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Posted on 08/20/2019 1:42:43 PM PDT by jazusamo
House Democrats are looking to speed up their lawsuit against the Treasury Department and IRS over their refusal to turn over President Trump's tax returns.
The Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday filed a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., for summary judgment, asking Judge Trevor McFadden to direct Treasury and the IRS to comply with the committee's requests and subpoenas for six years of the president's federal tax returns.
The committee also asked McFadden, a Trump appointee, to consider the case on an expedited basis, proposing a schedule under which briefs on relevant issues would be filed by Oct. 25 with oral arguments taking place "as soon as practicable" after that.
The Ways and Means Committee filed the lawsuit in July, after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig rejected the requests and subpoenas.
In arguing on Tuesday that the judge should direct the administration to provide the tax returns, the committee said that the "defendants’ defiance is an extraordinary departure from established principles of law."
The committee said that its subpoenas are valid, and that the section of the tax code under which it requested Trump's tax returns doesn't give Treasury and the IRS any discretion.
Treasury has said that it thinks the committee's requests and subpoenas for Trump's tax returns lack a "legitimate legislative purpose," and that Democrats' real purpose for seeking the documents is to expose the tax information of a political rival.
But the committee argues its requests and subpoenas do have a legitimate legislative purpose, because the panel is conducting oversight and considering legislative proposals relating to how the IRS enforces tax laws against a president.
The committee revealed in its new court filings that on July 29, it received an unsolicited communication from a federal employee it claims made credible allegations of possibly inappropriate efforts to influence the IRS's mandatory audit program of presidents.
Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier this month, asking for records relating to those concerns. Mnuchin replied that Treasury didn't have any records that were covered under the tax code section under which Neal made his request. Mnuchin also said that Neal should raise his concerns with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The committee said that the administration has indicated that it plans to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit because of "justiciability issues," and asking that those issues be resolved before the court considers the committee's summary judgment motion. Justiciability issues relate to whether a court can hear a case, such as whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue.
But the committee thinks that the judge should consider the administration's expected motion to dismiss and the panel's summary judgment motion concurrently, since the motions are likely to raise overlapping issues.
The panel also argued that "time is of the essence" in resolving the case, since the current Congress will end in January 2021.
"The Committee must obtain a prompt resolution of the issues in this case if it is to have enough time to investigate the tax issues implicated by President Trump’s tax returns and return information and propose and pass any legislation that it may deem appropriate in response," the panel argued.
The committee argues that it has standing to sue because it has been injured by the administration's refusal to provide it with Trump's tax returns.
Desperation.
Trump should file a motion to Release the Tax Return of Every Member of Congress!, the same law they are using gives the President the same authority.
Who says they have to do it? The Dems regularly ignore subpoenas and rulings and do what they want. So we do it too!
Yep, nothing else has worked so they are certainly getting desperate.
There’s little bad to learn from a tax return. It’s just the individual’s claim about how the year went. The IRS, which can ask for whatever proof it wants, has already checked it.
Others, who can ask for nothing but the return itself, aren’t going to find any golden arrows there.
Ooohhh I like that.....
Or “time is of the essence” because there is an upcoming election and they need as much as they can to try to defeat the President’s reelection.
i would like to see this judge’s tax returns
You can’t write a law targeting an individual.
I’m sure the GOP-e will mention it in passing...in 2050...if they exist.
That sounds pretty weak.
Judges don’t like it when a party says move me to the front of the line because I’m more important than everyone else in your court.
The “golden arrow” is the propaganda efforts once they find something they can mischaracterize or outright lie about.
I don’t know who this Naomi Jagoda is, but I think her surname means “berry” or “strawberry.” Whether that affects her objectivity on this story I don’t know.
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completely agree with this- there is no downside for him...
I agree, especially when the fit the Rats have been having over this issue that’s been on thin ice from the beginning.
The real purpose is not to get any incriminating or seriously embarrassing information from PDJT’s tax returns, which will mainly show he’s a rich man who used all of the legal instruments in the Tax Code to reduce his liability, something just about as serious as showing a bear pooped in the woods. Instead, it’s a very sinister effort to get as much information about his businesses as possible to facilitate destroying them, him, and his family.
“The committee argues that it has standing to sue because it has been injured by the administration’s refusal to provide it with Trump’s tax returns.”
WTF!! The Loony libs claim standing to demand Trumps tax returns because they have been DAMAGED by his refusal to turn them over as requested.
This sh*t is straight out of the Twilight Zone!
Pure harassment, and a poorly assembled harassment at that.
The committee argues that it has standing to sue because it has been injured by the administration's refusal to provide it with Trump's tax returns.
What is the nature of the injury? Of the harm? What is the dollar amount involved in the injury?
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