Biden’s Office of Legal Counsel Reverses Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel: Treasury Officials ‘Shall’ Turn Over Trump Taxes To Congress

I explained back in 2019 that the lawless Trump administration was obstructing Congress in clear violation of federal law. Secretary Mnuchin Defies Law to Deny House Request for Trump’s Tax Return

Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Bond villain Steve Mnuchin, on Monday told House Democrats he would not furnish President Trump’s tax returns despite their legal request, pursuant to the Trump administration’s policy of “total obstruction” of Congress. I would point out that Mnuchin is not even the proper respondent, that is IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. Mnuchin rejects Democrats’ demand to hand over Trump’s tax returns:

Mnuchin, in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), said he had consulted with the [Trump] Justice Department and that they had concluded that it would not be lawful for the Trump administration to turn over the tax returns because of potential violations of privacy.

In his letter, he said that “In reliance on the advice of the Department of Justice, I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, and…the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.”

He said the Justice Department plans to make public its legal reasoning in finding that Mnuchin didn’t have to furnish the requests. Alexei Woltornist, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, referred a request for a copy of the department’s opinion to the Treasury Department.

[As] tax expert David Cay Johnston explained in my previous post, Treasury Secretary and IRS Commissioner are in legal jeopardy (excerpts):

Under Section 6103 of our tax code, Treasury officials “shall” turn over the tax returns “upon written request” of the chair of either congressional tax committee or the federal employee who runs Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. No request has ever been refused[.]

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There are no qualifiers in Section 6103 that shield Trump from delivering, in confidence, his tax returns to Congress. No wiggle room at all.

Another provision in our tax code, Section 7214(a), provides that “Any officer or employee of the United States acting in connection with any revenue law of the United States… who with intent to defeat the application of any provision of this title fails to perform any of the duties of his office or employment… shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.”

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The good-conduct provisions of the tax law are as broad as they are severe.  Significantly, it doesn’t just affect IRS auditors and collections officers. It applies to any federal employee—which means Trump as well as Mnuchin and Rettig—who “fails to perform any of the duties” they are assigned.

“Orange Julius” Caesar, Bond villain Steve Mnuchin, and the most corrupt attorney general in the history of the United States, Bill Barr, are all out of office now. But IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig (whose term runs to 2022) is still around, and can be prosecuted. Rettig will be the fall guy for the corrupt Trump administration. And the attorneys who wrote the OLC opinion, if they are still at DOJ.

There is a new sheriff in town, Attorney General Merrick Garland, who follows and enforces the law. The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that the Treasury Department must turn over former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee that has been seeking them for the past two years. Trump’s tax returns must be released to Congress, Justice Department says:

You can read the full opinion here.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in its opinion that the House Ways and Means Committee had given “sufficient reasons” for requesting the information.

“We conclude that Treasury must furnish the information specified in the June 21 request,” the opinion said.

Rep. Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, welcomed the legal finding.

“As I have maintained for years, the committee’s case is very strong and the law is on our side,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “I am glad that the Department of Justice agrees and that we can move forward.”

Neal did not immediately respond to questions about how soon the returns might be provided to him, but unless Trump can persuade a federal court to step in, Congress will soon have his tax returns for 2015 through 2020.

Neal asked for the tax information in April 2019, citing a federal law that requires the Treasury Department and the IRS to turn over individual tax returns when demanded by any of the three congressional tax committees.

The same law also says Congress must keep the returns it seeks confidential.

In Friday’s opinion, the OLC said that its earlier analysis [under AG Bill Barr] “went astray,” failing to give a coordinate branch of government the “respect and deference” it was due.

When a congressional tax committee asks for such tax information, “the executive branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances,” the office said.

“The statute says what it says,” Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said. He considered it unlikely that Trump could get a federal court to block the handover.

“But is it possible Trump could get a judge to prevent the returns from being turned over while the courts take the time to reach the merits? That seems more plausible, if still not terribly likely,” he said.

Under an agreement filed in federal court in an existing lawsuit over congressional access to the returns, the government agreed to give Trump’s lawyers 72 hours’ notice before turning over any returns, to give him time to try to prevent the disclosure.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., commended Neal for pursuing the information.

“Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security,” she said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”

It took two years of litigation and an election to get what should have been a non-discretionary production of documents to Congress, but for the most corrupt administration in history.

Now Congress can do the oversight it always should have been able to conduct.