Judge to order New York to "not" turn over tax returns

Judge leaning toward order that would keep Trump's tax returns with NY for now

A federal judge in the District of Columbia said Wednesday that he's leaning toward issuing an order under which New York wouldn’t provide President Trump's state tax returns to House Democrats while the state argues certain motions.

“That is my current thinking,” Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, said during a teleconference with lawyers for New York officials, Trump and the House Ways and Means Committee — the parties in a lawsuit Trump filed last week.

This week's court proceedings stem from Trump having filed an emergency motion asking the court to bar the Ways and Means Committee from requesting his state tax returns until his case can be heard in court. The committee objected to this motion, saying that its decision about whether to request Trump's state returns is protected from litigation under the Constitution.

Sort of an odd headline for the story in question. It's almost as if The Hill wants to confuse people into thinking that this was not actually a win for the President. Since there are no real "physical" documents to be turning over, the idea that New York would "keep them" is confusing, if not downright misleading.

The fact is that Democrats in Congress are suggesting that there is no judicial oversight to the request that they are making of both the Federal and State tax authorities. An awful ironic claim for those who sue the President over pretty much everything he does. The judge here is disagreeing, and basically allowing the President to pursue a judicial review of the Ways and Means committee request before his returns are actually turned over.

Now the President may or may not ultimately prevail on this one. It's clear that the Ways and Means committee does have the authority to request tax returns as part of their oversight. However, the law in question is based on their inherent oversight of the IRS (not oversight of any American tax payer).

The same law that they are referencing, also includes language that forbids the Ways and Means committee from sharing anything within those tax returns with anyone else, without the consent of the taxpayer. Which sort of brings us right back to the beginning. If they want to actually allow the full Congress to review these returns, or ultimately release them to the public, they still need the President's official permission.

My best guess is that Democrats want to use the part of the law that allows them to garner the returns, but ignore the part of the law that requires the permission of the citizen to release them. Or they are planning on breaking the law by leaking them to the media.

But as we all know. Democrats in Congress have repeated acted as if they are above the law! There is no legal principle that cannot be ignored in the pursuit of bringing down the "bad orange man".