Sometime soon — possibly within the next few days — a congressional committee led by Democrats will begin doling out former President Donald Trump’s income tax returns to the public.
The disclosure marks the end of a bitter, multiyear battle to keep the returns under wraps. It all would have been unnecessary if Trump had done what every president since Gerald Ford had done: release them voluntarily.
Trump’s predecessors released theirs to help promote bipartisan transparency and good government in the post-Watergate era. He had no interest in any of that when he landed in the White House and relied on a litany of howlers, including claiming his was being audited, to explain his recalcitrance.