President Donald Trump may have just lost an important battle in his fight to keep his tax documents under wraps.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law on Monday that will allow Democratic lawmakers in Washington access to the president's highly sought after state tax returns.
The law — titled the TRUST Act — requires New York's commissioner of taxation to cooperate with investigations into elected officials by Congressional tax writing committees, which include the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
"Tax secrecy is paramount — the exception being for bonafide investigative and law enforcement purposes," Cuomo said in a statement. "This bill gives Congress the ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities, strengthen our democratic system and ensure that no one is above the law."
Under the law, New York will only be able to fulfill requests from Congress for Trump's state filings, which would, nonetheless, provide federal lawmakers and the public with significant insight into the New York real estate developer's financial holdings.
The bill was passed by the New York State Senate and Assembly in May.
"This is a momentous step in upholding the principle that top elected officials have a responsibility to be more transparent and accountable," State Assemblyman David Buchwald, who co-sponsored the legislation, said on Twitter. "It's a great day for transparency in government."
Breaking with a long standing norm, Trump first refused to release his taxes during the 2016 election, claiming he was under audit and then alleging that his taxes were not of concern to the American people. The White House has since bucked several attempts from congressional Democrats and activist organizations to obtain the president's taxes and examine possible foreign entanglements and fraud.
"For far too long, the Trump administration has attempted to hide Donald Trump's deeply concerning conflicts of interest by illegally blocking the release of his tax returns," Ryan Thomas, the spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said. "But now, New York has provided Congress a new route for getting answers on behalf of the American people—and all they have to do is ask."
Thomas urged Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, to immediately request the New York tax returns, adding that any "delay is an injustice to the American people who deserve transparency about Trump's foreign entanglements and massive conflicts of interest."
Meanwhile the New York Republican party claimed that the TRUST Act is a "brazen overreach" and is "a violation of the privacy rights" for all Americans, which would set a concerning precedent. "Assembly Democrats can warm to this illegal bill of attainder all they want but it will be met with a lawsuit," the Republican state committee added in a tweet in May.
The bill had been amended multiple times since its introduction to broaden its scope over elected official and policial party leaders, as well as to limit its application to average citizens.
The six-week delay from when the bill passed the state legislature to Monday’s signing was due to an extensive review of the legislation conducted by the governor’s office, Dani Lever, Cuomo’s communications director, said in a statement to Cheddar.
"Any responsible government would thoroughly review this bill … especially after this process and given how high the stakes are of this particular legislation," Lever said.
The school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead has reignited the debate over gun control.
The tragedy in Uvalde is the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade and marks the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country. Jared Moskowitz, Broward County Commissioner and candidate for Congress in FL-23, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss why gun control measures are stalled in the Senate, and where legislation can move forward from here.
Police and detectives are still investigating the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two adults. Cheddar News was joined by Kirk Burkhalter, professor at New York Law School and former NYPD detective to gain some insight on what investigators are looking for and what comes next.
Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
Join Cheddar News as we break down the top headlines for Thursday, May 26 including updates on the Texas school shooting, President Joe Biden's executive order on police reform, and a recount in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary.
Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia rebuked words from the FDA commissioner that could have been construed as blaming parents for stockpiling baby formula exacerbating the shortage.
Cheddar News reporter Megan Pratz brings the latest from the scene of yesterday's horrific school shooting at a Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Now the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with 19 children and two adults killed, Pratz goes into comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, details about the deceased shooter, and reactions from members of the community.
The Robb Elementary School mass shooting killing 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas pm Tuesday was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and came just 10 days after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York. Nelson Vergara, the founder and CEO of 360 Protective Solutions, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss. "Right now what law enforcement is concentrating on is trying to trace his steps as to what motivated the gunman to act the way he did. What it boils down to just trying to figure out what led to his motivation to do such a horrific act.”
An recently conducted AP-NORC poll found that majorities of the Black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. still find themselves either somewhat worried or extremely worried over the pandemic, while more than half of white Americans responded with either being not too worried or not worried at all. Dr. Chris Pernell, the chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital, joined Cheddar News to talk about how perceptions of COVID-19 differ between groups of Americans. "We’re still seeing people get infected, and because of the toll of the disproportionate impact, we have concerns among the Black and brown community about whether or not they have an increased risk of exposure because of where they work, because of the use of public transportation, because they live in homes that they may not be able to safely quarantine and or isolate in, and because they have at baseline chronic health conditions that may make coronavirus more severe in those persons," she said.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the EPA and the president of Beyond Plastics, joined Cheddar News to talk about the role of plastics in the climate crisis and California's investigation of ExxonMobil and other oil companies for misleading the public on the ability to recycle plastics. "The reason why petrochemical companies like Exxon have gotten away with selling more and more plastic is that they've lied to the public and told us don't worry about all those negative upstream impacts and downstream impacts of plastics. Just be sure to recycle it. Well, guess what? Plastics largely are not recycled," Enck said.
