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House Chairwoman Nancy Pelosi: "The American People Deserve To Know The Facts"
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JIM LO SCALZO / EPA
The US Department of Justice has ordered the tax authorities to submit ex-President Donald Trump's tax records to a House Committee.
Under Trump's government, the Treasury Department had refused to hand over the documents.
Now President Joe Biden's Justice Department has declared that Parliament has a “compelling interest” in clarifying whether the President has accepted improper funds from abroad or has been influenced by foreign nations or perhaps “personal economic entanglements”.
The Ministry of Finance must instruct the tax authority IRS to hand over the confidential documents to the Finance and Tax Committee, it said in the Ministry's decision on Friday.
Contrary to political conventions in the USA, the real estate entrepreneur Trump had not made his tax return public either as a candidate or later as president. He resisted a surrender up to the Supreme Court. A prosecutor's office in New York has since received the documents, but no details were allowed to be made public - unless there was a trial. Handing it over to Congress is probably more delicate for Trump: There, the group of those authorized to access is somewhat larger and, under certain conditions, individual details could be published in the course of the committee's investigation. In addition, confidential information is constantly being leaked out of Parliament.
The chairwoman of the House of Representatives, the Democrat Nancy Pelosi, immediately welcomed the decision as a "victory for the rule of law."
Access to the Republican's tax records is a national security issue, she wrote on Twitter.
"The American people deserve to know the facts about their conflicts of interest and how they undermine our security as president," Pelosi said.
mjm / dpa