EFE.- A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the attempt of the former president of the United States Donald trump (2017-2021) to prevent the Treasury Department from delivering copies of your tax returns to a committee of the lower house of the country.
Magistrate Trevor McFadden, of a federal court of the District of Columbia and appointed by Trump himself, considered that the request of the ex-president’s lawyers is “legally incorrect”, despite pointing out that the lawyers are right when they say that the Democrats want the copies of the statements to achieve political gains.
In early August, Trump’s lawyers They asked the judge to stop the Treasury Department from to deliver multiple copies of your tax returns to Congress.
That request came nearly a week after the Justice Department gave the Treasury the green light to turn over Trump’s financial records to the Congressional Ways and Means Committee, whose Chairman, Richard Neal, requested them in 2019. to investigate possible acts of corruption of the then ruler.
Follow the information about the world in our international section
The judge argued Tuesday that “it may not be correct or wise” to publish copies of Trump’s tax returns, but it is the right of the chairman of that legislative committee to do so.
Trump was the first American president since Gerald Ford (1974-1977) that he did not publish his statement every year of taxes, a tradition that his predecessors considered part of their duty of transparency and accountability to the people.
The former president refused to publish his tax returns on the grounds that they were subject to an audit by the US Internal Revenue Service (Treasury), although numerous legal experts assured that no rule prevented him from having disclosed them if he had wanted to.
The aforementioned congressional committee requested those records in 2019 to investigate the then-president’s finances and possible conflicts of interest, but then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to provide them.
That struggle unleashed a litigation that is still active and that until January faced that committee with the Trump administration, while now it is being fought between Democratic legislators and the former president’s lawyers.
A year ago, the US Supreme Court ordered Trump to hand over his statements of taxes to a prosecutor who investigates his finances in New York, but did not pronounce on the request of the Congress.
Subscribe to Forbes Mexico