Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… August, 2020 July, 2020 June, 2020 May, 2020 April, 2020 March, 2020 February, 2020 January, 2020 December, 2019 November, 2019 October, 2019 September, 2019

Barack Obama could invoke a provision that allows the president to make a written request for any taxpayer's returns. | AP Photo White House: Obama 'rather unlikely' to order release of Trump tax returns

President Barack Obama is publicly pressing Donald Trump to release his tax returns, but the president probably won't use his own authority to make those returns public, a White House spokesman said.

"I’ve not heard of this potential option. I think it is rather unlikely that the president would order something like that," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday when asked by POLITICO whether Obama would invoke a provision in the Internal Revenue Code that allows the president to make a written request for any taxpayer's returns.

While campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Obama took shots at Trump for not making his returns public. The GOP presidential hopeful has said he can't do that because he's being audited, but experts say there's no legal restriction on Trump putting out his returns, as Clinton has.

"America has got a lot of businessmen and women who succeeded without hiding their tax returns, or leaving a trail of lawsuits, or workers who didn’t get paid, people feeling like they got cheated," Obama said at the Clinton rally. "You've got one candidate in this race who has released decades-worth of her tax returns. The other candidate is the first in decades who refuses to release any at all."

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides: "Upon written request by the President, signed by him personally, the [Treasury] Secretary shall furnish to the President, or to such employee or employees of the White House Office as the President may designate by name in such request, a return or return information with respect to any taxpayer named in such request."

Another passage in the law says returns obtained that way should not be further disclosed "without personal written direction of the President," suggesting that with such an instruction the returns could be made public by the government.

Speaking at a daily briefing for reporters, Earnest said he was unfamiliar with that aspect of the law, but that Obama would be loath to take any act that appears to politicize the Internal Revenue Service.

"Certainly, one thing that is important and certainly something that has been prioritized in this administration is making sure that the work of the IRS is not affected with even the appearance of political influence and in this regard, obviously, the president has made clear that he’s a strong supporter of Secretary Clinton in the presidential race," the press secretary added.

Still, insisting that Trump's tax returns should be made public, while failing to take available steps to disclose them, could open Obama to claims that he's scoring political points but isn't truly committed to getting the information on Trump's finances into voters' hands.

"The president believes that there’s an important tradition in American politics: [for] four decades, candidates in both parties, in the spirit of transparency have released their tax returns. I know Secretary Clinton has done that. The president believes that’s important," Earnest said.

But the press secretary added later that Trump's refusal to make his returns public is something that voters should take note of, even if they never get to see Trump's taxes.

"No other presidential nominee in either party has even been compelled to release their tax returns. They’ve all done so voluntarily. There’s been no reason to resort to obscure sections of the tax code to try to find a reason to force him to release these tax returns," Earnest said. "Candidates for at least a generation now again in both parties have voluntarily released these tax returns and made them public. And the president....I think made the point yesterday, the fact there is one nominee who won't voluntarily make them public, I think is something the American people should consider as they evaluate their choices for president of the United States."

A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In May, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Rep. Anna Eshoo of California and other Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would require major party presidential nominees to file copies of their three most recent annual federal tax returns with the Federal Election Commission, which would then make those returns public.

Under the bill, if a candidate were to fail to make the disclosure, the FEC could get the returns directly from the Treasury Department. There's been no action on the measure in either chamber.