Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress that Treasury Department lawyers “consulted with the White House general counsel’s office about the potential release of President Trump’s tax returns before House Democrats formally requested the records,” the Washington Post reports.
“Mnuchin had not previously revealed that the White House was playing any official role in the Treasury Department’s decision on releasing Trump’s tax returns… The process is designed to be walled off from White House interference, in part because of corruption that took place during the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s.”
Larry Summers: “The appropriate response of the treasury secretary is very clear: Under a long-standing delegation order, the secretary does not get involved in taxpayer-specific matters and has delegated to the IRS commissioner… So for the secretary to seek to decide whether to pass on the president’s tax return to Congress would surely be inappropriate and probably illegal.”
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