personal and business returns in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. He asked for returns covering 2013 through 2018. He also asked for the documents in seven days, setting a Wednesday deadline.
A 1924 statute includes no exceptions to Neal's authority to ask the Treasury Department for returns and says the department "shall furnish" them when requested. It does require that the review of an individual's return be conducted by members of Congress in "closed executive session" if the returns are provided without the taxpayer's consent.
Peter Shane, a law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, said that because the current statute allows congressional committees to make the request for an individual's tax returns, "the fact that the president doesn't want to turn them over is, by itself, legally irrelevant."
Still, Mulvaney claimed the law did not cover a "political hit job." His comments echoed those made by Trump's lawyers who said the Democratic request "would set a dangerous precedent" if granted.
Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow argued during an appearance on ABC's This Week that the Democrats were using the IRS "as a political weapon."
"The president has not asked for [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi's tax returns," Sekulow noted, adding of Congress, "They have not produced their tax returns. It's not a requirement that they do, by the way."
William Consovoy, whose firm was retained by Trump to represent him on the matter, said in a letter Friday to the Department of Treasury's general counsel that the tax code zealously guards taxpayer privacy. He said requests for tax returns "must have a legitimate legislative purpose."
Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., also a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Sunday that the request did have a legitimate purpose: to inform policy decisions by the panel's chairman and provide oversight.
"We are looking very carefully right now as to whether or not the IRS is properly auditing and enforcing tax law on the president of the United States, and we're considering legislative changes toward that end," Kildee said on This Week.
Neal has said he made the request to review the IRS policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice presidents, adding, "little is known about the effectiveness of this program."
Kildee said the committee does not intend to make Trump's tax documents public.
"It's not even clear that other members of the committee, myself included, will ever see any of this information," Kildee said. "This is specific to Chairman Neal."
The No. 4 House Democrat, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, defended his party members during an interview on Fox News Sunday. He conceded that the congressional request was unusual but put the onus on Trump for breaking norms.
"No other president in modern times has had to have their tax returns requested," Lujan said, "because they've all voluntarily shared them."
PAST PROMISE
Trump broke with precedent when he chose not to release any tax returns as a presidential candidate. All other presidential and major party candidates over the past four decades have allowed their tax documents to be made public, which Shane said would make it difficult for Trump to contend that he's being singled out.
"Viewing this as a burden or an undue incursion of the rights of political candidates is just not in accord with actual practice," Shane said.
Trump had originally said he would release his tax returns. In February 2016, in an interview on NBC's Today show, Trump said he would release them "probably over the next few months," explaining the wait by saying, "They're very big tax returns. The biggest, I guarantee you this, it's the biggest ever in the history of what we're doing. So it's very complicated stuff. But we'll be releasing them."
After last November's elections, Trump reiterated the complexity of his tax paperwork.
"It is big. And it is complex. And it is probably feet high," he said. "It is a very complex instrument. And I think that people would not understand it."
But during the 2016 campaign, Trump said he wouldn't release the information because he is under audit, something he reiterated Friday while visiting the U.S-Mexico border.
"I'm under audit. When you're under audit you don't do it," Trump said.
IRS officials have said that taxpayers under audit are free to release their returns. Even Mulvaney on Sunday said that under an IRS audit, "you could always allow people to see" the tax returns.
But Mulvaney argued that the American public has already said it doesn't care about seeing Trump's returns.
"Keep in mind that that's an issue that was already litigated during the election," Mulvaney said. "Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns; they knew that he didn't, and they elected him anyway, which is, of course, what drives the Democrats crazy."
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee, during the 2016 presidential campaign said there is "only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump's refusal to release his returns: There is a bombshell in them ... a bombshell of unusual size." He told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that he believes Trump should release the documents.
"He said he would be happy to release his returns, so I wish he'd do that," Romney said. "But I have to also tell you, I think the Democrats are just playing along his handbook, which is going after his tax returns through a legislative action is moronic. That's not going to happen.
"The courts are not going to say that you can compel a person running for office to release their tax returns," Romney added. "So he's going to win this victory. He wins them time after time."
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller of The Associated Press; by Colby Itkowitz of The Washington Post; and by Mark Niquette and Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 04/08/2019