The income tax returns of former President Donald Trump must be released by the IRS to Congress, the Department of Justice said Friday.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee had made a request with a legitimate legislative purpose to see Trump’s tax returns, with a stated objective of assessing how the IRS audits presidents’ tax returns.
That 39-page opinion is a reversal of an opinion by the same office, during the Trump administration, which had backed the IRS’ refusal to give the committee Trump’s returns.
Previously everyone agreed. The DOJ, the IRS, and the courts. None of them believed that Congress was being anything but dishonest with their request, which comes from a fuzzy legal loophole intended to allow the "Ways and Means" committee to have them. The law that allows them to do this would not (in fact) provide any legal means for anyone outside of the Ways and Means committee to see the tax returns, and it would be illegal for anyone from the Ways and Means committee to expose any part of the tax returns to anyone.
So it could not be used in any sort of real investigation of the President. Even the pretense provides the idea that they are only wanting to use Trump's tax returns as just sort of a random example of any President's tax returns are being audited. Of course, if this was true then I doubt anyone would have really had an issue with it. It also wouldn't have to be Trump's tax returns. It could (and probably should) be Biden's based on the nature of the request. But nobody actually believes the reasoning or expects that these Tax Returns would remain hidden from the rest of Congress or from the media or from the public.
Nope. They would intend right off the bat to break the law that they are using to get them and every single Democrat with TDS are rooting for just that to happen. More to the point, the pretense of how they are requesting the returns would be less valid today (now that he is no longer President) than it was when they originally requested them.
Bottom line. It would be one thing if the IRS and the courts disagreed with the previous DOJ position on this. Then you could make an argument that the DOJ was behaving in a partisan manner to protect Trump. But everyone agreed prior. Now the DOJ is taking the opposite position at a time when the Congressional request makes even less legal sense. If anyone can come up with a reason other than partisan Trump hating politics coming from a politicized DOJ, I would be happy to listen.
34 comments:
Much more dangerous than the Delta Variant? The Trump Party variant in 2022. Even crazier Trumpers running for Congress.
People will stop filing their tax returns and now would be well justified not to.
Democrats doing more harm than good.
And just watched my son get his degree without any student debt
I know of no GOP congressman wIlling to expose the tax returns and other private documents of a Democrat opponent.
You want danger? Look to the Democrats who are willing to violate your rights to privacy, free speech, keep and bear arms and would put you under an authoritarian dictatorship.
The current President is not using the Department of Justice for his own purposes.
The bombshell story about the former President Trump demanding the the DOJ declare the election was invalid shows exactly that the Department of Justice is acting properly as designed by the Founding Fathers. They refused his demands.
Of course you are claiming that the Democrats are doing the same thing as before, but you never criticized the former president for using the DOJ for his own personal lawyers.
They flat out refused his attempt to discredit the election results in December! Just weeks before he incited the attack on the Capitol building on January 6th!
The handwritten notes taken by the former President's appointees show the same thing as the current Department of Justice is doing.
They stand for
The Rule of Law.
The current President is not using the Department of Justice for his own purposes.
What other reason did they "reverse course" and now disagree with everyone else about the Trump tax returns? The legal reasoning is so shallow that a snake could wade across it. Do you truly believe that the DOJ actually suddenly believes that the legal argument is better now that Trump is out of office?
What's your reasoning here Roger.
You make a lot of blanket denials without any sort of logical reasoning. That looks a lot like cognitive dissonance.
I explained everything in a clear manner that for some reason it escapes your mind because of your cognitive dissonance disorder. The symptoms include "Do you truly believe that the DOJ actually suddenly believes that the legal argument is better now that Trump is out of office?"
When I said.
The handwritten notes taken by the former President's appointees show the same thing as the current Department of Justice did in December.
They stand for
The Rule of Law.
Yes I believe that!
Unless you provide reasonable evidence that Sleepy Joe Biden called the DOJ a ordered them to release his taxes, you have nothing to stand on!
Other than your political views.
The current President is actually acting as the President of the United States of America, not for his own purposes.
