A federal judge threw out a lawsuit from President Donald Trump to prevent Congress from using a recently-passed New York law to obtain his state tax returns, NBC News reports.
DC District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, dismissed Trump’s suit, ruling that the president could not sue New York officials in DC. He can still file the lawsuit in New York.
Nichols also found that Trump did not sufficiently establish a conspiracy between Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee and New York officials after his suit argued that the Washington court had jurisdiction because New York officials were “co-conspirators” with Washington Democrats.
"Based on the current allegations, Mr. Trump has not met his burden of establishing personal jurisdiction over either of the New York Defendants," Nichols wrote. "The Court therefore need not reach the question of proper venue. Accordingly, the New York Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is granted, and Mr. Trump’s Amended Complaint is dismissed without prejudice as to them."
"Nowhere in his Amended Complaint does Mr. Trump allege the existence of a conspiracy; in fact, the word 'conspiracy' does not even appear in his pleadings," he added.
Trump’s suit was in response to nonexistent issue:
Trump filed the suit to preemptively block the House Ways and Means Committee from requesting the returns from New York state officials and to block New York officials from turning them over despite the new law.
But the House Ways and Means Committee has not requested the returns, and doesn’t seem eager to.
Committee chairman Richard Neal is involved in his own lawsuit after requesting Trump’s federal tax returns from the Treasury Department, citing a federal law that requires the department to hand over "any return or return information" by a chairman of a congressional tax committee.
Neal said in June that using the New York law would harm his case.
Dems vow to move forward on Trump tax returns:
"The dismissal of the President’s frivolous lawsuit against the New York TRUST Act moves us closer to finding what it is he has fought so hard to hide from the public," Democratic New York Assemblyman David Buchwald told NBC News. Buchwald sponsored the TRUST Act.
The act “was signed into law in July and allows the chairmen of three congressional tax-related committees — the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee and Joint Committee on Taxation — to request the state returns of public officials only after efforts to gain access to federal tax filings through the Treasury Department have failed,” NBC reported.
"We have never doubted that this law was legal, which is why we vigorously defended it from the start and will continue to do so," said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
