Trump Faces Pressure From N.Y. Lawmakers Over His Tax Returns and Pardons
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Taking aim at President Trump, New York lawmakers voted on Wednesday to allow congressional committees to seek the president’s tax returns and to close a potential loophole for those he might pardon.
The two bills passed by the Democratic-controlled State Senate do not explicitly mention President Trump, but there was little question that he was the focus of both efforts.
One bill would eliminate the so-called double jeopardy loophole that gives individuals who have been pardoned at a federal level indemnity from New York State prosecutors. Its sponsor, Senator Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat from Long Island, said the bill would address “wanton threats of the use of the pardon power” by Mr. Trump.
The other bill would authorize the commissioner of the New York Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by a leader of one of three congressional committees for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose.”
The vote on the bills broke mostly along party lines with Democrats delivering the votes to secure its passage. The bills are expected to be discussed internally on Monday by the State Assembly, also led by Democrats, and are considered likely to pass there as well.
The state’s three-term Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, has also said he would support the bills.
The White House has declined to comment on the bills.
Senator Brad Hoylman, the sponsor of the bill allowing congressional committees to seek state tax returns, said the Senate’s action was a direct result of Mr. Trump’s refusal to make his federal returns public as well as a decision by the Treasury Department on Monday to defy an order from House Democrats to do so.
“If they won't do it,” Mr. Hoylman said, “New York can."
Republicans in Albany were irate with both bills, calling them “bills of attainder,” a legislative act that singles out a person or a group for punishment without trial, and a blatantly political act in a deeply blue state.
“You may be aiming for the president, but there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage,” Senator Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican, said. “Today it’s the president, tomorrow it’s the rest of us.”
Vivian Wang contributed reporting.
Jesse McKinley is The Times’s Albany bureau chief. He was previously the San Francisco bureau chief, and a theater columnist and Broadway reporter for the Culture Desk. @jessemckinley
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