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More twists in multilevel fight by the House to get Trump's tax returns

President Donald Trump

President Trump is fighting multiple battles to prevent access to his tax returns

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The House of Representatives is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by President Trump seeking to prevent the House's majority Democrats from getting their hands on the president's New York tax returns.

The request by the House late Monday is the latest volley in what's arguably, besides impeachment, the most consequential current balance-of-powers fight between the legislative and executive branches.


Acting as a private citizen, Trump filed the suit in July in federal court, looking to shortcut any effort by the House Ways and Means Committee to use a freshly enacted New York law to obtain the state returns.

Earlier this month in a separate case, a federal judge dismissed Trump's effort to prevent the president's state returns from being turned over to a New York grand jury. Trump's efforts to get that ruling reversed will be argued Wednesday before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. No matter the outcome, the dispute is almost surely headed to the Supreme Court.

Presidential candidates and presidents have traditionally revealed their tax returns in the name of transparency, but Trump has refused to release his. Proposals to mandate that presidential nominees release their federal 1040s have become a standard part of democracy reform proposals. Such a requirement was included in HR 1, the comprehensive government reform bill passed by the House along party lines in March.

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The House's lawyers argued in their filing Monday that Trump's claim should be dismissed because the Ways and Means Committee has not yet asked for the president's New York returns and has not decided whether it will.

"Mr. Trump does not and cannot allege that he is suffering harm," the dismissal request states.

The House lawyers also argue that any president is banned by the Constitution from interfering in the affairs of another, co-equal branch of government.

In filing the suit against the House, Trump's attorneys argued that waiting until a request for the tax returns is made could be too late — they could be disclosed before the president had a chance to be heard in court.

While keeping its options with New York open, the Ways and Means panel has focused more intently on getting access to six years of Trump's tax returns directly from the IRS and its parent, the Treasury Department. Democrats say the committee has a clear right to see Trump's filings under a seldom-invoked section of the tax code that says Treasury "shall furnish" the committee with "any" tax information it seeks about any American citizen.

Administration officials rebuffed a subpoena for those returns this spring, saying they would not help the Democrats with a fishing expedition that lacked a legitimate policy making purpose. The House has now gone to federal court on that matter, as well, arguing the law gives the House total leeway to decide what it needs and why

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth.

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said.

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”

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