House committee claims victory in battle for Donald Trump’s tax returns

Members of Congress on the House Ways and Means Committee announced a victory in their battle to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns on Tuesday, the culmination of a years-long battle in the war to prove longstanding allegations of fraud and wrongdoing that have dogged the president for years.

The Democrat-led committee announced on Twitter that a court’s decision meant that lawmakers would obtain Mr Trump’s financial records “immediately”.

The decision is signficant because it will finally allow House lawmakers to address allegations of corruption and fraud that were first raised about the president in news reports and confirmed on the record by Michael Cohen, his former attorney, during revealing House testimony in 2019.

At the time, Mr Cohen testified that his ex-boss illegally deflated his reported assets for the purpose of evading taxes while claiming they were larger for PR reasons, including to appear on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans. Mr Trump denied those claims.

Mr Trump’s taxes have been the source of rumours and speculation since before he was inaugurated in 2017. During his campaign for office the year prior, he frequently pledged to release his returns after a supposed IRS audit was completed. Over the next six years, he failed to do so.

House Democrats began a legal battle for the tax returns upon taking power from Republicans in 2019, but the long, protracted campaign failed to yield any results before Mr Trump left office and quickly became overshadowed by other probes into Mr Trump’s misconduct ranging from his efforts to persuade Ukraine’s government to launch a criminal investigation into Joe Biden to his own efforts to overturn the 2020 election after Mr Biden defeated him.

Even now, the president remains under investigation by a separate House committee, the select panel focused on January 6 and Mr Trump’s campaign to block Joe Biden’s victory, as well as at least one grand jury investigation. In Georgia his attempts to persuade state officials to overturn the results there is currently before a grand jury, while the Justice Department is leading its own grand jury investigation in Washington DC in response to the attack on Congress that just weeks ago saw testimony from Mike Pence’s top aide and adviser.

The Ways and Means investigation news still ended up playing second fiddle on Tuesday to the shocking revelation that broke overnight of an FBI raid at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, reportedly over his alleged improper possession of classified materials. The documents were reportedly removed from the White House in the final days of the Trump presidency and therefore could be relevant to the January 6 investigation in addition to the simple question of whether their obtention was illegal.