Donald Trump's tax returns reveal he was a bigger national security risk than previously understood.
The House Ways and Means Committee published six years of the former president's tax records following a years-long court battle to obtain them, and former White House ethics czar Richard Painter published a new column for MSNBC explaining the risk Trump posed to the United States.
"Trump’s tax returns would have given us a lot more information than we had at the time about his business dealings with foreign nations, including foreign governments," Painter wrote. "The drafters of our Constitution were well aware of the threat of foreign influence over U.S. office holders when they wrote the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits anyone holding a position of trust with the United States government from receiving any emoluments — i.e. profits and benefits — from any foreign state."
The tax returns reveal Trump had bank accounts during his presidency in China and conducted business during that same period in nearly two dozen countries, including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which Painter said should have been known to Congress right away for possible investigation.
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"Given Trump’s many business connections to China, and allegations that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win re-election, it would be perfectly reasonable for Congress to want to look into this account," Painter wrote. "All of this shows that our country took an enormous national security risk not seeing Trump’s tax returns from the beginning of his presidency. It was then that Congress should have asked and Trump answered relevant questions about his business dealings in foreign countries that could violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, endanger U.S. national security or both."
