Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/05/trump-hires-new-lawyer-who-say.html
William S. Consovoy, the attorney hired by Trump last Friday, told Treasury it should not turn over Trump’s tax returns until it receives a legal opinion from DoJ.
3 Likes
As much as I’d love to see that he makes less money than he says he does, I don’t really see the point in fighting this. It’s more of a distraction at this point.
3 Likes
Yeah, it’s not like eliminating the possibility of or confirming that the President of the United States and/or his corporation are eyes-deep in hock to Russian and “Cypriot” bankers who only do business at the sufferance of Putin would have enough bearing on the public interest to supersede Il Douche’s privacy.
[or so will say William Barr, the Winston Wolf of GOP political scandals, in the requested DOJ decision]
27 Likes
What’s worse, the criminality, or the lying that makes reasonable people look like crazy ones?
Trump’s a public official. He is not only subject to OBLIGED to undergo public scrutiny of his life and behaviors. And EVERY public official should release returns.
His returns would be a goldmine for fraud investigators, they would clarify his relationship with Russian businesses (remember, Barr said that Muller didn’t find collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russian Government – not Russian private citizens, some of who have a lot of money they owe to Putin which they probably lent to Trump).
Also, if you’re under Audit you can release your returns. This is another lie.
So tired of feeling like I’m taking crazy pills.
29 Likes
Are you annoyed at Congress for subpoenaing them or Trump for fighting the subpoena?
8 Likes
Yeah, I think the Mueller report was our best shot. Benghazi told us everything we need to know about Congressional investigations–they’re horseshit theater. This is just a way for Congress to look busy and keep their base stirred up while they do nothing to fix our country, and get rich in the process.
2 Likes
… and maybe the Edward Bulwer-Lytton of Broadway musical reviewers 
:
7 Likes
I think it’s clearly in the nation’s best interests to understand the President’s finances (and potential conflicts of interest) whether or not there is any outright criminal conduct to be found.
Transparency and accountability need not always be about removing someone from office.
27 Likes
I’m not annoyed at any of it. I understand why people want to see it - I understand why he doesn’t want to show it. Going through the legal wrangling to show or hide it is fine, but I don’t see what it is actually going to accomplish. Unlike the Mueller investigation, seeing the tax returns isn’t going to reveal anything that would get him removed from office. I don’t see the point in harping on it. Chose your battles.
The Muller Report should be released whole or mostly whole (I understand if some things need redacted).
2 Likes
This is the problem with so-called “democratic norms”. They are useful when the country is not so polarized and/or when the president is not a dumpster fire. If the Democrats can gain control of the presidency and congress, they should pass legislation requiring the president to turn over their tax returns.
15 Likes
I’m not so sure of that. Remember that his father definitely cheated on his taxes, by giving his son a salary as early as the age of 2. This was Donnie’s business mentor.
Then there’s the 2008 sale of a Palm Beach mansion for $95M to a Russian Oligarch. Trump paid $41M for the property in auction, and supposedly refurbished the house prior to sale. However, the work was never completed and in fact most or all of the supposed upgrades Trump talked about were never done. It’s a shell. While the location is prime, there is nothing about the deal that made it worth anywhere near the $95M. It’s a classic money laundering move.
While 2008 wouldn’t be covered by the tax returns that Congress is demanding, it certainly goes to the kind of shady business that Trump has been involved in. There’s surely more to be found in the recent returns. He can’t help himself.
20 Likes
The House committee has made the legal demand for documents from the IRS. Trump’s lawyers are demanding that the IRS violate the law and refuse to turn them over. There’s no “fight” unless some Trump appointee in the IRS decides to break the law. In which case, that very much seems like a fight worth having, taking legal action against government workers who are breaking the law to benefit an individual (who is also a public official reasonably subject to oversight).
22 Likes
so the “10 year” voluntary release of tax returns by candidates was invented specifically in response to what happened with Nixon so people could prove they weren’t crooks
and history repeats itself, almost exactly, on so many levels, just as soon as voters got far enough from the previous event in history to forget what happened
he’s never going to step down and excuses are going to be made to allow it to happen
4 Likes
Also because Ford pardoned Nixon, which gave a green light to powerful politicians to break laws without fear of reprisal.
5 Likes
If there’s clear-cut evidence of extreme emoluments clause violations, documented, you never know.
2 Likes
Aye.
Never forget; for all his many crimes, it was tax evasion that finally took down Al Capone.
16 Likes
This looks like Trump doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
“Disclosure to Committees of Congress
(1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation
Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Tax ation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any re- turn or return information which can be asso- ciated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be fur- nished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclo- sure.”
12 Likes
In that case it was predictable: A Republican pardoned a Republican.
On the subject of pardons…what I’m really terrified of (next to Trump winning in 2020) is Trump (losing in 2020 and therefore much more vulnerable to fed prosecution) himself being pardoned by a Democratic president (something I would not bet the house against). There’s the abomination of just that, but it would get the Democratic Party on the left’s major shit-list and stay there for perhaps decades.
7 Likes
I too worry about that, the “Let’s look forward, not backward” the “heal the nation” bs. We didn’t put any of the people that led to the 08 crash in jail. So that is why financial crime and corruption continue. It is also why the republican work hard to change the law so that what was illegal in the Past is now legal.
9 Likes
Exactly. With the IANAL qualifier, in the plain language of that law “shall provide” does not offer any wiggleroom that i can see. It also specifies that such info is to be held confidential, but honestly I do not care to go through that shit show. I want people who know how to figure out what is actually happening to go through it and figure out just how deeply conflicted he is by hostile foreign powers at al.
13 Likes
