Trump challenges Justice Dept order on long-sought tax returns

The department had ordered the IRS to give Trump’s tax returns to a House of Representatives committee.

Former United States President Donald Trump has lodged a legal challenge to a Justice Department (DOJ) order that his long-sought tax returns be turned over to a House of Representatives committee. In a filing in federal court in the District of Columbia on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers said the House Ways and Means Committee lacks a legitimate basis for seeking his federal tax returns, and that the Justice Department erred when it backed the committee’s request. The DOJ, reversing course from the stance it took when Trump was in office, on Friday told the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide the Republican businessman-turned-politician’s tax records to congressional investigators, saying they had “sufficient reasons” for requesting the material.