On Wednesday evening House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal officially demanded the IRS turn over six years of President Trump's tax returns.
“I today submitted to IRS Commissioner Rettig my request for six years of the president’s personal tax returns as well as the returns for some of his business entities. We have completed the necessary groundwork for a request of this magnitude and I am certain we are within our legitimate legislative, legal, and oversight rights," Deal released in a statement. “I take the authority to make this request very seriously, and I approach it with the utmost care and respect. This request is about policy, not politics; my preparations were made on my own track and timeline, entirely independent of other activities in Congress and the Administration. My actions reflect an abiding reverence for our democracy and our institutions, and are in no way based on emotion of the moment or partisanship. I trust that in this spirit, the IRS will comply with Federal law and furnish me with the requested documents in a timely manner.”
Before a meeting with military leaders at the White House yesterday, President Trump responded.
"We are under audit, despite what people said, and working that out," Trump said. "I'm always under audit, it seems, but I've been under audit for many years because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you're audited. But until such time as I'm not under audit, I would not be inclined to do it."
During gaggle with reporters Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration isn't interested in playing political games with Democrats over the issue.
"What I can tell you is the president has filled out hundreds of pages of a financial disclosure form which puts all of his business dealings in that, like every other member of government has to do, and it gives you a great look at the president's financial holdings, his business, and how successful he was over his lifetime," Sanders said. "We’re not interested in playing a bunch of political games like the Democrats in Congress clearly want to spend their time doing. The president is focused on actually solving real problems like the crisis at the border, dealing with healthcare, and a number of other fronts. We're not engaging in that and the president commented on it yesterday, I don't see any indication that has changed."
No word yet on whether the IRS will comply with the request.