Remember when William Barr resigned, he refused Trump's demands to arrest Joe Biden and his son?
Of course not.
Plus the Congress has the right to see his tax returns.
Plus the data
● The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said Congress had made a legitimate request to see Trump’s tax returns.
●The decision came more than a year after the Supreme Court said Trump’s tax returns and other financial records had to be turned over by his longtime accountants to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. as part of a criminal probe.
What's your reasoning here Roger.
Same as always -
Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The alky's legal reasoning wouldn't fill a matchbook cover.
Show your PLAGIARISM alky...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/trump-tax-returns-can-be-released-to-congress-doj-says.html
Blogger Roger Amick said...
Remember when William Barr resigned, he refused Trump's demands to arrest Joe Biden and his son?
Of course not.
Because it never happened, you're a pathological liar and you made it up.
Roger...
You obviously don't understand the request.
The Means and Ways committee has no authority to investigate a taxpayer. They only have the authority to investigate the IRS. They are allowed to ask for tax returns to review to make sure that the IRS is doing their job.
Whether or not a DA gets Donald Trump's tax returns has no legal bearing on the issue at hand with the Means and Ways committee. By making this request, they are signalling that the IRS is guilty of something (not Donald Trump). Trump would be charged with a million tax crimes and the Ways and Means committee would still not have authority to actually investigate Trump. Only investigate the IRS as it pertains to their handling of Trump's returns.
WHich is why they are allowed to request tax returns, but are still held to the standards that they cannot release any of that information outside of the investigation.
Would you be okay if they got Trump's tax returns and if anyone from the Ways and Means committee leaked them, that they would be sent to jail for doing so?
Because that would ACTUALLY be the real rule of law here.
so how do you know they are lying, Roger?
The request from the Ways and Means committee says that they are wanting to review the IRS handling of the President's tax returns as a legitimate "legislative purpose" - which is not an "investigation".
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee had made a request with a legitimate legislative purpose to see Trump’s tax returns, with a stated objective of assessing how the IRS audits presidents’ tax returns.
But the Ways and Means committee is not asking for the tax returns to "investigate Trump's taxes or his financials" because that is not what the law says. They are using it to "assess how the IRS audits president's tax returns".
Howeever... Nancy Pelosi states:
“Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security,” she said. “The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”
See the problem here Roger?
One committee is asking to see the tax returns for what would be (in theory) a legitimate use of the law - so assess the IRS.
But another Democrat outside of the committee is already telling us that the "REAL" reason they want the tax returns is to break the law and provide information illegally to the Public.
Or do you still not see the problem?
Even when spelled out with quotes from your Party leaders?
Would you be okay if they got Trump's tax returns and if anyone from the Ways and Means committee leaked them, that they would be sent to jail for doing so?
Because that would ACTUALLY be the real rule of law here.
We should fully expect the entirety of Trump's tax returns to be leaked to the MSM about 15 minutes after they arrive at the Ways & Means Committee.
This is how fucking stupid the democrats are. They think that they can demonize Trump the billionaire, preventing him from running again in '24. Not only do most people not care that he's rich, they admire him for it.
He's successful, and to a democrat success is defined as total dependence on and fealty to the government.
Welcome back Carter -
The U.S. Department of Commerce revealed that a key inflation metric rose to its highest level since the early 1990s.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index — which the Federal Reserve uses as a key guide for monetary policy decisions — has risen 4% between June 2020 and June 2021.
Factoring out food and energy costs — which rose by 24.2% and 0.9% respectively — the metric saw a 3.5% increase, therefore reaching its highest level since July 1991.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/benchmark-inflation-measure-hits-highest-level-in-30-years?%3Futm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwtwitter
Slow Joe is proving to be a demonstrable failure by every conceivable measure.
They are going to find out if the IRS didn't actually audit his taxes.
The Ways and Means committee has the authority to investigate the IRS.
Remember when he was running for President against "Crooked Hillary" he repeatedly said that as soon as the audit was done, he would release his tax report.
