U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions today in a troika of cases involving Donald Trump’s tax returns: Trump v. Mazars (involving the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s subpoena of Trump business records from an accounting firm), Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG (dealing with subpoenas issued by the House Committee on Financial Services and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain Trump financial records from his longtime bank), and Trump v. Vance, (regarding the constitutionality of a grand-jury subpoena of Trump’s tax returns as part of a state criminal probe).

“As the leader of the fight in Congress to get Trump’s business and personal tax returns since February 2017, today’s rulings are profoundly disappointing. The Court has shown that the President doesn’t stand above all laws and accountability. Yet by allowing Donald Trump to run out the clock on Congress’s vital inquiries and allow his charade of delays to continue, the justices have failed to provide the resounding statement against Trump’s abuses this moment demands,” said Rep. Pascrell. “Since 2017, the Trump government has moved heaven and earth to defy the law and the will of Congress in shielding Trump from accountability. It has been a painfully winding road. I’ve said it before and I’ll say again that we should never have reached this moment. Trump’s tax returns should have been disclosed years ago. They have remained hidden from light through an unprecedented level of obstruction and outright corruption in Trump’s regime. These are not close cases. But the Court has today given the imperial executive yet more leeway to defy congressional oversight and further erode our already-fragile system of checks and balances. That is the long-term impact of these poor decisions.

“The pursuit of Trump’s tax returns has never been about one man but the very nature of our constitutional system. The United States is a democracy, not a monarchy, and if the government can be marshalled in the protection of the executive against all law and transparency, America will not long survive. The Supreme Court has failed the American people, but these decisions are not the end. The lower courts should move full steam ahead and expeditiously authorize Congress’s oversight of Trump’s tax returns. The Ways and Means Committee’s work to provide scrutiny of a corrupt executive under 26 U.S.C. §6103(f) will not stop. Even with an election approaching, we cannot – we must not – let up until there is complete sunlight on Donald Trump’s crimes.”

Rep. Pascrell has been the most vocal proponent of the Congress reviewing President Trump’s tax returns. 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. In March, Pascrell had a fiery exchange with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s illegal refusal to provide Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.