Today, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, reacted to a letter sent this afternoon by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA-01) again refusing Neal’s request for Donald Trump’s tax returns, pursuant to his clear power under 26 U.S. Code § 6103(f).

“Secretary Mnuchin is again choosing to violate the law to keep Trump’s records hidden away. This administration’s contempt for rule of law is without peer. While the Chairman made a standard request to the IRS, the Treasury Secretary is inserting himself and the Barr Justice Department to bodyguard the President from reasonable oversight. I stand behind Chairman Neal as he continues the crusade to impose plain oversight on this corrupt administration.”

As the Treasury Secretary’s letter notes at several points, Rep. Pascrell has been Congress’s most vocal proponent of releasing President Trump’s tax returns in order to reveal any potential conflicts of interest. Since February 2017, Pascrell has led the call for the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means to invoke Section 6103 of the tax code to obtain Trump’s tax returns. In the 115th Congress, Republicans voted 18 times to block Democratic resolutions seeking the tax returns.