IMPORTANT CALL TO ACTION
From IND Oregon/OR-1
Getting a look at President TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS is the linchpin to getting answers to the questions swirling about his potential ties to Russia and to getting clarity about his potential conflicts of interest.
There is tax law that gives the two congressional committees that set tax policy -- House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee -- the power to examine tax returns. It was used in 1974 to view Nixon’s, and in 2014 in the investigation of the IRS’s handling of nonprofit status applications.
The Chairman of either committee can acquire any individual’s tax return by requesting it from Treasury Department. After privately examining the returns the committee could then vote to share them with the full body, which would also make them public.
All of the Democrats on the House Ways and Means (led by Pascrell of NJ and including our own Blumenauer) submitted a letter to Chairman Kevin Brady (TX) asking him to request Treasury to release Trump’s returns. Chairman Brady rejected it, saying “If Congress begins to use its powers to rummage around in the tax returns of the president, what prevents Congress from doing the same to average Americans?" Brady didn’t seem to have the same rummaging aversion when he voted three years ago with other Republicans on the committee to release confidential tax information of 51 taxpayers as part of an investigation into the way the Internal Revenue Service handled applications by corporations for non-profit status. Last week the committee Democrats tried to force the issue with a committee vote and were rejected on a strictly party-line basis.
YOUR IMPACTFUL ACTIONS:
- Ask Senator Wyden by email, phone or (best!) in person at an upcoming Town Hall -- What actions are happening regarding this in the Senate Finance Committee where you serve as Ranking Member? Tell him to demand that Chairman Hatch request Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department.
- If you have connections in Utah-- make sure they aware of this. Tell them to use every Indivisible tactic to demand Senator Hatch (Chairman of Senate Finance Committee) to make the request to Treasury.
- If you have connections in Texas District 8 (Huntsville area)-- make sure they are aware of this. Tell them to use every Indivisible tactic to demand that Congressman Kevin Brady take positive action on the letter from his committee members and make the request to Treasury.
- If you have energy left after all that give our neighboring district's Congressman Blumenauer a call and thank him for signing Pascrell’s letter, which you can read here.
