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After a long and arduous court fight, House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-MA) got an early Christmas present yesterday: 6 years' worth of Donald Trump's tax returns. The former president used up all of his appeals, and now whatever secrets he was hiding will be known to the members of the Ways and Means Committee.
Exactly what happens next is... something of a mystery. When speaking to reporters yesterday, Neal refused to say whether he'd yet seen the returns, or whether he was planning to release any of them. He explained that the first step is for him to meet with his colleagues to discuss the situation. Whatever Neal is going to do, he'll have to do it pretty quickly, since he won't be chairing Ways and Means after Jan. 3, and the new Republican leadership is not terribly likely to be interested in investigating Trump.
The 1924 law that Neal used to acquire the returns also allows the chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, currently Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to have them. So, one option for Neal would be to hand over his prize to the Senator, who would then have 2 years to work with them, as opposed to 4 weeks. We'll see what Neal decides, and whether a copy of the returns somehow finds its way into the hands of Maggie Haberman at The New York Times. (Z)