White House: Obama 'rather unlikely' to order release of Trump tax returns
By Josh Gerstein
09/14/16 04:59 PM EDT
President Barack Obama is publicly pressing Donald Trump to release his tax returns, but the president probably won't use his own authority to make those returns public, a White House spokesman said.
"I’ve not heard of this potential option. I think it is rather unlikely that the president would order something like that," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday when asked by POLITICO whether Obama would invoke a provision in the Internal Revenue Code that allows the president to make a written request for any taxpayer's returns.
While campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Obama took shots at Trump for not making his returns public. The GOP presidential hopeful has said he can't do that because he's being audited, but experts say there's no legal restriction on Trump putting out his returns, as Clinton has.
"America has got a lot of businessmen and women who succeeded without hiding their tax returns, or leaving a trail of lawsuits, or workers who didn’t get paid, people feeling like they got cheated," Obama said at the Clinton rally. "You've got one candidate in this race who has released decades-worth of her tax returns. The other candidate is the first in decades who refuses to release any at all."
Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides: "Upon written request by the President, signed by him personally, the [Treasury] Secretary shall furnish to the President, or to such employee or employees of the White House Office as the President may designate by name in such request, a return or return information with respect to any taxpayer named in such request."
Another passage in the law says returns obtained that way should not be further disclosed "without personal written direction of the President," suggesting that with such an instruction the returns could be made public by the government.
Speaking at a daily briefing for reporters, Earnest said he was unfamiliar with that aspect of the law, but that Obama would be loath to take any act that appears to politicize the Internal Revenue Service.
"Certainly, one thing that is important and certainly something that has been prioritized in this administration is making sure that the work of the IRS is not affected with even the appearance of political influence and in this regard, obviously, the president has made clear that he’s a strong supporter of Secretary Clinton in the presidential race," the press secretary added.
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/09/white-house-obama-rather-unlikely-to-order-release-of-trump-tax-return-228170
