The House Ways and Means Committee was granted access to six years of Donald Trump's tax returns on Wednesday, in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling.
The former president had asked the nation's highest court to block the release of the documents to the Democratic-led committee, which first requested them in 2019, but the Supreme Court justices decided against him on November 22.
On Wednesday a spokesperson for the Treasury Department confirmed that it had complied with the court's decision but did not clarify whether the committee had already accessed the documents.
The documents' release comes in the final weeks of Democratic Party control over the House of Representatives, after the Republicans won a majority in the midterm elections.
The current Ways and Means Committee is made up of 25 Democrats and 17 Republicans. It is chaired by Rep. Richard Neal, from Massachusetts' 1st congressional district.
The other Democrats on the committee are:
- Lloyd Doggett, Texas 35th district
- Mike Thompson, California 5th
- John Larson, Connecticut 1st
- Earl Blumenauer, Oregon 3rd
- Ron Kind, Wisconsin 3rd
- Bill Pascrell, New Jersey 9th
- Danny Davis, Illinois 7th
- Linda Sanchez, California 38th
- Brian Higgins, New York 26th
- Terri Sewell, Alabama 7th
- Suzan DelBene, Washington 1st
- Judy Chu, Washington 27th
- Gwen Moore, Wisconsin 4th
- Daniel Kildee, Michigan 5th
- Brendan Boyle, Pennsylvania 2nd
- Donald Beyer, Virginia 8th
- Dwight Evans, Pennsylvania 3rd
- Bradley Schneider, Illinois 10th
- Thomas Suozzi, New York 3rd
- Jimmy Panetta, California 20th
- Stephanie Murphy, Florida 7th
- Jimmy Gomez, California 34th
- Steven Horsford, Nevada 4th
- Stacey Plaskett, Virgin Islands
Neal formally requested the tax returns in April 2019 as part of an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 election campaign and throughout his four years in the White House. He accused the congressional committee of overstepping and seeking the documents under false pretenses, as part of a plan to make them public.
After the Supreme Court ruling, Neal issued a statement saying: "We knew the strength of our case, we stayed the course, followed the advice of counsel and, finally, our case has been affirmed by the highest court in the land. Since Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld and today is no different. This rises above politics and the committee will now conduct the oversight that we've sought for the last three-and-a-half years."
Neal will relinquish his role as ways and means chairman in January, when the new Republican majority is set to halt any investigation into the former president's financial records.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's team for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
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