Justice releases legal opinion backing Treasury’s refusal to release Trump tax returns

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday released a legal opinion backing up the Treasury Department’s decision to reject a request by congressional Democrats for six years of President Trump‘s tax returns.

“While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, Treasury was not obliged to accept the Committee’s stated purpose without question, and based on all the facts and circumstances, we agreed that the Committee lacked a legitimate legislative purpose for its request,” Steven Engel, an assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, said in the 33-page opinion.

The opinion comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last month rejected a subpoena from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) demanding Trump’s personal and business tax returns from 2013 through 2018.

View the complete June 14 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Barr could expose secrets, politicize intelligence with review of Russia probe, current and former officials fear

President Trump’s new executive order giving the attorney general broad authority to declassify government secrets threatens to expose U.S. intelligence sources and could distort the FBI and CIA’s roles in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections, current and former U.S. officials said.

On Thursday, Trump allowed Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify information he finds during his review of what the White House called “surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election.”

Trump has long complained that the U.S. government engaged in illegal “spying” on his campaign, alleging without evidence that his phones were tapped and that American officials conspired with British counterparts in an effort to undermine his bid for the White House.

View the complete May 24 article by Shane Harris on The Washington Post website here.