I’m pretty sure everyone was warned well in advance that if voters gave control of the House back to the Democrats, the “agenda” for the next two years was going to have more to do with trying to cause trouble for Donald Trump than developing any new policies to help the nation. Those predictions are already coming true, barely two months into Nancy Pelosi’s speakership. The latest salvo is coming from the Ways and Means Committee, where Massachusetts Democratic Chairman Richard Neal is preparing to issue demands for years worth of President Trump’s personal tax returns. What do they need them for? The word salad explaining the answer to that question is a wonder to behold. (NBC News)
The top tax-writing committee in the House is readying a request for years of President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns that is expected to land at the Internal Revenue Service as early as the next few weeks, NBC News has learned. And Democrats are prepared to “take all necessary steps,” including litigation, in order to obtain them.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has asked the committee’s attorneys to prepare the request, according to two aides involved in the process. Neal has also contacted the chairs of several other House investigative committees, including Oversight and Government Reform, Financial Services, Intelligence and Judiciary, asking them to provide detailed arguments for why they need the president’s tax returns to conduct their probes.
“Every day the American people and Congress learn more about President Trump’s improprieties, from conflicts of interest to influence peddling, potential tax evasion and violations of the Constitution — all roads leading back to President Trump’s finances,” said Ashley Etienne, spokeswoman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The fact that the initial announcement is coming from a spokesperson out of Pelosi’s office is telling. That means that this plan was being hatched, or at least fully endorsed, in the Speaker’s office. They’re assembling the biggest wave of pressure that can be managed in the effort, too. Before moving forward, Neal is asking for justifications from the leading Democrats in multiple committees as to why they should be able to do this.
It’s true that the Ways and Means Committee has the legal authority to request the private tax returns of any citizen, and in theory, they could initiate legal action in an attempt to force the issue. (That’s why Neal was stuck with the job.) But such requests have to be made as part of an investigation into a crime where the tax returns would provide relevant information. And the government is held to strict accountability in terms of when a private citizen’s tax returns can even be looked at, say nothing of making them public. If you don’t think that those returns will be showing up in the New York Times on the same day the Democrats get hold of them, I’ve got some prime Florida swampland to sell you.
A request such as this would generally be expected to begin with law enforcement investigating a crime. What crime do the Democrats claim has taken place where the President’s personal tax returns might be relevant? The only thing we’re hearing so far, aside from vague charges of “improprieties” is a claim of “potential tax evasion.” Really?
@Michael: Truths, just self evident except to Democrats they just think they will nuke you if you dont give up guns.
Founding documents
Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of rights
I also like the federalist papers and anti federalist papers.
Gregs comment I was replying to did not mention the Constitution, but he is aware of the other documents.
@kitt:
But the only thing that counts is the Constitution.
@Michael:
Congratulations you are the winner the dumbest post of the month!
Your prize is in the mail.
May 15, 2019 — Mnuchin signals administration won’t comply with subpoena for Trump tax returns
He’s going to get promptly slapped down in court. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
As has been pointed out many times before, there has been a specific law since 1924 that unambiguously requires the IRS to hand over the returns to the House Ways and Means Committee upon their request.
Mnuchin has previously claimed this could not be done without a stated legitimate purpose, which is complete bullshit, given that the law creates an oversight power. Be that as it may, the committee has stated such a purpose.
@Greg: They aren’t going to get Trump’s (or anyone else’s) tax returns unless they have a sound legal or legislative reason to have them. F O R G E T A B O U T I T.
@kitt:
Please explain.
@Deplorable Me, #55:
The House passed H.R. 1 this past March, which contains a provision that requires all presidents to disclose their tax returns. The bill has moved to the Senate. They will certainly lose it in a bottom drawer, but that doesn’t matter. It’s technically in the legislative works.
So, there you go Mr. Mnuchin. A pending legislative reason, and a damn serious one. You yourself have made such legislation necessary by refusing to comply with an oversight law that’s already on the books. Examining Trump’s returns will throw much light on the necessity of advancing such legislation.
They’re going to get Trump’s tax returns. The Supreme Court will see to that. The Supreme Court IS NOT going to allow any president to rise above the law. That’s the issue Trump, his flunky appointees, and his questionably competent lawyers have turned this into. They have essentially neutralized a congressional oversight power, which turns it into an issue that transcends party politics. They’re going to discover that doing so was a HUGE mistake.
@Greg:
Pending doesn’t count, you idiot.
