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The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for a House committee to get six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, after a three-year battle by Democrats to obtain the former president’s taxes.
On Tuesday, the court rejected Trump’s Oct. 31 emergency application to block the Internal Revenue Service from turning over the documents to the House Ways and Means Committee. No justice publicly dissented from the decision. The IRS is now free to provide the returns and could do so imminently.
Trump was the first president in four decades years not to release his tax returns, seeking to keep details of his wealth and real estate company, the Trump Organization, private. The Ways and Means panel told the Supreme Court in a legal filing that siding with Trump would harm the constitutional authority of a co-equal branch of government “by in effect preventing Congress from completing any investigation involving a former president whenever there are allegations that the investigation was politically motivated.
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