Donald Trump’s tax returns look set to be released after a federal court denied the former president’s request to reconsider an August ruling. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Trump’s plea to stop House Democrats from reviewing his 2015-20 tax returns, which a federal appeals court panel allowed in August. While Trump can still challenge the decision in the Supreme Court, the latest decision refused Trump’s request to delay the release until the Supreme Court challenge. The former president has argued the motives are political, but the appeals court agreed with the August ruling that lawmakers had “a legitimate legislative purpose” to review the records in order to assess the auditing process for presidents by the IRS, according to The Washington Post. “It is not our place to delve deeper than this,” the appeals panel wrote, according to the Post. “The mere fact that individual members of Congress may have political motivations as well as legislative ones is of no moment.” In a statement, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) said after the ruling: “The law has always been on our side. Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”
JUST IN: The full bench of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has denid Donald Trump's request for a hearing on efforts to prevent his tax returns from going to Congress.