And you can’t investigate someone for violation of a law that didn’t exist.
@retire05, #58:
Of course it does. Legitimate legislative purpose doesn’t have a damn thing to do with bills that have already been through the entire legislative process. Prospective or pending legislation would be the only items for which such needs might exist.
The law that Mnuchin is breaking does exist. What he’s now doing is making excuses for doing so. He’s got none. He needs some time in jail, to contemplate the error of his ways. It might do him good. Maybe he could learn to fake humility.
@Greg:
HR 1 was a liberal wish list to achieve the dream of making the nation a one-party country and, ultimately, a police state. However, if they want to make revealing tax returns a law, fine. I have NO problem with that. However, currently they are private information and no one gets that without a legal need. How many laws did you find broken in the 10 years of Trump’s taxes illegally released already?
I think not. As much as you liberals hate it, the Constitution still exists and this battle is one that is being fought for ALL Americans.
@retire05:
And the left issues a resounding chorus of, “DAMMIT!!”
@Greg:
In answer to Nancys obvious loss of cognitive reasoning the congress is not a superior branch, they dont make laws.
The pass bills to be signed into law by the President.
They can if they have the numbers over ride a veto passing a law.
Checks and balances thingee, separation of powers stuff.
No one seems to, when she says that kind of tyrannical BS, correct her.
The only constitutional crisis we have is Democrats have failed to know their place even attempting to inject themselves into a case before the Supreme Court.
@kitt, #61:
Congress is an equal among three branch, and sure as hell DOES make law. It’s the only branch of the three that has the constitutional power to do so.
It’s the aspiring autocrat in the White House who clearly doesn’t know his place. He is openly ordering appointees to break their oaths of office by breaking the law in order to protect himself, and openly defying congressional oversight powers for the same purpose. It’s up to Congress and the Supreme Court to correct that. It’s their duty to respond. If he can’t be brought into compliance with the law, it’s their duty to attempt to remove him.
I trust there are a few left in the GOP with sufficient principles and spine to assist in the defense of our democratic republic.
@Greg: The only time Congress makes a law is when they over ride a veto.
The make bills not laws you really failed civics. And Nancy is in the early stages of dementia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFroMQlKiag
Careful you might learn something Wretched Madcow didnt conspire chat about.
Oh how did gay marriage and abortion become law?
A president only signs a law into effect as the Executive Officer. If the president balks, he or she can be overruled by Congress. The president can’t make laws, and thank God for that—given the arrogant nincompoop that has some somehow conned his way into the Oval Office, with an assist from Russian intelligence services.
@Greg: Why are boys allowed in girls shower rooms? What legislation was clarified by that little bit of twisted EO?
So you admit they only make bills to be signed into law.
And the USA is a Republic
I am 2 for 2 Greg.
Why was Donald allowed in the girls’ dressing room?
Are we feeling silly yet?
@Greg: Nope That lil bit of gossip was debunked
over and over.
He certainly was not showering with them was he silly boy.
@kitt:
Is that the only situation that would be inappropriate?
@Michael: Ask the boy that decides one day he is a girl one day and beats all the girls in their sports they have trained very hard at, but he is stronger so ..he wins everything and gets to dress with the girls.
Sure you want in on this coach?
@kitt:
There is nothing about what you typed that answers my question in any way, shape or form.
@Michael: good I had no intention of letting you horn in you certainly dont deserve an answer as you see when Greg was stupid enough to say congress makes law he had to take it to a debunked point, and not answer my questions.
Barrys EO has ruined girls sports, based on no law passed by congress.
@kitt:
Then why did you bother typing anything at all?
I don’t deserve an answer because of something Greg wrote?
@Michael: yup, when you hop in on one sentence of a thread you betcha. There will be a legal battle for the taxes and everything else congress wants perhaps they can multi-task and try doing their jobs of creating bills.
@kitt:
That doesn’t explain how Greg’s comment relates to whether or not you answer my questions. You seem to be simply putting words together at random at this point. Besides, I’ve posted several comments in this thread.
All joking aside, conservatives have for many years wanted Congress to pass fewer laws. I’m surprised to see you pine for more of them.
May 17, 2019 — Mnuchin defies House Democrats’ subpoenas for Trump’s tax returns
Yet another moronic letter, again with the “no legislative purpose” horseshit. Think this is a game? The House should issue a warrant for the Sergeant of Arms to arrest the snarky little bastard. Maybe that would get his full attention. Does Mnuchin known the Sergeant of Arms can call on the Capitol Police for assistance? He could always flee the District of Columbia to avoid arrest, although the jurisdiction of the Capitol Police includes the entire United States.
