The truth is that in the Trump tax return controversy, everyone is in the wrong

Donald Trump is ready to engage in another battle with Congress, and this time it’s over his tax returns.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Representative Richard Neal (D-MA), refusing to turn over six years of President Trump’s tax returns — likely setting up a court battle that will make its way to the Supreme Court.

The tax return issue is coming back to bite Trump thanks in large part to his inability to keep his mouth shut. Back in 2011, when Trump was happily engaging in Barack Obama birther conspiracies, he promised to release his tax returns if President Obama produced his birth certificate. When Obama did release his birth certificate to quell all foolishness surrounding that dumb conspiracy, Trump didn’t keep his promise. He continued to say he’d release his tax returns even when he officially announced he was seeking the GOP nomination in 2015.

In early 2016, the excuse Trump used for the remainder of the campaign was he couldn’t release the returns because he was under an IRS audit. Finally, after the election, he refused to release his returns because he laughably said his election victory negated the issue.

Now it’s Congress that wants Trump to turn over the tax returns and Rep. Neal says he has the authority under a 1924 law to do just that. Nancy Pelosi said “the law is very clear” but it’s difficult to find an attorney who thinks any law is “clear” and this one is no exception. Under the statute in question, Neal claims his demand represents a “legitimate legislative purpose.” Steve Mnuchin disagrees.

Neal says he is investigating the effectiveness of the IRS’s policy of auditing the tax returns of sitting presidents. But that raises a pretty important question. If Neal’s concern has to do with the effectiveness of the IRS auditing policy of sitting presidents, why does he want to see the returns in the years before Trump became president? Where is the legislative purpose in that?

Mnuchin, in his letter, stated the demand is “unprecedented, and it presents serious constitutional questions, the resolution of which may have lasting consequences for all taxpayers.” His concern is not without merit. There’s no shortage of talk and conspiracies that say Trump’s returns will expose his financial ties to Russia and the reason he remains so passive toward Vladimir Putin.

By the same token, Trump’s returns might show a necessity to mandate presidential candidates release their tax returns to the public so as to avoid any possible issues with corruption and conflicts of interest. Unfortunately, Neal did not go down that path and instead is invoking issues related to IRS audit procedures; that looks like pretty thin gruel.

The other concern is whether or not any of the information contained within the returns gets leaked to the public. The law says the returns may only get reviewed in a closed session but controlling leaks in Washington DC is an exercise in futility. It’s very possible Trump’s concern about his tax returns is not rooted in evidence of illegality or showing a proclivity towards doing business in Russia that influences his foreign policy decisions.

Trump is likely more concerned than anything else that his tax returns would reveal he is not as wealthy as he’s bragged, and that would prove to be more embarrassing than anything else including any financial ties to Russia. It would provide great fodder for social media, late-night television hosts, and political punditry, but what would it say about Congress’s oversight role if they cannot keep private information from leaking to the public?

There’s plenty of blame to go around in this mess. Trump could have easily avoided all of this trouble if he had simply released some of his tax returns while running for president. His constant misunderstanding of what it means to be a public servant as opposed to the boss must be frustrating to anyone in an oversight position.

But Rep. Neal’s demand also seems out of bounds. If he wants to change the law related to IRS audits of sitting presidents, then he should amend his demand to see only the last two years of the president’s returns. Otherwise, it comes off as posturing that could lead to another showdown within the Supreme Court, and that’s not the ideal solution to the problem at hand.