Nancy Pelosi is taking aim at Donald Trump after a bombshell report claimed that he paid no federal income taxes for several years after claiming large losses, with the House speaker saying his actions show a “disdain for America’s working families.”
As The Inquisitr reported, a new story from The New York Times looked at decades of documents for Trump and found that he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, and that he used chronic losses to avoid paying his proper share.
Many of Trump’s critics seized on the allegations, including Pelosi, who released a statement on Sunday evening saying the report “provides a window into the extraordinary measures that President Trump has used to game the tax code and avoid paying his fair share of taxes, while hard working Americans are.”
The statement from the California Democrat added that the allegations are further evidence that the House Ways and Means lawsuit seeking access to Trump’s records must move forward. Pelosi has been aggressive in seeking his returns, as CNBC noted in August that she said the next treasury secretary will release them if Joe Biden were to win in November. Her statement also took note that the House passed a requirement that presidents disclose personal and business returns.
Trump has come under fire for not releasing his records, claiming that he is unable to do so because they are under audit from the Internal Revenue Service. But Pelosi said the evidence published by the New York Times shows a president who demonstrates disdain for ordinary taxpayers.
“It is a sign of President Trump’s disdain for America’s working families that he has spent years abusing the tax code while passing a GOP Tax Scam for the rich that gives 83 percent of the benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent,” her office said.
A number of other Democrats have joined Pelosi in attacking Trump in the hours after the report was first published. Many echoed Pelosi’s sentiment that the report shows a two-tiered system in which the wealthy are not paying their proper share while hard-working Americans face a larger burden.
“Donald Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017,” tweeted Massachusetts senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. “He knows better than anyone that there’s one set of rules for the wealthy and giant corporations and another for hardworking Americans — and instead of using his power to fix it, he’s taken advantage of it at every turn.”
