Letitia James, the New York attorney general, also has years of tax returns, and has brought a civil case based largely on them. First, the updated House request to the Treasury Department in 2021 calls for more recent tax returns, this time for tax years 2015-2020. Tax returns in the hands of a congressional committee are not the same as tax returns in the hands of a prosecutor. Government prosecutors can obtain, but not disclose, the contents of tax returns — unless, that is, it becomes necessary to introduce relevant portions of the returns into evidence. After evidence came to light that President Richard Nixon had used taxpayer information to target political opponents, legislation was enacted in 1976 that severely restricted a president’s ability to disclose taxpayer information.

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