@Greg: Get a grip, we knew this request would be handled by the court.
That’s no reason why Mnuchin shouldn’t follow it from a jail cell, or while watching a daily fine stack up.
@Greg: You sound like a 4 year old told he cant go outside and play cause its raining. Get up from the floor stop kicking your widdle feet. The Admin is not intimidated by the bullshit.
@Greg: No reason to get them, they don’t get them. Done and done. End of debate, settled science.
They’re going to get them because the courts will uphold the law, not Stevie Mnuchin’s crack-brained rationale for breaking it. The court will order him to turn the documents over to Congress as the law requires. Then he can defy that, and see what happens to him.
He still hasn’t presented any supporting legal opinion, most likely because any marginally competent lawyer realizes no supporting legal basis exists.
@Greg:
Using the same law, the President can also request tax returns. Here is the list I want:
Nancy Pelosi
Dianne Feinstein
Sheila Jackson Lee
Lloyd Doggett
Adam Schiff
Jerry Nadler
just for starters
@retire05, #81:
He can have at it. Maybe he can even find someone who hasn’t provided their tax returns already.
@Greg:
The 4th Amendment is going to overrule this obscure law. Sorry, without a definitive need (curiosity and temper tantrums do not qualify) they won’t be seeing them. They can, however, view the ten years that were illegally leaked. They can have their way with them.
@Deplorable Me, #83:
The Fourth Amendment won’t even enter in. Not in the case of a Congressional oversight law that has gone unchallenged since 1924. We’re not talking about the rights of a private citizen here; this has to do with questions concerning the nation’s highest public official. They can run that bullshit straight up to the Supreme Court, and watch it quickly get knocked down every step of the way. The Supreme Court is not going to rule the Executive Branch immune to the oversight powers of the Legislative Branch. They might as well openly acknowledge that we now have a authoritarian leader who is above the law. I doubt if there’s a single Supreme Court Justice who would go there, Trump appointees included. Most likely they won’t even agree hear the case. The proposition is too absurd even to be considered.
@Greg:
None of the people I listed have provided their tax returns to the public, moron.
Congress members only provide a financial statement, not their tax returns.
How does someone as dumb as you manage to get dressed on your own? Then, maybe you don’t.
@retire05, #85:
Oh, right. My mistake. Remind me which of them have run for president?
In any case, Trump should go on ahead and start checking up on his enemies. It would pose a problem, though, since he wouldn’t be able to refrain from tweeting about his “discoveries.”
@retire05, #85:
Not all of us have the problems you apparently experience, nor is everyone as willing to waste time on childish insults.
@Greg:
Yes it does. WHY do they feel the need for oversight that intrudes into someone’s privacy? What is the EVIDENCE of some impropriety that requires income tax returns? There is none. So, the 4th Amendment does what it is intended to do; protect the individual’s privacy from a police state mentality.
He still has a right to privacy. Remember Obama locking all his past away in vaults? Was he justified in that? Did he have a RIGHT to do that? Though it was very suspicious, due to all the questions about his nationality, OF COURSE he did. And no one questioned it because… the Constitution.
Sorry, but in case you haven’t noticed, not everyone gets put under oversight. There has to be a REASON, and that reason has to be something other than, “We’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink and this guy and we simply can’t get him kicked out of office. We need to invade his personal life and see if we can find SOMETHING there.”
Translation: “Remind me which ones threaten the liberal agenda?”
@Deplorable Me, #88:
Trump gave up his private citizen status when he became head of the Executive Branch. The office and power conferred upon him then render him subject to the constitutional system of checks and balances that the founding fathers created in order to allow our democratic republic to continue into the future. Checks and balances implies oversight powers; in fact, the entire concept of checks and balances becomes nothing but empty words without them. There can be no checks and balances without an inviolable power to check.
This was brought home with the Teapot Dome Scandal, which led to the creation in 1924 of the clear and unambiguous law that the Trump administration is openly violating.
You’ve essentially got no rational argument here. You’ve got nothing but repetition of Trump’s nonsensical assertion that has the effect of putting him above the reach of the law, of lawful congressional oversight, and of the constitutional system of checks and balances.
If that bullshit is allowed to stand, a precedent will be established that would lead to the end of our constitutional republic. No one needs to be a legal expert to figure this out; only smart enough to grasp the situation, and think it through to its logical conclusion.
