[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 129 (Tuesday, July 31, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S5466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



               Presidential Tax Transparency Legislation

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is approaching the end of the 
debate on a significant piece of spending legislation that includes 
funding for the Internal Revenue Service. That is why I have come to 
the floor this morning to discuss one of my amendments to this 
legislation, which is based on a bill that I have authored, entitled 
the Presidential Tax Transparency Act.
  It is long past time for the President's tax returns to be released 
to the American people. This President has, in effect, thrown in the 
trash can a bipartisan, 40-year, pro-transparency tradition in his 
having refused to release his tax returns in the course of the 2016 
election. This had been a tradition accepted by all liberals and 
conservatives across the political spectrum that had dated back to the 
post-Watergate era. The President has ended it for reasons as flimsy as 
you can get--a made-up story about the President's claim that you can't 
release your returns in the course of an audit.
  Yet now it is not just a matter of the President's destroying a four-
decades', good-government campaign tradition. Week after week, month 
after month, there are more questions that swirl about with respect to 
financial ties that might skew the President's decision-making about 
new foreign deals The Trump Organization continues to strike that 
violate the promises the President made to the American people--about 
foreign cash coming into his properties here in the United States; 
about the astronomical amount of cash taxpayers spend to fund the 
President's many visits to Trump-branded properties, essentially 
forcing the American people to finance Trump resort ad campaigns.
  The episode that left more jaws on the floor than perhaps any other 
came a few weeks ago. That is when the President traveled through 
Europe for what should have been routine meetings with our longstanding 
allies. Instead, the President attacked our closest allies and put on a 
performance, while standing next to Vladimir Putin, that few will soon 
forget. With a hostile dictator at his side, the President said that 
the United States was ``foolish,'' and he threw our intelligence 
officials under the bus and refused once again to accept the conclusion 
that Russia interfered with our 2016 election. The cleanup he tried to 
do a few days later, in my view, was laughable at best.
  Following that meeting in Helsinki, people across the Nation were 
left to wonder: Does Vladimir Putin have something on the President? 
Does the President simply prefer dictators and strongmen to 
democratically elected leaders, or does Putin have information or 
financial influence that he is exploiting?
  There was also the mystery of why this administration, which seems to 
stumble from decision to decision, sprang into action to save ZTE--a 
company that is a Chinese serial sanctions violator and a tech company 
that the experts will tell you is a threat to our national security. In 
an open hearing of the Intelligence Committee and in response to my 
question, Mr. Evanina--the new point person for the whole question of 
counterintelligence and counterterror--said that he still regarded ZTE 
as an espionage threat.
  For all of the President's tough talk about enforcing sanctions on 
countries that pose a threat to Americans, letting ZTE off the hook 
after it violated sanctions against Iran and North Korea is just 
baffling. It certainly shows signs of weakness. The timing also raised 
eyebrows, as the ZTE deal came right after the Trump family secured 
valuable trademarks, and a Trump project in Indonesia got a $500 
million loan from a Chinese state-owned company.
  These looming questions are yet another reason the American people 
should not be asked to wait any longer for a chance to see what every 
other President has offered in the last four decades--his tax returns. 
The American people deserve to see those returns and see if some of the 
``almost impossible to explain'' Presidential judgments over the last 
few weeks have been due to what may be in those returns.
  So let's be clear. The financial ties between the President, The 
Trump Organization, and Russia could be well hidden deep within the 
Trump web of business entities. Releasing the tax returns, at least, is 
a start with respect to accountability and transparency in the long-
held tradition Presidents have followed.
  Unfortunately, for the interests of the American people, debate on 
the legislation before us has now been cut off. That means that my 
amendment, which would call for the disclosure of these tax returns and 
transparency and accountability, just as we have seen decade after 
decade, will not get a vote, but I intend to keep calling up this 
legislation for a full debate. I simply believe this issue is too 
important to ignore.
  There is a reason we have had this tradition for four decades. This 
is the lowest ethical bar for a President. It is not a high one. It is 
the lowest ethical bar, and it is not being followed. Members on both 
sides ought to be interested in protecting good-government, pro-
transparency traditions that stretch back decades.
  What a lot of people have wondered is, why is legislation necessary 
here? I had held off for months in 2016 even talking about requiring 
this by legislation. I had just hoped that then-Candidate Trump would 
have done voluntarily what everybody else had done for four decades. 
When it was clear he wouldn't, I had said I didn't know of any other 
path to get the transparency and accountability the American people 
deserve other than through legislation like this.
  Nobody in Congress ought to be in favor of keeping the American 
people in the dark about what is motivating the President's decision, 
and certainly all of us ought to be concerned about protecting against 
corruption. Helping Russia undermine NATO and letting sanctions 
violators--repeat sanctions violators--off the hook puts American 
interests in danger.
  The public has a right to know the truth of what is behind those 
decisions. Certainly, a part of being able to make those judgments is 
having the chance--the opportunity--as we have seen for four decades, 
to see the President's tax returns.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.