Ever since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the White House in 2015, demands have been constant that he publicly release his federal income tax returns and other relevant data.
Since the resignations in disgrace of President Richard Nixon and of Vice President Spiro Agnew in the early 1970s, all serious presidential aspirants have complied with this expectation. But with an aversion that seems embedded in cement, Trump has resisted all such entreaties, claiming as an excuse that his tax returns are under audit and ineligible for release. This is at least partially untrue and wholly irrelevant.
In the early 1920s, the administration of Republican President Warren G. Harding was devastated by the Teapot Dome debacle, perhaps the worst strictly financial scandal in American history. Licenses for petroleum extraction on federal lands had been issued corruptly, and the exposure of this graft and of other criminal misdeeds resulted in the first ever imprisonment of a cabinet officer, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, and at least one suicide.
Having traveled by train from Seattle to Portland just days before, Harding himself died suddenly at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on August 2, 1923. No autopsy was allowed and the exact cause of the president’s death remains a mystery. But the stress and despondency caused by the imminent revelation of scandal certainly were factors.
As a result of Teapot Dome, Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1924, which authorized congressional examination of tax records and, in rare circumstances, their public release. No individual, not even the president, is exempt from this law, and no congressional request for such data has been denied by the IRS, at least until recently.
But Trump and his minions are refusing all such cooperation, the law be damned. The matter now lies with the judiciary, and likely will be decided by the Supreme Court. If precedent is any guide, Trump has no valid case and is just killing time.
But why is Trump so averse to the release of his financial data when such predecessors as Ronald Reagan,Bill Clinton, the Bushes and Barack Obama were not? The answer may lie in the bitter remarks of formerTrump assistant and campaign official Steve Bannon: “This is where it isn’t a witch hunt — even for the hard-core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy. Not the billionaire he said he was,just another scumbag.”
The ferocity of these words is accentuated by the fact that Bannon once worked for Trump and was a close friend.
Donald Trump has paid a huge political price for his refusal to release his financial records. Logically, he would not pay this price unless he were hiding something even more damaging. The public has a right to know.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
