Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers on Tuesday that White House lawyers had been in touch with his department about a congressional request for President Trump’s tax returns but said he had not personally spoken to Mr. Trump or those lawyers about how the matter was being handled.
Mr. Mnuchin’s disclosure is the first public acknowledgment of communication between the White House and the Treasury Department related to Mr. Trump’s tax returns and underscores the seriousness with which the president is taking the request for his personal financial records.
Mr. Mnuchin, who is testifying before two congressional committees on Tuesday, acknowledged that White House lawyers had been in touch with his department before the formal request was made last week. But he said that he had not been briefed on those discussions and described them as “informational.”
“Our legal department has had conversations prior to receiving the letter with the White House general counsel,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “I acknowledge there were conversations. I am not briefed on the full extent of those conversations.”
Mr. Mnuchin’s statement sent Democratic congressional aides scrambling to assess whether conversations between the White House and the Treasury Department about Mr. Trump’s taxes represented political interference and violated the law.
But Lawrence Gibbs, a former I.R.S. commissioner and counsel during the Nixon administration, said he was aware of no legal statute that prohibited such dialogue.
Mr. Mnuchin said that he thought it was “appropriate” for the Treasury and White House legal departments to have spoken generally about a potential request, but he emphasized that he would not be taking direction from Mr. Trump on the decision.
“We would not ever ask for the White House’s permission on this, nor did they give us permission,” Mr. Mnuchin said.
Mr. Mnuchin said it would be “premature” to comment on how his agency would respond to the formal request by House Democrats for six years of Mr. Trump’s personal and business tax returns.
“It is our intent to follow the law,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “It is being reviewed by the legal departments and we look forward to responding to the letter.”
But when pressed by House Democrats, Mr. Mnuchin suggested he believed that Congress was overreaching its authority and defended Mr. Trump’s right not to release his tax returns.
“The general public when they elected President Trump made the decision to elect him without his tax returns being released,” Mr. Mnuchin said, adding that the president complied with requirements to release a financial disclosure form.
The request for Mr. Trump’s tax returns is putting Mr. Mnuchin, one of his most loyal aides, at the center of what is shaping up to be an extraordinary legal battle between two branches of the United States government.
A decision on whether to turn Mr. Trump’s tax returns over to Congress is expected to fall to the Internal Revenue Service and Mr. Mnuchin, whose Treasury Department oversees the tax collection agency. While Mr. Mnuchin has been fairly cautious in discussing the request, Mr. Trump and his top advisers have made it increasingly clear that they will not allow the president’s tax returns to be released without a fight.
Mr. Mnuchin suggested that an attempt to obtain tax returns for political purposes could ultimately harm both parties and give lawmakers discretion to obtain financial records of political enemies. Mr. Mnuchin noted that Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, who was the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means committee during the Obama administration, did not make such requests.
“I am sure there are many prominent Democrats who are relieved that when Kevin Brady was chairman of the committee that he didn’t request specific returns,” Mr. Mnuchin said.
Mr. Mnuchin’s turn in the spotlight comes at a delicate moment for the Treasury secretary. Mr. Mnuchin, one of the longest-serving members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet, has been dogged in recent weeks by questions over his financial ties to the film industry, as well as questions surrounding the Treasury Department’s removal of sanctions against a trio of companies controlled by an influential Russian oligarch. Mr. Mnuchin…
