Neil Eggleston and Joshua A. Geltzer write:

The Treasury Department, with its Monday announcement that it would not comply with a demand from House Democrats to release President Trump’s tax returns to Congress, has set up a battle that will now go to the courts to be settled.

President Trump has already filed a novel lawsuit to block his own accounting firm from complying with a congressional subpoena for financial records. Whatever the case or lack thereof to Mr. Trump’s suit, he deserves his day in court, just as any plaintiff would.

But the American people deserve that day to come quickly, given the obvious stakes for Mr. Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. For a court to be conscious of timing isn’t a political act — it’s simply responsible. We had firsthand experience at the White House dealing with the 2016 election’s most politically explosive litigation: the review and release of Hillary Clinton’s emails. A federal judge, conscious of the election implications, moved that litigation at breakneck speed. The same urgency should apply in Mr. Trump’s case. [Continue reading…]