President Trump earlier this year asked Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, to prioritize a confirmation vote for his nominee to be the chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, indicating that it was a higher priority than voting on the nomination of William P. Barr as attorney general, a person familiar with the conversation said. White House aides insisted for months that the confirmation of the nominee, Michael J. Desmond, a tax lawyer from Santa Barbara, Calif., was a top priority after passage of the tax bill in 2017. But the request by Mr. Trump, made to Mr. McConnell on Feb. 5, raised questions about whether the president had other motivations. For months, the president has seethed over vows by congressional Democrats that they would move to obtain his tax returns from the I.R.S. And this week, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, formally asked the I.R.S. for six years of the returns, using an obscure provision in the tax code to do so. On Thursday, asked if he would direct the I.R.S. not to disclose his tax returns, Mr. Trump said Democrats would have to talk to his lawyers.<doc-sep>President Donald Trump wanted to fast-track the IRS chief counsel's nomination through the Senate, according to a New York Times report published Thursday. Trump reportedly broached the topic regarding his IRS pick, Michael Desmond, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on February 5. Desmond, a former tax attorney at the Justice Department and Treasury Department, was confirmed three weeks later. Desmond briefly advised the Trump Organization sometime between 2008 and 2011, according to a Bloomberg report published last year. The Times' reporting comes as Democrats seek to obtain Trump's tax returns. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. President Donald Trump wanted to fast-track the IRS chief counsel's nomination through the Senate and suggested it was more important than Attorney General William Barr's nomination, a source with knowledge of the conversation said in a New York Times report published on Thursday. Trump reportedly broached the topic regarding his IRS pick, Michael Desmond, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on February 5, according to The Times. Trump told McConnell that Desmond was aggravated by the prolonged process and had even considered withdrawing from consideration, The Times' source said. Desmond, a former tax attorney at the Justice Department and Treasury Department, was confirmed three weeks later. Desmond briefly advised the Trump Organization sometime between 2008 and 2011, according to a Bloomberg report published last year. A spokesman for Desmond reportedly said in a statement that Desmond's work involved a "discrete reporting matter for a subsidiary company that was resolved with no tax impact." Michael Desmond. C-SPAN Read more: Democratic lawmaker asks IRS for 6 years of Trump's tax returns The Times' report comes as Democrats seek to obtain Trump's tax returns. Democrats have long called for the tax returns to investigate potential conflicts of interests or financial wrongdoing. Democratic Rep. Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, on Wednesday cited an obscure "committee access" tax provision in his request that the IRS release six years' worth of Trump's tax returns. The tax provision, which was created in 1924 and was last invoked in the 1970s, allows the finance committees to request tax returns from individual filers. "We have completed the necessary groundwork for a request of this magnitude and I am certain we are within our legitimate legislative, legal, and oversight rights," Neal said in a statement. "My actions reflect an abiding reverence for our democracy and our institutions, and are in no way based on emotion of the moment or partisanship," Neal said. Republicans criticized the request, calling it "an abuse of the tax-writing committees' statutory authority." "Weaponizing our nation's tax code by targeting political foes sets a dangerous precedent and weakens Americans' privacy rights," Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas reportedly said in a letter. "As you know, by law all Americans have a fundamental right to the privacy of the personal information found in their tax returns." Trump became the first president in decades not to release his tax returns before his election. On Wednesday, Trump repeated his longstanding claim that the IRS is auditing his returns, citing that as the reason why he hasn't released them. He referred any tax-related inquiries to his attorneys and the attorney general. "We're under audit, despite what people said," Trump told reporters. "We're working that out. I'm always under audit, it seems. But I've been under audit because the numbers are big. And I guess when you have a name, you're audited." It is unclear if Trump is currently being audited. There is no law that prohibits a tax filer from releasing his tax returns during an IRS audit.<doc-sep>The attorney representing President Trump in the battle over his tax returns says the IRS shouldn't divulge anything to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal until Justice Department lawyers issue a formal legal opinion on the constitutionality of the matter. Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked the IRS on Wednesday to give over six years' worth of Mr. Trump's tax returns to the committee. But in a letter to Treasury Department General Counsel Brent McIntosh on Friday, Trump attorney Will Consovoy said he doubted the constitutionality of Neal's request, and warned about the "dangerous precedent" it could set. But perhaps the most significant lines come in the final paragraph of the four-page letter, when Consovoy asked the IRS to let the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel get involved. "Finally, given the unprecedented nature of Chairman Neal's request, the IRS should refrain from divulging the requested information until it receives a formal legal opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel," Consovoy wrote in the letter, which was obtained by CBS News. Consovoy argues in his letter that Neal's request "flouts" the "fundamental constitutional constraints" protecting privacy and First Amendment rights. "While the committee has jurisdiction over taxes, it has no power to conduct its own examination of individual taxpayers," Consovoy wrote. "Even if Ways and Means had a legitimate committee purpose for requesting the president's tax return and return information, that purpose is not driving Chairman Neal's request. His request is a transparent effort by one political party to harass an official from the other party because they dislike his politics and speech," Consovoy added. Consovoy expressed further concerns about how granting such a request could pave the way for more such requests. "As Secretary Mnuchin recently told Congress, he is 'not aware that there has ever been a request for an elected official's tax returns.' For good reason. It would be a gross abuse of power for the majority party to use tax returns as a weapon to attack, harass, and intimidate their political opponents. Once this Pandora's box is opened, the ensuing tit-for-tat will do lasting damage to our nation." Mr. Trump, asked about whether he will urge the Treasury Department not to comply with the request, said Neal will have to speak with both his lawyers and Attorney General William Barr. "They'll speak to my lawyers. They'll speak to the attorney general," Mr. Trump told reporters Thursday. Cosovoy is also representing Mr. Trump in a separate emoluments case involving allegations that Mr. Trump is personally and illegally profiting from foreign entities.<doc-sep>
President Trump personally lobbied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to prioritize the confirmation of his nominated Internal Revenue Service chief counsel on Feb. 5, about the time House Democrats started talking seriously about telling the IRS to turn over Trump's tax returns, The New York Times reports. On Feb. 27, the Senate confirmed the nominee, California tax lawyer Michael Desmond, and now Desmond will be advising the IRS on how to respond to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal's (D-Mass.) request for six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns. As a private tax lawyer, Desmond had briefly advised the Trump Organization on what a spokesman called a "discrete" IRS reporting matter before Trump took office, Bloomberg reported last July, and he worked alongside two current tax counsels to the Trump Organization, Sheri Dillon and William Nelson. Trump's IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, meanwhile, owns 50 percent shares of two one-bedroom residential rental units in the Waikiki Trump International Hotel and Tower in Hawaii, each worth $1.1 million, The Wall Street Journal reported last June, before Rettig's confirmation hearing. And as ProPublica and WNYC noted in October, Rettig — then a California tax attorney — argued in Forbes in February 2016 that Trump shouldn't release his tax returns, four days after Trump unveiled his dubious "I'm under audit" excuse for keeping his returns secret. Trump has indicated he will fight the release of his returns to Neal's committee, but the 1924 law Neal cited "does not appear to give the White House any input into whether the IRS furnishes an individual's tax returns" and "does not appear to give the treasury secretary any legal mechanism to deny the request," The Washington Post reports. "In fact, the law was written in part to give Congress the ability to scrutinize the tax returns of executive branch officials to investigate conflicts of interest or other potential improprieties because of the Teapot Dome scandal in the early 1920s."