A president above the reach of the law and immunized from meaningful congressional oversight is nothing less than an autocrat. Not everyone who has the office conferred upon them is a George Washington, who’s innate virtue can be counted upon to prevent him from becoming the equivalent of a king.
@Greg: Your argument is weak to the point of pathetic, no law says once you are an elected official your rights as a citizen vanish or are no longer enforceable. Its something you feel not anything that makes any sense at all.
The most difficult thing to do is protect our Republic from the ill informed and the misinformed like yourself.
@kitt, #90:
In fact, a law does very specifically say that; the very law that Donald Trump is ordering those under his authority to violate, which as been in existence for 22 years longer than he has.
Oversight powers are utterly meaningless if Congress does not have the power to look. This is so obvious it should go without saying.
@Greg:
No, he didn’t. That is nothing but absurd. He is subject to oversight, certainly. However, there must be something to trigger investigation, not just, “Well, it would be just like Trump to do something like this, so let’s dig in.” To date, he has done nothing nor are there any indications he has ever done anything that warrants getting all of his tax returns and combing through them. So, you don’t GET to have all his tax returns and comb through them.
So, where is the pertinent scandal today? That Trump is wealthy? THAT’S a crime? Your main “scandal” has proven to only be a scandal implicating those who initiated it, the Democrats, and exonerating Trump. In fact, no one has been more extensively investigated than Trump and no one has yielded so LITTLE that is negative.
Mine is THE rational argument. Your argument is absolutely irrational, driven solely by emotion and revenge. It’s why you all look so silly.
Trump’s stance STRENGTHENS the Constitutional republic because it proves we ALL have protections against illegal search and seizure and that the police state has no strength here. You want police state tactics to overrule the Constitution when you are frustrated by… the Constitution.
@Deplorable Me:
Says Greg as he jumps up to lead the police state to kick down your door and haul you off to jail for smirking or owning that damn red hat. They can tell which door to smash you fly an offensive American flag on your porch!
@Deplorable Me, #92:
Yes he did, because the position of public trust he decided to seek and occupy is subject to oversight by Congress, and those oversight powers are clearly defined by law—one of which he now apparently finds enormously inconvenient. Sorry, Donald, but you don’t get to pick and choose which apply to you.
Absurdity is what your own claim implies; i.e., that oversight can exist when a claim to privacy can keep the overseers from looking. This is complete nonsense, and nonsense with serious consequences.
If you don’t know what the numerous national security issues with Trump, his clan, and their secret financial dealing might be, you should stop wasting the time of those who do. Go read this morning’s Twitter rant about recent Deutsche Bank revelations or something.
Got it. President above the law; our freedoms are stronger because of it. Tell us another.
@Greg: Your being hoodwinked, oversight is not a passport to illegal search. No crime has been committed except in your imagination.
You have never been taught to embrace freedom and government limitations.
How many more Marxists are going to throw their hat in the ring for President with a D behind their name? Fascists, commies and you belong with them you are comfortable with the Anti-American faction of the political freakshow.
It isn’t an illegal search. There’s a law that specifically confers the oversight power in question on Congress, not by accident but by very clear intention. What is legal is defined by our laws.
Oversight based on some predicate. What would that be? YOU don’t trust him? Try again, child.
I don’t make that claim at all, and I am all but absolutely certain you are aware of that. Thus, this PROVES how you merely want the power to violate citizen’s rights simply because you feel helpless to deal with them legally.
Why, have you liberals made up some new ones lately?
@Deplorable Me:
There, fixed it for Greggie Goebbels.
@Deplorable Me, #97:
Sorry, Charlie, but the law in question DOES NOT REQUIRE the House Ways and Means Committee to provide Stevie Mnuchin or the IRS Commissioner or anybody else with justification, as has been pointed out on numerous previous occasions. They don’t need a warrant. They are free to exercise this oversight power at their own discretion. The thing about congressional oversight is that it can’t be turned off at will by the branch of government subject to that oversight. If it could be, it would be nothing more than a joke.
A president IS NOT above the law. The law DOES NOT reside in the Department of Justice, so even if Stevie comes up with a opinion supporting his crack-brained claim—which he has thus far failed to provide—that will not nullify the power of the law in question.
@Greg: The demand for bank records taxes for what purpose? Records the citizen has every constitutional right to hold private.
Its a fishing trip like the Mueller investigation.