President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued to block a U.S. House of Representatives committee from obtaining his New York state tax returns, with his lawyer accusing the Democratic-controlled panel of “presidential harassment.”
In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Trump’s lawyers argued that a law passed by New York state earlier this month that would give the House Ways and Means Committee access to the president’s state tax returns violates his constitutional rights.
New York’s law “was enacted to retaliate against the President because of his policy positions, his political beliefs, and his protected speech, including the positions he took during the 2016 campaign,” the filing said.
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It cited a media report that the House panel’s chairman, Democratic Representative Richard Neal, is mulling making a request under the law, which New York could nearly instantaneously fulfill. “President Trump was thus forced to bring this lawsuit to safeguard his legal rights,” his lawyers wrote.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement she was confident the state’s law was legal. “We will vigorously defend it against any court challenge,” she said.
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A lawyer for Trump, Jay Sekulow, called the effort to obtain Trump’s state tax returns “presidential harassment” and accused the House committee and New York state officials of seeking “political retribution” against Trump.
Reuters contributed to this report.
