IV 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 286 
Directing certain officials of the executive branch to provide information 
to the House of Representatives that will enable the House to meet 
its constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive 
branch by investigating potential conflicts of interests of President Don-
ald J. Trump. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 27, 2017 
Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts submitted the following resolution; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and in 
addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, Transportation and In-
frastructure, and Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by 
the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall with-
in the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Directing certain officials of the executive branch to provide 
information to the House of Representatives that will 
enable the House to meet its constitutional responsibility 
to conduct oversight of the executive branch by inves-
tigating potential conflicts of interests of President Don-
ald J. Trump. 
Whereas, on October 18, 2016, then-candidate Donald J. 
Trump communicated via Twitter: ‘‘I will Make Our Gov-
ernment Honest Again—believe me. But first, I’m going 
to have to #DrainTheSwamp in DC’’; 
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•HRES 286 IH 
Whereas President Trump subsequently nominated a team of 
wealthy and connected insiders to lead his Cabinet, many 
of whom have been forced to withdraw from consideration 
because of irrevocable conflicts of interest; 
Whereas, as President-Elect, President Trump announced 
that he would be ‘‘leaving [his] great business’’ to his 
adult children, a move he felt would be ‘‘visually impor-
tant’’; 
Whereas President Trump has taken no steps to untangle his 
financial interest in his business holdings, to limit his 
ability to advise the nominal managers of the Trump Or-
ganization, or to prevent other interests from currying 
favor with the White House by doing business with com-
panies that might benefit the President’s bottom line; 
Whereas President Trump has reversed White House policy 
and now refuses to release visitor logs to the public; 
Whereas, on May 30, 2014, President Trump stated: ‘‘If I 
decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, abso-
lutely’’; 
Whereas, on January 24, 2016, President Trump stated that 
he would release his ‘‘very big returns . . . in the next 
period of time’’; 
Whereas, on February 25, 2016, President Trump changed 
his position and stated that, although he could not re-
lease his tax returns while under audit, he would do so 
‘‘as soon as the audit is done’’; 
Whereas, on May 11, 2016, President Trump communicated 
via Twitter: ‘‘In interview I told @AP that my taxes are 
under routine audit and I would release my tax returns 
when audit is complete, not after election!’’; 
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•HRES 286 IH 
Whereas, on January 22, 2017, White House senior adviser 
Kellyanne Conway stated that ‘‘the White House re-
sponse is that he’s not going to release his returns’’; 
Whereas President Trump has directed the Congress to act 
on comprehensive reform of the Internal Revenue Code; 
Whereas without the President’s tax returns, the public can-
not know how the full extent to which any proposed re-
forms will personally benefit the President; 
Whereas, on January 11, 2017, President Trump insisted 
that he has ‘‘no dealings with Russia’’; 
Whereas it has been widely reported that President Trump 
sought and received funding from Russian investors, es-
pecially when American banks stopped lending to him 
after his multiple bankruptcies; 
Whereas Donald Trump, Jr., who runs day-to-day business 
operations for his father’s companies, has stated: ‘‘Rus-
sians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of 
a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in 
from Russia’’; 
Whereas, on March 20, 2017, James B. Comey, Director of 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed the exist-
ence of a Federal investigation into multiple connections 
between the Trump campaign and the regime of Russian 
President Vladimir Putin; 
Whereas it has been reported that President Trump has per-
sonally guaranteed over $300,000,000 in loans to Ger-
man financial institution Deutsche Bank AG; 
Whereas the Trump Administration is now responsible for 
overseeing multiple investigations into the trading and 
lending practices of Deutsche Bank AG, and for negoti-
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•HRES 286 IH 
ating a potentially multibillion-dollar settlement with the 
bank related to its trading of mortgage-backed securities; 
Whereas these matters represent only a few of the many in-
stances in which President Trump has broken his prom-
ise to ‘‘drain the swamp’’; 
Whereas under the Constitution of the United States, Con-
gress has a responsibility to conduct oversight of the ex-
ecutive branch; 
Whereas the majority of the Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform of the House of Representatives re-
jected an amendment to the committee’s oversight plan 
that would have tasked the committee with investigating 
the President’s conflicts of interest; 
Whereas Members of the Committees on Energy and Com-
merce, Foreign Affairs, the Judiciary, Homeland Secu-
rity, and Ways and Means of the House of Representa-
tives have each advanced resolutions of inquiry designed 
to obtain information about the President’s ongoing con-
flicts of interest; 
Whereas the majority has blocked each of those resolutions 
from consideration on the House floor; 
Whereas the continuing refusal of the majority to conduct 
even basic oversight of the Trump Administration dimin-
ishes the status of the Congress as a co-equal branch of 
Government; and 
Whereas this continued neglect undermines the credibility of 
the House of Representatives and raises a question of the 
privileges of the House: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives directs 
the following persons to take the following actions: 
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•HRES 286 IH 
(1) President Trump is directed to transmit to 
the House of Representatives copies of any docu-
ment, record, memorandum, correspondence, or 
other communication in possession of the Executive 
Office of the President, or any portion of such com-
munication, that refers or relates to President 
Trump’s proposal to maintain an interest in his 
business holdings, while turning over day-to-day op-
eration of those interests to his sons Donald J. 
Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump. 
(2) In support of transparency in government 
and the longstanding tradition of the disclosure of 
tax returns of Presidents and Presidential can-
didates, the Secretary of the Treasury is directed to 
provide the Committee on Ways and Means with the 
tax return information of Donald J. Trump for tax 
years 2007 through 2016 for review in closed execu-
tive session by the committee as provided under sec-
tion 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, 
and directs the committee to hold a vote on report-
ing such information to the full House of Represent-
atives. 
(3) The Director of the Office on Government 
Ethics is directed to publish any waiver or exception 
granted to any officer or employee of the Govern-
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ment to the January 28, 2017, Executive order enti-
tled ‘‘Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Ap-
pointees’’. 
(4) The Administrator of General Services is di-
rected to provide the Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform of the House of Representatives 
with any legal analysis supporting its March 23, 
2017, conclusion that Trump International Hotel in 
Washington may maintain its lease with the Federal 
Government, despite an express prohibition on elect-
ed officials taking part in the lease. 
(5) President Trump is directed to provide vis-
itor logs for both the White House and Mar-A-Lago 
to the Committee on Oversight and Government Re-
form of the House of Representatives on a rolling 
and ongoing basis, and directs the committee to hold 
ongoing votes on reporting the contents of such vis-
itor logs to the full House of Representatives. 
Æ 
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