NY Times by Nicholas Fandos and Jesse McKinley 7/23/2019
President Trump sued New York State officials and the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday to try to block congressional Democrats from using a recently enacted New York law to obtain his state tax returns.
The lawsuit, filed by the president’s private lawyers in federal court in Washington, opens a new front in Mr. Trump’s fight to keep his tax returns secret. His administration has already rejected subpoenas from the Ways and Means Committee for his federal tax information, prompting the House to file a lawsuit of its own in recent weeks seeking enforcement.
Now Mr. Trump is moving to close a side door opened by Democratic lawmakers in his home state by asking a judge to declare that the Ways and Means Committee “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose†to request his state tax returns. The suit also seeks to nullify the New York law outright before Congress decides whether to use it.
“We have filed a lawsuit today in our ongoing efforts to end presidential harassment,†Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said in a statement. “The actions taken by the House and New York officials are nothing more than political retribution.â€
Breaking from decades of tradition, Mr. Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential campaign, claiming that he was under audit but suggesting that someday he may make them public. He has never released them, and Democrats have been trying to pry them loose for years.
Attorney General Letitia James of New York, who is named in the latest suit, said her office had “all the confidence that this law is legal†and pledged to “vigorously defend†it in court. A spokesman for Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, declined to comment.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/politics/trump-tax-returns-new-york.html
