Trump’s hidden tax returns take on new significance

No story until someone is able to examine the Self-Dealer-In-Chief's full returns. Not the short form. No doubt the Russian doll of LLCs nest some of the required disclosures of foreign partners, but with the weekend self-dealing and the banana republic style family dealing, full disclosure is a must.

This isn't about left vs right/liberal vs republican/team vs team identity politics B.S.. This is about putting country before party.

 

FOIA requests are out

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/12/19/you-cant-use-foia-to-get-someones-tax-re

 

I'm hoping that a House committee can demand to see them after the new Congress is installed. Any clarity on that? Mr. trump's supporters should want trump's tax returns released to the public, which has been the case for the presidents of the last 40 years. After all, how could they possibly object? If their hero is on the level, what is there to hide?

 

Ms. Maddow didn't say "she has trump's tax returns." She looked over, with some assistance, the only tax return trump has released to the public, from 2005. That's 13 years ago. If you're going to go the "they are all doing it" route, at least go that route when there's a reason. They are not "all doing it." Every presidential candidate for the last 40 years has released his or her tax returns, and not one tax return from over a decade back. Wanting to see trump's tax returns is a legitimate desire from all corners of the political spectrum. No one should want to see them more than trump's supporters. After all, if they support all the statements trump has made for years about his wealth, and prove he did nothing he should be ashamed of, it would support their constant claim that there is no "there" there, at least when it comes to his taxes.

 

It's hilarious because a birth certificate shook the party, but tax returns aren't important at all.

The knife Republicans like to use in that if you've got nothing to hide you have nothing to fear cuts both ways my friend. Again, Trump marketed himself as better than crooked Hillary. Prove it. We didn't set that standard, he did. Live up to your own standards or GTFO.

 

Very well said. It's difficult to believe that they don't see the hypocrisy of the stance they have taken. One must assume that they simply don't care, which says a great deal about them, and nothing good, in my humble opinion.

 

Honestly, a lot of it was they had a bias and tried to hide their bias by lazy reasoning. Trump is not a crook like Hillary, Trump didn't get anyone killed, Trump didn't have a super public affair, yada yada yada. Instead of just analyzing him as a candidate, they did it as a comparator. Look, I'm not saying that every Trump voter should have voted for Hillary, you can and probably should hate both of them. The problem is the goal posts keep moving, at first it was he's a great candidate who will drain the swamp and do America right, now it's "well he isn't Hillary so there's that". I feel like his 2020 slogan will degrade to "I did some bad stuff, but at least I didn't commit treason".

 

Next up is: "treason isn't bad because I meant well and was fighting the corrupt Deep State that committed the real treason."

 

"The nightmare scenario for Democrats on Trump’s corruption":

The nightmare scenario for Democrats on Trump’s corruption
By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
May 7 at 10:37 AM

The administration’s categorical refusal to release President Trump’s tax returns heightens the difficult question Democrats face, and raises the prospect of a nightmare scenario — both in political and substantive terms.

Democrats must now choose between continuing to pursue the returns through conventional channels, which carries some risk of failure, and getting serious about impeachment hearings, which would likely minimize that risk to the greatest extent possible.

If Democrats go with the first, it raises at least the possibility that they could squander months in court, only to fail to secure Trump’s returns at the end — at which point they’d decide it’s too late to pursue impeachment, because 2020 would be looming.

To be sure, there are many other reasons to initiate an impeachment inquiry, beyond overcoming resistance to releasing the returns. But this dispute throws the broader choice Democrats face into sharper relief.

The Treasury Department has declared that it will not release Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. This appears to violate the law, which says the returns of any individual “shall” be furnished upon request by tax-writing committees.

Democrats on Ways and Means now have two leading options, according to Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Democrats can subpoena the Treasury Department for the returns, or they can sue to force the department to comply with the law, or both, Rosenthal tells me.

But either of those two paths would likely require a lengthy court battle — one that Democrats might lose before the Supreme Court.

The legal case for getting the returns appears strong. In requesting Trump’s personal and business returns, Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the chair of Ways and Means, argued that Congress needs them to scrutinize whether the IRS is enforcing tax laws against the president. Thus, Neal furnished a legislative rationale that the law doesn’t even appear to require.

But that doesn’t mean the legal case for getting them is airtight. Rosenthal says that in either case, the Supreme Court could side with Trump, by arguing that Democrats “are applying the statute unconstitutionally.”

In this telling, the court would rule that Congress’ power to solicit tax returns is not unlimited, and cannot be applied for illegitimate purposes. The court could decide Democrats are “just rummaging through Trump’s returns to embarrass him and not for a legitimate legislative purpose, and that Neal’s explanation is a pretext,” Rosenthal told me.

