In July, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles, California, rejected an attempt by the Justice Department to modify the Flores agreement by requesting a longer period of time to be able to detain migrant children than 20 days, as allowed under the settlement. The Trump administration sought to indefinitely detain migrant children caught illegally crossing the border with their parents.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that he would consult with department attorneys before making a decision about a request to turn over the returns. The fight is expected to be settled by the courts.

“The Tax Code zealously guards taxpayer privacy,” Consovoy said in his letter. “. . . It would be a gross abuse of power for the majority party to use tax returns as a weapon to attack, harass, and intimidate their political opponents.”

The White House has moved to block the release of the president’s tax returns, which have been the source of significant speculation since Trump refused to release them as a candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a lawyer for Trump, said he would not turn over “a single thing” to congressional Democrats, arguing that the opposition party was simply aiming to embarrass the president. Neal has said he is aiming to conduct oversight and debate legislative proposals over how federal tax laws are enforced against a U.S. president.

“They’ll be in court for two or three years on those taxes. It’s pure harassment,” Giuliani said in an interview. “They want his tax returns so they can find something even if nothing is there.”

“Ron’s a good man,” Trump told reporters as he left for the trip. “But we’re going in a tougher direction. We want to go in a tougher direction.”

The decision to ditch Vitiello stupefied Homeland Security officials and lawmakers. Some ICE officials and Senate aides were so taken aback, they told reporters they thought the White House had made a clerical error.

But Trump had vacillated on Vitiello for several months after hearing complaints from senior adviser Stephen Miller, ICE union boss Chris Crane and others, according to White House aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

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Trump did not provide additional rationale for rescinding Vitiello’s nomination. He visited a stretch of recently replaced steel fencing, where his administration has installed a plaque that touts it as “the first section of President Trump’s border wall.”

In fact, the fencing replacement project had been planned years before Trump took office and is where border barriers long have separated the U.S. city from the metropolis of Mexicali.