[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9201-9202]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   NOTICE OF INTENTION TO OFFER RESOLUTION RAISING A QUESTION OF THE 
                        PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I 
rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges 
of the House.
  The form of the resolution is as follows:
  Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the 
President shall immediately disclose his tax return information to the 
House of Representatives and the American people.
  Whereas, President Nixon explained that ``People have got to know 
whether or not their President is a crook'' when he invited the Joint 
Committee on Taxation to audit his returns after the Internal Revenue 
Service gave him an unwarranted tax discount;
  Whereas, according to the Tax History Project, every President since 
Gerald Ford has disclosed his tax return information to the public;
  Whereas, the Chairmen of the Committee on Ways and Means, Joint 
Committee on Taxation, and the Committee on Finance have the authority 
to request the President's tax returns under section 6103 of the 
Internal Revenue Code of 1986;
  Whereas, pursuant to Article I, section 7, clause 1 of the 
Constitution, often referred to as the Origination Clause, the House of 
Representatives has the sole authority to initiate legislation that 
raises revenue for the national government, and the Committee on Ways 
and Means is considering a comprehensive reform of the Tax Code;
  Whereas, according to media reports analyzing President Trump's 
leaked 2005 tax return, we know that had his own tax plan been in 
place, he would have paid an estimated mere 3.48 percent rate instead 
of a 24 percent rate, saving him $31.3 million;
  Whereas, according to The New York Times, the President used a 
legally dubious tax maneuver in 1995 that could have allowed him to 
avoid paying any Federal taxes for 18 years;
  Whereas, President Trump holds ``interests as the sole or principal 
owner in approximately 500 separate entities,'' according to his 
attorneys, and the President's tax plan proposes to cut the tax rate on 
such ``pass-through'' entities from 39.6 percent to 15 percent;
  Whereas, one analysis estimated that President Trump would personally 
save $6.7 million from two tax breaks included in the Republicans' 
first tax cut, which they misleadingly call the American Health Care 
Act;
  Whereas, without the President's tax returns, the American people 
cannot determine how much he will personally benefit from proposed 
changes to the Tax Code;
  Whereas, an ABCNews/Washington Post poll found that 74 percent of 
Americans would like President Trump to disclose his tax returns and 
the most-signed petition on the White House website calls for the 
release of the President's tax return information to verify compliance 
with the Emoluments Clause, with more than 1,097,000 signatures as of 
date of this resolution;
  Whereas, disclosure of the President's tax returns could help those 
investigating Russian influence in the 2016 election better understand 
the President's financial ties to the Russian Federation, Russian 
businesses, and Russian individuals;
  Whereas, after breaking his pledge to make his tax returns available, 
President Trump instead presented a one-page letter from a law firm 
giving him a clean bill of health on any business dealings with 
Russians, but failed to note that the very same law firm boasted of the 
``prestigious honor'' of being named ``Russia Law Firm of the Year'' 
for 2016;
  Whereas, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, 
before he was fired by President Trump, publicly confirmed that the 
Bureau has been investigating potential ties between President Trump's 
campaign and Russia since July and that the Russian President Vladimir 
Putin favored a Trump electoral victory;
  Whereas, President Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared 
Kushner,

[[Page 9202]]

met during the Presidential transition at the behest of the Russian 
Ambassador with Sergey N. Gorkov, a graduate of a school run by the 
successor to the KGB and who was appointed by Vladimir Putin to head a 
Russian state-owned bank that is on the U.S. sanctions list;
  Whereas, Mr. Kushner proposed establishing a secret back channel of 
communications directly to Vladimir Putin, even considering the use of 
Russian embassy facilities to do so;
  Whereas, Attorney General Jeff Sessions falsely stated during his 
Senate confirmation hearing that he ``did not have communications with 
the Russians,'' when in fact he met at least twice during the campaign 
with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak;
  Whereas, former Director Comey testified before the Senate 
Intelligence Committee that President Trump had asked him in the Oval 
Office about ``letting Flynn go,'' referring to the investigation into 
former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's business ties to 
Russia;
  Whereas, President Trump stated on May 11, 2017, that he had decided 
that he was going to fire Comey because of ``this Russia thing'';
  Whereas, former Director Comey, on June 8, 2017, testified that 
Special Counsel Robert Mueller could investigate whether President 
Trump's actions with regard to Director Comey and the Flynn 
investigation constituted obstruction of justice;
  Whereas, in 2013, President Trump said, ``Well, I've done a lot of 
business with the Russians. They're smart and they're tough,'' and 
President Trump's son, Donald Trump, Jr., told a news outlet in 2008 
that ``Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a 
lot of our assets'';
  Whereas, against the advice of ethics attorneys and the nonpartisan 
Office of Government Ethics, the President has refused to divest his 
ownership stake in his businesses;
  Whereas, the Director of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics 
said that the President's plan to transfer his business holdings to a 
trust managed by family members is ``meaningless'' and ``does not meet 
the standards that . . . every President in the past four decades has 
met'';
  Whereas, the Emoluments Clause was included in the Constitution for 
the express purpose of preventing Federal officials from accepting any 
``present, Emolument, Office, or Title . . . from any King, Prince, or 
foreign state'';
  Whereas, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., has hired 
a ``director of diplomatic sales'' to generate high-priced business 
among foreign leaders and diplomatic delegations;
  Whereas, the Joint Committee on Taxation reviewed the tax returns of 
President Richard Nixon in 1974 and made the information public;
  Whereas, the Committee on Ways and Means used the authority under 
section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in 2014 to make 
public the confidential tax information of 51 taxpayers;
  Whereas, the Committee on Ways and Means has now voted three times 
along party lines to continue to cover-up President Trump's tax 
returns;
  Whereas, the House of Representatives has now refused nine times to 
act on President Trump's tax returns;
  Whereas, the American people have the right to know whether or not 
their President is operating under conflicts of interest related to 
international affairs, tax reform, Government contracts, or otherwise;
  Whereas, the House of Representatives undermines its dignity and the 
integrity of its proceedings by continuing the cover-up of President 
Trump's tax returns:
  Now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the House of Representatives 
shall, one, immediately request the tax return and return information 
of Donald J. Trump for tax years 2006 through 2015, as provided under 
section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as well as the tax 
return and return information with respect to the President's 
businesses of each business entity disclosed by Donald J. Trump on his 
Office of Government Ethics Form 278e, specifically each corporation 
and each partnership within the meaning of subchapter K of chapter 1 of 
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 where he is listed as an officer, 
director, or equivalent, or exercises working control; and
  Two, postpone consideration of tax reform legislation until the 
elected Representatives of the American people in this House have 
obtained President Trump's tax returns and return information to 
ascertain how any changes to the Tax Code might financially benefit the 
President.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under rule IX, a resolution offered from the 
floor by a Member other than the majority leader or the minority leader 
as a question of the privileges of the House has immediate precedence 
only at a time designated by the Chair within 2 legislative days after 
the resolution is properly noticed.
  Pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the 
gentleman from Texas will appear in the Record at this point.
  The Chair will not at this point determine whether the resolution 
constitutes a question of privilege. That determination will be made at 
the time designated for consideration of the resolution.

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