After House setback, push to examine Trump tax returns moves to Senate

Democrats pushing to see President Donald Trump's tax returns to determine if he has conflicts of interest focused their attention Wednesday on the chairman of a key Senate committee after the Houserejected an attempt by Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. to force the issue Monday night.

"The law is with us, without any, any question," Pascrell, D-Paterson, said at a news conference with three Democratic senators on the Finance Committee, whose chairman, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, has the authority to demand copies of tax returns from the Treasury Department. "The alarming revelations pointing to Russian involvement in the Trump campaign and administration have raised the stakes."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said she was leading an effort to get Hatch to use a 1924 law to obtain Trump's tax returns so the committee could see them in private. If members decide there is something involving national security or interest that requires it, the committee could vote to make the returns public, she said

"Five weeks after President Trump took office, we still do not know the extent of his business holdings in foreign countries and his financial ties to Russia," Stabenow said. "We do know that the president's business entanglements reach around the globe."

Stabenow said she would start with a letter to Hatch signed by other Democrats on the committee.

Pascrell said he is also sending a letter Thursday to Hatch and to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady that is signed by 140 House members, including two Republicans, Walter Jones of North Carolina and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

"Seeing the president's tax returns would give us a picture of debts owed, investments made, [and] assets tied up in ... many foreign countries," Pascrell said. "Because the president most likely is today violating the Constitution of the United States. The emoluments clause prohibits gifts from foreign states, and the American public deserves to know what conflicts the president is ...  operating under when he makes policy decisions."

Trump broke with a 40-year tradition by refusing to release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign, citing an audit. After the inauguration, adviser Kellyanne Conway said he would not release them because the election had shown it was not an important issue.

But in Congress, lawmakers are questioning whether Trump has a conflict because he has not fully separated himself from his real estate and business empire. Stabenow cited the recent decision by China to award a trademark for the use of the Trump name on products as an example of potential foreign attempts to influence him through his business interests.

In arguing Monday for the House to take up the tax issue as a "privileged resolution," Pascrell cited reports in the Washington Post that the new Trump Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Washington "has hired a 'director of diplomatic sales' to generate high-priced business among foreign leaders and diplomatic delegations."

Hatch, who has been one of Trump's strongest backers in the Senate, said last month that he was not interested, however.

"I don't think we can roll all over people just because they're in a position of government," Hatch told the Reuters news agency.

Pascrell began pushing to use the 1924 law, known as section 6103 of the internal revenue code, last month. He wrote a letter urging Brady, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,  to compel the Treasury secretary to turn over Trump's returns. Brady turned him down on Feb. 13, but Pascrell and other Democrats raised the issue when the committee met to set its priorities for the coming year. An attempt to add the tax returns to the panel's agenda was defeated in a party-line vote.

The defeats come even as some Republicans have told voters during town hall meetings that Trump should release his tax returns. Pascrell said he has spoken with multiple Republicans who agreed with him that Trump should disclose, but said he would not comment on their refusal to join in the effort to force disclosure.

George Yin, a University of Virginia law professor and former chief of staff to the Joint Committee on Taxation, said section 6103 is the best option Congress has of getting Trump's returns because it does not require new legislation that he could veto.

The 1924 law has been used twice previously. In 1974, Congress looked at President Richard Nixon's tax returns after questions were raised about how much tax he was paying. And the investigation into the way corporations' requests for non-profit status were treated by the Internal Revenue Service led to a report by the Ways and Means Committee in 2015 that revealed private information from 51 organizations' tax returns.