Senate Finance Committee Republicans on Thursday rejected a Democratic bid to halt the Trump administration’s arrangement shielding the president and his family from IRS audits, clearing the way for a broader tax-administration bill to advance.
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The committee voted 14-13 along party lines to defeat the Democratic amendment, according to a report from Politico. Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) argued the issue did not belong in the legislation.
“This is not the place,” Crapo said. “If this bill were to become the vehicle where this issue is resolved, it would achieve basically making this bill a partisan bill” and that “would turn this bill into a bill that has a much dimmer future for becoming law.”
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Lawmakers approved the full measure by a 26-1 vote. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cast the sole dissenting vote.
“No other taxpayer, ever, has gotten this kind of a deal,” Warren said. “I cannot support a bill that rubber stamps Donald Trump’s corruption. Congress needs to stand up and put a stop to it.”
The immunity plan emerged in May, when the administration offered to exempt Trump and his family from IRS audits in exchange for dropping a lawsuit against the agency. The suit stemmed from a contractor’s leak of Trump’s tax information to The New York Times.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of both the Finance and Judiciary committees, has pressed the administration to narrow the arrangement. He wants it limited to the parties named in Trump’s lawsuit and to tax returns already filed, excluding future ones.
Cornyn said Todd Blanche agreed to those limits verbally during his confirmation hearing but has not yet formalized them in writing. That delay prompted the Judiciary Committee to postpone a scheduled vote on Blanche’s nomination while talks continue.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another Republican who has criticized the original proposal, said he believes the administration is negotiating in good faith. It remains unclear whether any revised version will satisfy Democratic objections.
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