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Pres. Trump says he “might” turn over his “financial statement” to Congress.



“I hope they get it, because it’s a fantastic financial statement,” he tells @GStephanopoulos in the Oval Office. https://t.co/8q0FwFD9qt pic.twitter.com/fw1tIc0vxO — ABC News (@ABC) June 17, 2019

As an aside to Stephanopoulos, Trump said: “I don’t like that, you know. I don’t like that.” The ABC anchor and chief political correspondent laughed, remarking, “Your chief of staff.”

The president asked if the ABC team wanted to do the shot over, and then went back to discussing his financial statements, maintaining that he would like to make them available to the public. Pressed by Stephanopoulos, who noted, “It’s up to you,” Trump claimed: “No, it’s not up to me. It’s up to lawyers; it’s up to everything else.”

Trump has explained his decision to withhold his tax returns by asserting without evidence that they are under audit and claiming that the public isn’t interested in them. His move had broken with the custom of every president since Jimmy Carter. It also appears to go against the findings of the IRS, which indicated in a memo last month that only the rare invocation of executive privilege can thwart a congressional subpoena for the tax information.

Last week, the Justice Department weighed in, unveiling its rationale for backing the decision of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to refuse to relinquish the documents to Congress. The 33-page memo from the law enforcement agency argued that House Democrats were intent on making the records public, which served no “legitimate legislative purpose” — the administration’s catchall answer to congressional requests.

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The fight over Trump’s financial records is just one front in the deepening battle between Congress and the White House over secrecy and oversight – a battle that has infected relations between the two branches.