On Thursday, CNN reported that Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have released documents that prove one of President Donald Trump’s key reasons for refusing to produce his tax returns is a lie.

“The House Ways and Means Committee has just released new documents from their archives that show congressional committees have previously relied upon this weird little arcane part of the U.S. tax code to obtain a president’s tax records,” said CNN reported Kara Scannell. “This is a big development, because Donald Trump has said that it had been unprecedented for Congress to use this provision of the tax code to obtain a president’s record.”

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“What the committee has just released are these documents that date back to the 1970s,” said Scannell. “That’s when the Joint Committee on Taxation used it to obtain some of Richard Nixon’s tax returns. In this instance, Nixon had agreed to voluntarily turn over some of his tax returns, as they were reviewing how he was treating certain charitable deductions, but the committee needed more information. And they went to the IRS and successfully obtained it. Now, this is because of this fight that is going on between the House Ways and Means Committee and the president to obtain his tax returns.”

“This is viewed by Democrats as a very strong piece of precedence they can use as they have this legal fight that’s in court to obtain the president’s tax records,” said Scannell.

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