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Brady: DC Court Ruling Unleashes Dangerous New Political Weapon — Which May Target Supreme Court Justices

Lets Congress Target Political Enemies, Expose Private Tax Returns
August 9, 2022 — Blog    — Oversight    — Press Releases   

Ways and Means Republican Leader Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) issued the following statement following a DC Court of Appeals ruling on President Trump’s tax returns:

“If left to stand the DC Court of Appeals ruling unleashes a dangerous new political weapon, granting Congress nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of political enemies — whether they be Presidents, private citizens, or even justices of the Supreme Court.

“The Court turns current law — established to protect private citizens from Congress targeting the tax returns of political enemies — on its head. There is no true ‘legitimate’ legislative purpose for pursuing and making public President Trump’s tax returns — who will be just the first of many.

“To protect the privacy of innocent American taxpayers, I am hopeful President Trump appeals this dangerous ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Background: 

The Justice Department ignored repeated public statements by Democrats that reveal their real intentions throughout their years-long campaign to obtain the President’s tax records – intentions that dismiss their “legitimate” legislative purpose.

Having failed on the first attempt to secure the returns, Ways and Means Democrat Chairman Richard Neal assured the Justice Department in June 2021: “There have been claims that the true and sole purpose of the Committee’s inquiry here is to expose former President Trump’s tax returns. These claims are wrong.”

Yet Democrats repeatedly made clear their real intentions throughout their years-long campaign to obtain these records.

In their own words: 

  • During the 115th Congress, then-Ranking Member Neal (D-MA) stated that “Committee Democrats remain steadfast in [their] pursuit to have [President Trump’s] individual tax returns disclosed to the public.”
  • In 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated: “When we win this election, and we have a new president of the United States in January, and we have a new secretary of the Treasury, and Richie Neal asks for the president’s returns, then the world will see what the president has been hiding all of this time.”
  • In 2019, Chairman Neal stated that “the public has reasonably come to expect that presidential candidates and aspirants release those documents.”
  • Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) noted that the Ways and Means Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee hearing was intended to “lay the foundation for the public purpose to acquire access to these returns.”
  • In 2018, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) said, “Probably the approach would be to get all of it, review it, and…release all or part of it.”