I think that the Congress should write a law to require a Presidential Candidate to replace his taxes.
Leaks are not considered criminal because of the first amendment rights.
I have zero concern about this.
“Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security,” she said. “The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”
If the President was receiving money from another nation, and it was affecting his policy issues, the Speaker Nancy Pelosi is exactly correct.
Scott if the IRS office didn't conduct a valid investigation, because the President had pressured them, he could be charged with intentional wrongdoing.
His history of tax evasion is finally under investigation!
Blogger Roger Amick said...
I have zero concern about this.
Of course you don't. You love it when democrats abandon the constitution and the rule of law to politically benefit themselves.
Honest people have grave concern because they realize that Peloshee is violating the legitimate legislative purpose of the request.
Peloshee has no right to have the committee demand Trump's tax returns only to go on a fishing expedition.
Trump needs to sue that denture-sucking cunt.
Scott and I actually discuss issues.
I ignore rrb because he said...
Peloshee has no right to have the committee demand Trump's tax returns only to go on a fishing expedition.
Trump needs to sue that denture-sucking cunt.
He can't sue Pelosi. Or even...Peloshee
That would be treason.
Remember Benedict Arnold!
If the President was receiving money from another nation, and it was affecting his policy issues, the Speaker Nancy Pelosi is exactly correct.
She's flatly fucking wrong. She doesn't get to level a charge based upon zero evidence and go on a fishing expedition to find some bullshit presumptive crime, and she most certainly doesn't get to abuse ways and means committee privilege to do so.
There's not a shred of fucking evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to support he baseless charge.
And there's no fucking way an IRS as blatantly biased as ours is, one full of hacks like Lois Lerner, would've missed something during a Trump tax return audit.
Fishing expedition that violates both the spirit and the letter of the law allowing Ways and Means to request those returns.
And I wonder which MSM hack is lined up to receive the leak.
Pete Williams is a very good correspondent for NBC news. His story is below..
Pete Williams
The Justice Department said Friday that the Treasury Department must turn over former President Donald Trump's tax returns to a congressional committee that has been seeking them for the past two years.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said in its opinion that the House Ways and Means Committee had given "sufficient reasons" for requesting the information.
"We conclude that Treasury must furnish the information specified in the June 21 request," the opinion said.
Rep. Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, welcomed the legal finding.
"As I have maintained for years, the committee's case is very strong and the law is on our side," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "I am glad that the Department of Justice agrees and that we can move forward."
Neal did not immediately respond to questions about how soon the returns might be provided to him, but unless Trump can persuade a federal court to step in, Congress will soon have his tax returns for 2015 through 2020.
Neal asked for the tax information in April 2019, citing a federal law that requires the Treasury Department and the IRS to turn over individual tax returns when demanded by any of the three congressional tax committees.
The same law also says Congress must keep the returns it seeks confidential.
But the Trump administration refused to provide the documents, arguing that Congress had no legitimate lawmaking purpose for seeking them and was simply hoping to find something that would embarrass the president.
In a 2019 opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel agreed and said the congressional demand was invalid.
In Friday's opinion, the office said that its earlier analysis "went astray," failing to give a coordinate branch of government the "respect and deference" it was due.
Recommended
Audio from migrant shelter reveals allegations of sex misconduct by staff with minors. This is a heartbreaking story
When a congressional tax committee asks for such tax information, "the executive branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances," the office said.
There was no immediate response from the former president.
"The statute says what it says," Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said. He considered it unlikely that Trump could get a federal court to block the handover.
"But is it possible Trump could get a judge to prevent the returns from being turned over while the courts take the time to reach the merits? That seems more plausible, if still not terribly likely," he said.
Under an agreement filed in federal court in an existing lawsuit over congressional access to the returns, the government agreed to give Trump's lawyers 72 hours' notice before turning over any returns, to give him time to try to prevent the disclosure.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., commended Neal for pursuing the information.
“Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security,” she said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”
____
It's not TDS. It's a valid reason to determine whether he was a dangerous President, so the people can make up their minds!