Daniel Hemel, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, agrees. He told me the court could rule that the statute “can’t sweep more broadly than Congress’ constitutional authority,” which “doesn’t include the power to investigate except for legitimate legislative purposes.”

To be sure, Democrats could win this battle, both experts said, because they actually do have multiple legitimate purposes for getting the returns. But this is hardly guaranteed, particularly with this court. And it could take months or years.

The bottom line: A loss, coming next fall or later, is at least possible. And at that point, Democrats would likely be even more reluctant to launch impeachment hearings, with 2020 right around the corner.

This would constitute an epic, disastrous failure. Not getting Trump’s returns would allow him to get away with one of his most blatant acts of contempt for transparency, for the separation of powers and for the notion that basic accountability should apply to him at all.

And we simply don’t know how much corruption — from tax fraud to emoluments clause violations to compromising foreign financial entanglements — this might end up concealing from view.

Impeachment hearings could strengthen Democrats’ hand

The idea here is that, if Democrats were to initiate an impeachment inquiry, it would create a legislative purpose for compelling release of the returns that is basically unassailable — that legislative purpose being impeachment.

“I think Ways and Means’ argument is fundamentally solid,” Rosenthal said. But he added that if Democrats stressed that an impeachment inquiry were its purpose, “I don’t see how any information can be withheld — the Mueller report, tax returns, anything. This would make it airtight.” Other legal experts agree.

It’s possible that Democrats might not even have to go this far. They could potentially state that they are soliciting information for the express legislative purpose of deciding whether to launch an impeachment inquiry, Rosenthal says.

That latter possibility needs more expert attention. But the bigger point here is that more forthrightly embracing an impeachment inquiry as a key rationale — immediately, or the question of whether to launch one — very well might strengthen Democrats’ hand.

This is the case not just on Trump’s tax returns, but also in other areas, as Rosenthal points out. That includes empowering Democrats to fight against efforts to conceal the unredacted Mueller report; and efforts to prevent former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who witnessed extensive obstruction of justice, from testifying, and possibly special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as well.

“Congress’ hand is strengthened across the board by acknowledging that the information is relevant to a possible impeachment inquiry,” Rosenthal tells me.

Jonathan Bernstein argues the contrary case: This is a contested view; Democrats might prevail on some fronts without impeachment; they can employ other tools.

It’s true this is a contested view. But that means it might prove correct, and the question still remains whether Democrats will at least try to use all the tools at their disposal, and what the dangers are in not doing this. The argument isn’t necessarily that Democrats must launch an inquiry right this second. But it must be put on the table clearly as a point toward which they are converging out of necessity, in response to Trump’s worsening abuses.

Democrats (and other impeachment skeptics) need to more forthrightly engage with the argument that the failure to do this could end up with Democratic oversight mostly being neutered, with no remaining options.

Yes, Democrats could then beat Trump in 2020. But what if they don’t, after having seen their oversight efforts largely blocked, and having failed to exercise all the powers they have at their disposal?
​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ats-trumps-corruption/?utm_term=.049acaaafea3

 

Hmm he was a successful businessman?

 

But he’s a “brilliant and successful businessman.” He said so himself.

What a bad joke.

 

Why does the narrative keep changing regarding Trump's tax returns?

• He is not as rich as he says he is
• He is rich but pays not taxes
• He is paying Russian spies
• He does not pay taxes because he's not as rich as he says he is

 

I think it’s always been the same.

The Donald doesn’t show his tax returns because he’s a fraud and a con artist.

You can always add or subtract the reasons why he’s a fraud when new information comes out but nobody is debating the obvious that he’s maybe the biggest fraud we’ve ever seen in modern day history.

His supporters don’t care because he’s a vessel to own the libs and carry out an authoritarian government structure that will address their grievances... like fear of brown people and carry out religious fanatic agenda items that base of support craves.

Fans like yourself know he’s a fraud and a grifter who cheats the system, was only ever propped up financially by daddy and bank loans, but you’ll keep lying for him and fighting his battles online in his name because you have no shame in regards to who he really is. As I said he’s your vessel for online entertainment and grievance.

If he keeps providing you with what you want, I 100% believe you’d have his back for shooting someone on 5th Avenue.

 

That’s some schizophrenic logic there. Seek help.

 

I’m not the one dedicating my online fight for a lawless con artist just to continue to have a vessel to air my grievances. He’s your idol dude. You are the one supporting his cause. Don’t get mad at me for telling the truth.

 

QFTT.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...4421.html?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 

delete