I’m.no lawyer, so may not understand the law here.
But normally, don’t you need some probable cause of some financial crime committed, to subpoena financial records such as income tax returns?
Are these House Democrats constrained by legal requirements, or do they just feel entitled to demand whatever they want ?
They are so desperate to get rid of him, I wouldn’t be surprised if they search back into his grade school years and look for classmates to come forward with ‘accusations’.
Patriotism is dead among these folks. Loyal opposition is gone forever.
You do and I believe the IRS commissioner already told Congress that.
They write the laws, so yes they do feel that they can demand whatever they want.
Of course, the President can veto anything they write, which leads to a veto override situation. Also they have to get their laws through a conference with the Senate, which can block them.
The Constitution is (at least theoretically) the ultimate law, and one would think that Fourth Amendment protections of the privacy of one's "papers," as well as protections under the Fifth Amendment would prevent the passing of a law by Congress that targets an individual for a fishing expedition of one's tax filings; these are certainly "papers," and although one is compelled to hand them over to the executive branch by law, that is done with the presumption of innocence and with the obligation by that agency to protect the filer's Constitutional rights, assuming no crime has been committed.
Trump's tax filings have been OKed by the IRS many times over the years, during Democrat administrations as well as Republican. He has (to my knowledge) never been accused of a crime by the IRS, which (I assume) has audited Trump and his various corporations many times.
This would ultimately come down to a decision in the Judicial Branch, which would end up in the Supreme Court. That could turn into fireworks, as it is possible that a Trump nomination would be pending at the time that a decision on the legality of going after his IRS papers went before the Court.
I'm not a lawyer or a Constitutional scholar, so I could be all wet on one or more of these observations.
“don’t you need some probable cause of some financial crime committed”
Not for the President. There’s a law that says, essentially, if there is a legislative purpose then the president must turn over his returns to certain members of Congress.
I don’t believe the constitutionality of that law has been tested. I don’t believe any president has ever been called upon to comply with it.