The latest blow for Trump, 76, who was impeached twice by the Democratic-led House only to be acquitted both times by the Senate, and now faces multiple legal woes as he mounts a 2024 reelection bid.
A Democratic-controlled House of Representatives committee released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to the public on Friday in an extraordinary move just days before Republicans are due to take control of the chamber.
Release of Trump’s redacted returns for 2015 through 2020 caps a nearly four-year battle between the former Republican president and Democratic lawmakers that was settled only last month by the US Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters asked federal prosecutors to charge him with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for his role in the deadly riot.
“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” Trump said of the release in a statement Friday. “The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”
He said the returns “once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises”.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal had requested the returns in 2019, arguing that Congress needed them to determine if legislation on presidential tax returns was warranted.
Republicans said the move could lead to the political weaponization of individual tax returns and warned that party members who take over the panel next month would face pressure to pursue a similar path against high-profile Democrats.