Donald Trump and his guys over in Treasury and the heading the Internal Revenue Service are withholding Trump’s tax returns from Congress…
But within the agency itself?
A internal memo exists that clearly states that the agency is duty bound to turn over the information requested…
They KNOW that Congress has every right to examine ANYONE’s tax returns…
This ,like the request for Trump’s financial records stalling, is gonna be a loss for Trump and HIS Justice Department in the end….
Breaking with precedent, Trump has refused to provide tax returns, saying without evidence they are under audit.
Mnuchin and other senior staff members never reviewed the IRS memo, according to a Treasury spokesman. But the spokesman said it did not undermine the department’s argument that handing over the president’s tax returns would run afoul of the Constitution’s mandate that information given to Congress must pertain to legislative issues.
The spokesman said the secretary is following a legal analysis from the Justice Department that he “may not produce the requested private tax return information.” Both agencies have denied requests for copies of the Justice Department’s advice to Treasury.
Some legal experts said the memo provides further evidence that the Trump administration is using shaky legal foundations to withhold the tax returns.
“The memo is clear in its interpretation of the law that the IRS shall furnish this information,” said William Lowrance, who served for about two decades as an attorney in the IRS chief counsel’s office and reviewed the memo at the request of The Post.
Daniel Hemel, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who also reviewed the memo for The Post, said the document suggests a split over Trump’s returns between career staffers at the IRS and political appointees at that agency and the Treasury Department.
“The memo writer’s interpretation is that the IRS has no wiggle room on this,” Hemel said. “Mnuchin is saying the House Ways and Means Committee has not asserted a legitimate legislative purpose. The memo says they don’t have to assert a legitimate legislative purpose — or any purpose at all.”
The administration has resisted a range of House inquiries, although a federal judge on Monday ruled the president’s accounting firm must turn over his financial records to Congress….
image…NYPost