According to media reports, the US Treasury Department is making former President Donald Trump’s tax documents available to a congressional committee. “The Treasury Department complied with last week’s court decision,” a ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Wednesday. For years, Trump has resisted using legal means to release the documents – and finally failed in the Supreme Court last week.
The Supreme Court rejected a request by its lawyers to stop transmitting tax documents to the Democrat-led House Committee on the Treasury. Contrary to usual practice in the United States, real estate developer Trump has not made 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, Democrats want to check whether the documents reveal conflicts of interest on the businessman’s part and whether he used questionable methods to save taxes. Two weeks ago, Trump announced that he would run again as the Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
According to the reports, the documents are not expected to be released to the public immediately. It was also unclear whether committee members could already view the documents. For the committee, the Supreme Court’s decision was a last-minute success: as the Republicans won a majority in the mid-term elections in the United States and will be in power from the beginning of January, the Democrat-led body has little time, a little to align on the subject. Currently, Trump is embroiled in several legal disputes – including taking secret government documents onto his private property after leaving the White House. (apa/dpa)