Former President Donald Trump asked a federal court on Wednesday to block the Treasury Department from handing over six years of his tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee after the Justice Department said last week that the IRS must turn them over.
Lawyers for Mr. Trump argued in a filing with the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia that the requests from Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, lack a legitimate legislative purpose and instead are meant to expose the former president’s private tax information for political gain.
“The requests are tailored to, and in practical operation will affect, only President Trump. The requests single out President Trump because he is a Republican and a political opponent,” they told the court. “They were made to retaliate against President Trump because of his policy positions, his political beliefs, and his protected speech, including the positions he took during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns.”
Mr. Trump’s attorneys also claimed the purpose of Neal’s request to the IRS for Mr. Trump’s tax information and from eight of his business entities is not to help inform future legislation, but to obtain the records “for the sake of exposure, to improperly conduct law enforcement.”