🇺🇸Caliphate4vrJuly 31, 2021 at 9:09 AM
And just watched my son get his degree without any student debt🇱🇷
Congrats
I see roger is still pushing a debunked NYT hit piece using quotes from notes out of sequence to push a false narrative
And posing false hypotheticals to attempt to smear the president
In rogers case if you don't have the facts you pound the nightstand
that is all he has
in his room
but of course he can't imagine that he may have TDS. But I'm sure his roommate knows better
There isn't a non-TDS brain cell left in roger
and on display here.
Of course we do have actual evidence of the "big guy" getting 10 % of Hunters foreign cash flow.
And the mayor of Moscow wire transferring Hunter $3.5 million
and Joe, Hillary, Nancy, Dianne etc getting filthy rich while "working" for the people. How did Nancy manage to profit at least $150 million on stock trades in companies she was overseeing?
kind of like Hillary's commodities trading
only bigger
and not investigated or charged.
roger has a very blind eye for all that.
Yes it is.
It is what Socialist Do.
They are going to find out if the IRS didn't actually audit his taxes.
The Ways and Means committee has the authority to investigate the IRS.
Then you turn around like Pelosi and demand that Trump's tax returns are at issue. Even if the ways and means committee thought there was something wrong with Trump's returns, they have no authority to do anything about Trump, provide that information to Pelosi or leak it to th press.
Doing any of that would be a breach of law.
Are you suggesting that it's okay for Democrats to break the law in order to figure out if a Republican "might have" done so?
Because that is your argument here whether you admit it or not.
President Biden is a common sense leader.
He is not a radical figure, but he understands how the system works.
The next face of the Democratic party is..
Eric Adams,who got assaulted by a police officer when he was 15 years old. After that he got a good education and became a Police Officer and he ended up as a Captain in the New York City police Department.
Eric Adams may not be the mayor of New York, but he is already starting to privately seek an alliance with several of the city's most influential business leaders.
Adams, the overwhelming favorite to win the mayor's race in the fall, started speaking to executives just after he secured the Democratic nomination earlier this month following a grueling primary, according to people familiar with the matter. Those who declined to be named do so in order to speak freely about private conversations.
Adams' attempt to reach an understanding with the wealthy executives comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio battled with business leaders for years. The two-term Democratic mayor has called for raising taxes on the wealthy and has reportedly ignored business leaders' suggestions on how to handle the Covid pandemic.
"Breath of fresh air and very promising," said a longtime Wall Street executive who met with Adams in recent days. This person said Adams wants to work with business leaders and various experts to help recruit top talent to work at City Hall.
Kathryn Wylde, the CEO of pro-business group Partnership for New York City, said she heard from Adams shortly after he won the primary. Adams said he wanted to hear her ideas on how to create a better relationship between City Hall and business leaders, she told CNBC.
The organization, which has over 300 members, plans to host an in-person meet-and-greet for Adams in September, barring any new Covid restrictions. All members are invited to the gathering. Previously, Adams took part in several virtual meetings with the group.
He's working with the very wealthy people in New York City..
He was on The Bill Maher show last night.
He understands that just a few thousand people who live in New York City pay for most of the revenue for everything.
I don't think that he will run for President, but he will be the face of the Democratic party in the future.
Leaks during the Nixon impeachment hearings were one of the reasons he finally resigned.
You have not yet provided a law that you claimed they broke!
But if the congressional investigation finds out that he broke the a federal law, the DOJ would probably file charges against Trump.
Biden is a Radical Socialist.
Period.
🤡🥉Eric Adams,who got assaulted by a police officer when he was 15 years old😆
Socialist are on the March in Effeminate Rogers Californicated.
Bacon under attack.
"DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Thanks to a reworked menu and long hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.
That makes it all the more frustrating that she fears her breakfast-focused diner could be ruined within months by new rules that could make one of her top menu items — bacon — hard to get in California.
“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who for 15 years has run SAMS American Eatery on the city’s busy Market Street. “It could be devastating for us.”
At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market."
Post a Comment