Article snippet: WASHINGTON — The House filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force the Treasury Department to turn over President Donald Trump’s tax returns, escalating a fight with an administration that has repeatedly dismissed as illegitimate the Democrats’ attempt to obtain Trump’s financial records. The lawsuit moves the dispute into federal courts after months of sniping between the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee, which requested and then subpoenaed the returns, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The outcome is likely to determine whether financial information that Trump — breaking with long-standing tradition — has kept closely guarded as a candidate and as president will be viewed by Congress and, ultimately, by the public. But with the House and the executive branch locked in a broader struggle over access to Trump administration information and witnesses, the stakes in the tax-return lawsuit may be higher than that particular issue. House Democrats are facing resistance on a broad range of investigations that include inquiries into Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, the insertion of a citizenship question into the 2020 census, and the profits gleaned from Trump’s ongoing business ventures. In almost every instance, the Trump administration has argued that Congress’ power to access those materials is inherently limited to information that would serve “legitimate” legislative purposes — defined by the executive branch as materials primaril... Link to the full article to read more