Democrats need to 'intensify' demand for Trump's taxes: columnist

On Monday, Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent warned that Democrats need to intensify their demand for President Donald Trump's tax returns.

Sargent explained that with the release of Attorney General Bill Barr's summary of special counsel Robert Muellers' report that now is the time for Democrats to continue putting pressure on Trump to release his tax returns.

Trump claimed that Barr's summary granted him “total exoneration.”

"Democrats should, if anything, be intensifying their effort to access Trump’s tax returns right now, not dragging their feet on it," Sargent wrote.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] has delegated the job of getting at Trump’s tax returns to Rep. Richard E. Neal [D-Mass] the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Under the law, the committee can request any individual’s tax returns, after which the Treasury Department 'shall' furnish them," the column said.

He explained that Neal is not acting with a sense of urgency to demand Trump's tax returns. He noted that there is no precedent for how to go about it because previous presidents released them voluntarily.

He wrote, "Notably, the memo points out that while there is no precedent for seeking a president’s tax returns under this particular provision of the law, it’s because, for decades, presidents and presidential candidates voluntarily released them."

Sargent added, "Here’s the thing. The urgency of all these matters should not in any way be seen as diminished by the conclusion of the Mueller investigation. That’s because, even if no criminal charges were brought for conspiracy with Russia, the Mueller inquiry and its spinoffs have nonetheless added substantially to the broader case against Trump’s corruption."

Read the full column here.