Posted on 06/15/2019 11:46:34 AM PDT by bitt
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did not violate the law by refusing to provide President Donald Trump’s tax returns to Congress because the confidentiality of returns is protected under the law, the Justice Department said in a legal opinion released on Friday.
Federal law “protecting confidentiality of tax returns prohibited the Department of the Treasury from complying with a request by the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for the president’s tax returns,” a department official said in the opinion provided to the Treasury Department.
The memorandum from Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel, supports the position already taken by the Treasury Department. It is likely to draw fire from Democrats in Congress who have argued the legal reasoning is misguided.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal had issued a subpoena demanding the administration turn over six years of Trump’s returns. He has said he is likely to try to enforce the subpoena by going to court.
The administration has been refusing to cooperate with a number of congressional probes of Trump, his family and his presidency, with the fight over his tax returns just one example.
“While the Executive Branch should accord due deference and respect to congressional requests, Treasury was not obliged to accept the committee’s stated purpose without question, and based on all the facts and circumstances, we agreed that the committee lacked a legitimate legislative purpose for its request,” Engel wrote.
“This is a pretty aggressive argument from DOJ, basically saying that Congress is lying about its purpose for wanting the president’s tax returns and that as a result, the IRS need not provide them even though the statute doesn’t require Congress to have *any* reason,” USA Today reporter Brad Heath Said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalistpapers.org ...
And label the DoJ as racist. (might as well hit on all the usual whines while they are at it)
Your expression fishing expedition reminded me that one time when I had to give a deposition, the lawyers gave me a hand signal to stop the procedure and go off the record.
After awhile I stopped the procedure and asked "Are you people on a fishing expedition"?
One of the lawyers replied "Your damn right we are."
Anytime you mention someone elses name, they could be in for a subpoena.
Anytime you are grilled by lawyers it can have unintended consequences. - Tom
Thanks for posting. I thought the Prez and the AJ were not allowed to talk to each other.
Trump isn’t spineless. They can get a district court judge to say anything. Trump will raise it to the next level, and next...
THE IRS has his tax returns. If they weren’t satisfied with the legality of his filings they would have audited them.
Good idea! Get the tax returns of Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff- and Nadler. Find out how they manage to get so rich in public office.
Dearest congress-criminals: Go pack sand!
I assure you, since he's got a LOT of money, the IRS does at least an internal audit on him every. single. year.
The President is the top law inforcement official in the nation and the Attorney General’s boss. They can talk anytime they deem necessary.
Considering the number of Independents and Libertarians who believe the 16th Amendment isn’t Constitutional, I suspect a number of other legal challenges might be advanced.
If that's the way it goes, we have a serious problem.
When it was Holder being slapped with a contempt of Congress, it never went to court because (we were told) it simply could only be sent to the DOJ as a referral and we all knew how that was going to go. And that's exactly how it did go and where--nowhere.
If Dems can on there own take this kind of thing to court independently, we were lied to about how the DOJ was able to stop the Holder Contempt Citation and referral in its tracks.
I got into a pi$$ing match with some lefthole a couple months back who insisted, according the CFR somewhere USC etc., that congress had a RIGHT to oversee the president and taxation and could subpoena any and all records to their satisfaction.
I pointed out the little clause about the according to the subject’s permission and another somewhere about cause, and the little troll stopped posting.
It’s all in Disqus land somewhere.
Good to hear AG Barr’s take on this. I’m sure some distant lower district court Obama appointee judge will take great umbrage and place a fatwa... ahem, a stay or something until this eventually gets taken up the the Supremes.
“THE IRS has his tax returns. If they weren’t satisfied with the legality of his filings they would have audited them.”
The leftists in New York State surely audited Trump - and found nothing amiss.
Trump knows enough estate tax law to ensure his younger family members receive Trump family business income.
I wish Trump would tell them that when all House members release their tax records, he will too.
-
During one of his debates with The Demon, he said he would release all of his tax returns if Hillary released the 32,000 deleted e-mails.
She didn’t even respond.
If it goes to court the Democrats might have to answer some questions about their motivations under penalty of perjury.
There is one reason why the Democrats want the tax returns - partisan politics.
“Where is the Senate peeping out any support for the administration?”
Just a guess but, Cartels moving illegals to the US boarder is a 2.4 billion dollar industry.
That money is used to pay off Mexican politicians and U.S politicians/bureaucrats Dem and Republican to keep the boarder open.
Trump is threatening their corrupt cash flow, cheap labor for their business interests and the very real possibility of indictments for them and their cohorts.
That’s why Senate Republicans are mum. They need Trump to go down. They support Trump going down because they don’t get piped across the head and loose their right eye exactly like Harry Reid.
The Cartels have enforcers here waiting for orders.
Piss on the democrats...from a great height.
Mad Maxine will want to impeach them all.
Right now we have opposing forces
The demon cats are in complete panic mode and know that the hammer is about to drop as her trying to go as completely on offense as they can
The problem for them is it’s all for show and the more that they do it and nothing happens the more even the really stupid people that vote for them are going to realize that they’re full of shiite
Now the question for the Democrats out there - that do you realize that these people are totally full of shiite
Will
You
Care
About
It ?
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