Trump drops NY tax return fight because GOP 'has no interest'

Former President Donald Trump has dropped a long-running court fight with Congress over access to his New York state tax returns, notifying a judge late Friday in a joint filing with a House committee that the new Republican leadership "has no interest" in the documents.

The case dated back to 2019, when Trump was still president. He sued the House Ways and Means Committee, then led by Massachusetts Representative Richard Neal, and New York state officials over a newly passed state law known as the TRUST Act, which gave members of Congress a way to get a president's state tax records.

The committee didn't end up making a request for the New York documents and a judge didn't have to rule on Trump's claims challenging the validity of the law. The case stayed mostly dormant for the next two years, with the judge occasionally ordering status reports from the parties. 

The latest filing from Trump's lawyer and the acting general counsel for the House of Representatives voluntarily dismissing the case repeated Trump's position that the TRUST Act couldn't apply to a former president, and noted the recent change in political circumstances. 

Joshua A. Bickel/Bloomberg

"Plaintiff is no longer 'the president of the United States.' Even if he were, Defendant Neal no longer chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, and the current committee has no interest in plaintiff's tax returns," the lawyers wrote in the joint submission.

Following years of litigation in a separate case, the Ways and Means Committee did get access to Trump's federal tax returns and released them to the public late last year, before Republicans took control of the chamber.