John,
The president is not above the law. Neither are former presidents.
That’s a simple principle that is foundational to our democracy. Yet over the past four years, we’ve had to keep reminding people of that.
One of the best examples of this is the case of Donald Trump’s tax returns, which he managed to keep hidden from the American people over the course of nearly six years, two different campaigns for president and several lawsuits.
This was a break from presidential norms and made Trump the first president in four decades to block the public from seeing those details about his finances and potential conflicts of interest. Now we know that not only was Trump doing something unprecedented, so was the Treasury Department.
When Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin blocked the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns after a congressional request, it was the first time the IRS had ever failed to turn over tax returns to Congress, the IRS told CREW. Read more here.>>
We already knew that this stonewalling was illegal (and I said as much to Congress when I testified two years ago), but now we know that the government was taking unprecedented action to protect Trump from scrutiny. Luckily, the Biden administration now has a chance to reverse the corrupt and illegal actions of Trump’s Treasury Department.
CREW, along with eight fellow good government groups, sent a letter today to Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, saying that the agency should, and legally must, comply with the congressional subpoena and finally release Trump’s tax records to Congress. Read our letter here and share on Facebook, Twitter, or by forwarding this email.
It’s also worth mentioning that if the Senate passes the For the People Act, and President Biden signs it, we’ll never have to deal with this situation again—because the bill would require presidents, vice presidents, and major party candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns. We’ll keep pushing for accountability on this for as long as it takes, and we’ll keep pushing for the reforms we need so we don’t have to fight so hard for accountability in the future.
Thank you for standing with us,
Noah Bookbinder
President, CREW
