Sen. John Kennedy John Neely KennedyMORE (R-La.) on Friday mocked Rep. Richard Neal Richard Edmund NealRep. Bill Pascrell named chair of House oversight panel Rep. Cedric Richmond set to join House Ways and Means Committee Coons beats back progressive Senate primary challenger in Delaware MORE (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, for asking that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hand over six years of President Trump’s tax returns, saying the request is clearly political.

“Chairman Neal, powerful man, head of Ways and Means, I know he’s an adult, but I don’t think he’s like a real adult. He says that he needs Trump’s tax returns, he says it’s policy not politics. He has said … that the reason he needs them is that he needs to determine how well the IRS is auditing taxpayers. I can’t believe he really thinks the American people are going to fall for that. It must really suck to be that dumb,” Kennedy said on CNN Friday.

“This is very simple. Mr. Neal wants to screw with the president. He doesn’t think the president ought to be president,” he added.

“Now Mr. Neal is not in good faith. Nobody believes he’s in good faith. This is wildly dishonest. This is thoroughly in bad faith, and I don’t blame the president for pushing back,” he said.

"It must really suck to be that dumb."



GOP Sen. John Kennedy blasts House Ways & Means Chair Rep. Richard Neal for requesting six years of Trump's taxes. "[I] don't mean any disrespect, but he's not fooling anybody. He just wants to get these taxes to screw with the President." pic.twitter.com/hSk3Seo9eD — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 5, 2019

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Neal first made the formal request Wednesday, seeking the president’s tax returns from 2013-2018. Trump’s finances have been a focus for congressional Democrats ever since he refused to release his tax returns in 2016, becoming the first major party presidential nominee in decades not to offer tax filings to the public.

Trump has said he is under an audit, but the IRS says audits do not prevent people from releasing information about their taxes.

Trump has signaled that he intends to fight the request, with one of his personal lawyers saying Friday that Democrats don’t have the legal authority to request the tax returns and that the IRS should not provide the documents to Neal before it receives an opinion for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

"Caution and deliberation are essential to ensure that the Treasury Department does not erode the constitutional separation of powers or the Tax Code’s 'core purpose of protecting taxpayer privacy,' ... — protections that safeguard not just the President, but all Americans," William Consovoy said in a letter to the Treasury Department's general counsel.

The president asserted Friday “the law is 100 percent on my side.”