(Washington Examiner) The Justice Department published a legal opinion Friday backing up Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's decision not to turn over President Trump's tax returns to Congress, arguing that House Democrats' demand for the information was unconstitutional.
Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel argued in a 33-page memo that the demand, made under a law that grants the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee the power to request tax returns from the Treasury secretary, is a pretext for making Trump's tax information public.
“Under the facts and circumstances, the Secretary of the Treasury reasonably and correctly concluded that the Committee’s asserted interest in reviewing the Internal Revenue Service’s audits of presidential returns was pretextual and that its true aim was to make the President’s tax returns public, which is not a legitimate legislative purpose,” Engel wrote.
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