House votes today on releasing Trump’s tax returns. They shouldn’t.

Will House Democrats release Donald Trump's tax returns to the public?

A House committee is expected to vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to make public tax returns belonging to former President Donald J. Trump....A rarely used federal law allows the committee to obtain any U.S. taxpayer’s returns. While the statute generally requires lawmakers to keep such information confidential, it also empowers them to make it public by voting to report the material to the full House.

I hope they don't do this. The law allows Congress to demand tax returns for legislative purposes, so that's what they did (citing oversight of the presidential audit program). I think we all understand this was a thin pretext for getting Trump's returns and examining them for fraud, but nonetheless that's the pretext in play. Releasing everything to the public isn't, and there's no legitimate reason to do it.

I'm not naive. If Jim Jordan got hold of something similar he'd leak it in a minute. Hell, he'd make sure to leak just a few out-of-context excerpts that would make his victim look even worse than they are.

But Jim Jordan is an asshole. We don't have to be. Trump has the legal right to keep his tax returns private if he wants to, and we should make it clear that we believe in upholding legitimate legal rights. Vote no, Democrats.