The House Ways and Means Committee has sought six years of tax returns from the real estate mogul-turned head of state, from 2014 until 2018, since it first filed the motion with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in April 2019. However, the Trump administration repeatedly blocked those attempts, saying the request lacked a "legitimate legislative purpose".
McFadden, a Trump appointee, wrote that Trump "marshals an array of evidence suggesting the committee's purported interest in the Presidential Audit Programme, an IRS policy that requires audits of the sitting president, is a subterfuge for improper motives - like exposing his returns. He also raises legal arguments against the statute on which the committee relies".
"If Chairman Neal's true interest in the former president's tax returns is indeed to better understand the Presidential Audit Programme, he will doubtless be able to accomplish this objective without publishing the returns. Public disclosure of another's tax returns is a grave offence", McFadden wrote, noting that prior committee chairmen have "wisely resisted" it.