Rep. Kevin Brady added that he thinks John Koskinen, shouldn’t continue as the country’s top tax collector. | AP Photo Ways and Means' Brady blasts effort to release Trump tax returns

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) on Monday blasted a Democrat’s proposal to use the committee’s ability to access tax records in order to release President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Brady said that the proposal from Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) “misrepresents the legislative intent of that provision, which in fact creates confidentiality and privacy for Americans in their tax returns.”


“My belief is that if Congress begins to use its powers to rummage around in the tax returns of the president, what prevents Congress from doing the same to average Americans?” Brady added to reporters.

Pascrell, also a senior Ways and Means member, has proposed that Brady ask the Treasury Department for 10 years’ worth of Trump’s tax returns, a power granted to the Ways and Means chairman by the Internal Revenue Code. The committee could then vote to send the returns to the full House, in effect making them public.

The Ways and Means Committee did publicly release taxpayer information in 2014, as part of its investigations into the agency’s improper scrutiny of tea party groups.

But Brady said that situation, in which the committee referred former IRS official Lois Lerner to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, wasn’t comparable to Pascrell’s request on Trump.

Brady added that he thinks John Koskinen, who he called “the most corrupt IRS commissioner that I’ve ever dealt with,” shouldn’t continue as the country’s top tax collector.

“Until he’s removed, I don’t think the IRS will ever regain its credibility,” Brady said.