This afternoon, the House Ways and Means Committee will vote whether to focus a laser deep into the Malignant Loser's bloated but fragile ego:
The House Ways and Means Committee will meet Tuesday to discuss former President Donald Trump’s tax returns and weigh whether to release the information to the public, the end to a years-long effort from Democrats to learn more about Trump’s financial background.
The highly anticipated meeting is years in the making but comes as Democrats have just days to act on whether to release the former president’s tax returns. While there is historic precedent for Ways and Means to release confidential tax information, a decision to put it out to the public would come with intense political fallout as Trump has already declared he is running for president in 2024.
The committee has had access to Trump’s taxes for weeks after winning a lengthy legal battle that began in the spring of 2019. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal requested the first six years of Trump’s taxes as well as tax returns for eight of his businesses back in April of 2019.
It could be a BFD, certainly for what remains of the Malignant Loser's "successful business man" aura:
While The New York Times obtained decades of Trump’s personal tax information back in 2020, Neal’s request could shed light on additional years of Trump’s finances and paint a picture of how the former president used his business entities and personal wealth in the years before and after becoming president.
Trump broke with tradition in 2016 by refusing to release any of his personal tax returns.
Democrats have long argued that Trump’s taxes could provide necessary information about whether the president had any entanglements that could impact his decision making as president. [snip]
If the committee did vote to make the information public, it could shed light on how wealthy Trump really is, how much he gave to charity and how much he paid in taxes. The New York Times report in 2020 made clear that Trump carried over business losses for years to legally be able to avoid paying taxes for many of those years, but Ways and Means will have access to some additional years of Trump taxes as well.
Spoiler alert: if the tax information is made public (and we think it will be), it will reveal the Malignant Loser to be a world-class tax cheat who at the same time grossly inflated his personal wealth, not just for his ego, but to get favorable terms from lending institutions. Basically, what we already knew and what's been reported all along. Having the Committee release the actual returns, though, will forever mark the Malignant Loser as the cheap grifter and fraud he's always been (though for the MAGA cult, it'll be blahblahblah).
UPDATE: It's happening --
The Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to publicly release a report on Donald Trump’s tax returns, which the former president has long tried to shield.
Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said supporting materials will be released along with the report. Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the committee’s top Republican, raised concerns about privacy as the documents could contain information such as Social Security numbers.
The report could provide a fuller look into Trump’s personal and business finances, possibly revealing how much money he paid in taxes, what income he derived from foreign operations and whether his income was as large as the reputed multibillionaire has suggested.
If there's such a thing as "in the public interest," this is it.
