Democrats will have to fight a long time before they obtain President Donald Trump's tax returns, but they "will prevail," Rep. Dan Kildee said Friday.
"The president has made it clear he doesn't want to follow the requirement that they deliver the tax returns to the Ways and Means Committee on request, the Michigan Democrat and chief deputy whip told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Ultimately I think we will prevail because the law is so clear and it not up to the administration or some lawyer that he hires to determine a legitimate legislative purpose. We get to determine what is a legitimate legislative purpose under the constitution."
But it's a "completely separate question" about whether the returns can be ever made public, he added.
"We have some specific questions about whether the president is being subjected to the laws of the United States or whether somehow the IRS is being influenced in that regard and we may address that legislatively," said Kildee.
The law is often used to inform Congress on specific questions, he added, but it's unusual to have to use it to gain access to a president or candidate's tax records.
Kildee also discussed the ongoing water situation in Flint, Mich., commenting that the water is getting better and within federal regulations, but people in the community still don't trust it because of the promises they'd heard from the government.
"This is a real warning for the rest of the country because at the core, Flint was not just about water," said Kildee. "This was about when we allow our systems to become so atrophied, so compromised that they are one misjudgment away from going through what Flint has gone through."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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