The following commentary from the Editorial Board of the Star Tribune was posted on their website February 16, 2017:
Paulsen should be among those urging Republicans to do the right thing.
In a blatant display of partisanship that disregards the wishes of a majority of Americans, House Republicans have rejected an attempt to use their legal power to obtain tax returns for President Trump, who has consistently refused to release them on his own.
Under a rarely invoked federal law, House and Senate tax committees can order the Treasury Department to release individual tax returns. Obviously this is a power that should be used sparingly. But it is the law for a reason. Given Trump’s refusal to put his assets in a blind trust, his apparent and ongoing conflicts of interest, and increasingly serious questions about his ties to the Kremlin, it seems equally obvious that this is one of those instances for which the law was created. The last time a committee used the law for a president, it was to examine the returns of Richard Nixon in 1974. Nixon ultimately was found to have owed nearly $500,000 in taxes. Republicans joined with Democrats in voting to release some of that information. Continue reading “Congress should use rarely used law to examine Trump’s tax returns”
