Democrats in Congress have made public the tax returns of former US President Donald Trump for a period of six years, from 2015 to 2020. The publication, which comes after a tough stand-off with the tycoon, took place shortly before Republicans take back control of the House from the Dems, and raises the potential for new revelations about Trump’s finances, as the former president launches his 2024 presidential campaign.
The former US president’s tax returns, which include the reprocessing of some sensitive personal information such as social security numbers and bank accounts, follow a vote by the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives last week. Democrats on the committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake, while Republicans countered that the publication would set a dangerous precedent regarding the loss of privacy protections.
Trump had refused to make his statements public when he ran for president and waged a legal battle to keep them secret while he was in the White House. Last month, however, the Supreme Court ruled that he had to turn them over to the House Ways and Means Committee.
The publication of the taxes of the last six years is a new blow for Trump, who has exhausted all the legal avenues at his disposal to keep them secret. Democrats have been pressing relentlessly for years to get and publish the former president’s tax returns.
For Congress, this is a rare initiative: such an action has not occurred since 1973, when the US Revenue Agency delivered President Richard Nixon’s tax returns to a Congressional committee.
Former US President Donald Trump is furious: “The Democrats should never have done this, the Supreme Court should never have passed this, and that’s going to lead to horrible things for a lot of people,” Trump said in a statement on Friday. , “the radical and left-wing Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, this is a dangerous two-way street!”
The former American president also added that his tax returns “demonstrate once again my proud success and my ability to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for the creation of thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises».