The top Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means committee on Thursday asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to testify next week about the decision to bring more than 36,000 IRS workers back to work unpaid as the government shutdown drags into tax season.
Mnuchin was initially scheduled to be at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the day of the hearing but the White House announced late Thursday the US delegation would cancel its trip due to the government shutdown, now in its 27th day.
In a tweet shortly after the White House announcement, the Treasury Department released a letter to Rep. Richard Neal offering to make senior Treasury officials available for the hearing, including the deputy IRS commissioner – but not Mnuchin. Treasury also asked Neal to confirm whether he wanted their attendance by close of business on Friday given “the short notice.”
“If the purpose of the upcoming hearing is to inform Congress and the public, we are confident that goal will best be served by testimony from the senior Department officials with the deepest and broadest expertise on the subject of the hearing,” wrote Jennifer Bang, deputy assistant secretary for the office of legislative affairs at Treasury.
Neal, of Massachusetts, sent his request to Mnuchin on Wednesday but only made it public on Thursday afternoon, just as the White House released a letter from President Donald Trump canceling access to military aircraft for a congressional trip to Afghanistan led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing the shutdown.
The move, just as Pelosi and other members were preparing to leave, appeared to be in response to Pelosi’s letter a day earlier suggesting the President reschedule his State of the Union address.
A Treasury spokesman said he could not immediately answer whether Mnuchin would attend the hearing.
Mnuchin had been due to fly on a military aircraft, according to a law enforcement official.
Trump dropped out of the trip earlier this month, citing the ongoing shutdown. In December, just days after government funding lapsed, he traveled aboard Air Force One to Iraq and Germany.
Neal sent a letter to Mnuchin Wednesday night formally inviting him to attend the public hearing on the government shutdown’s impact on the Treasury Department and American taxpayers. Neal’s request specified that the secretary should provide 150 copies of his written statement that should be delivered 48 hours in advance – that is, by 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
“The upcoming Ways and Means hearing will provide Secretary Mnuchin with an opportunity to brief Congress and the American people on specifically how his agency intends to move forward with filing seasons during the shutdown; the more than 70,000 furloughed Treasury and IRS employees who have already missed a paycheck; as well as difficulties taxpayers are facing as they seek assistance from the Treasury Department during this interruption in services,” the hearing notice posted on Thursday said.
The invitation comes as the Internal Revenue Service called back tens of thousands of federal employees to work with less than two weeks before tax filing season begins.
The decision to recall an additional 36,000 federal employees will allow Americans to get their tax refunds on time, but at the expense of IRS workers, most of whom won’t be paid. More than 46,000 people, or roughly 57% of the IRS’ workforce, have been furloughed as a result of the partial government shutdown.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and Elizabeth Landers contributed to this report.
