According to media reports, the US Treasury Department is providing the former president’s tax documents Donald Trump available to a congressional committee. “The Treasury Department has complied with last week’s court decision,” US media quoted a ministry spokesman as saying on Wednesday. For years, Trump had resisted using legal means to release the documents – and finally failed in the Supreme Court last week.
The Supreme Court had dismissed a request by its attorneys to stop the transmission of tax documents to the Democratic-led Treasury Committee in the House of Representatives. Contrary to usual practice in the United States, real estate entrepreneur Trump did not make his tax returns public either as a presidential candidate or after moving into the White House.
Critics therefore suspect that the Republican has something to hide. Among other things, the Democrats want to check whether the documents reveal conflicts of interest on the part of the entrepreneur and whether he has used questionable methods to save taxes. Two weeks ago, Trump announced that he would run again as a Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
Publication not foreseeable
According to the reports, the documents are not expected to be released to the public immediately. It also remained unclear whether the members of the committee could already view the documents.
For the committee, the Supreme Court’s decision was a last-minute success: Since the Republicans won the majority in the US midterm elections and will be in charge there from the beginning of January, the Democratic-led body has little time left, a little to align in the matter.
Trump is currently involved in various legal disputes – including because of taking secret government documents to his private estate after leaving the White House.