The US Justice Department ordered the Treasury on Friday to hand Donald Trump’s tax records to Congress, in a major break in an investigation involving the former president’s finances launched in 2019.

The Justice Department said the House Ways and Means Committee, which sought six years of records that some believe could expose questionable accounting, had a legitimate reason to see them.

“Access to former president Trump‘s tax returns is a matter of national security,” said House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress.

“The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”

The ruling was the second legal setback this year to the real estate tycoon’s longstanding efforts to keep his tax filings, which include asset, income and tax payment data, from becoming public.

In February the Supreme Court declined to block a subpoena of Trump’s taxes by a New York prosecutor investigating his business and personal financial dealings.