Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[GreyhoundFan]

I guess Dumpy had to get his performance review from his boss: "Trump and Putin discussed outcome of Mueller probe as part of hourlong phone conversation, White House says"

Quote

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “very, very briefly” touched on the special counsel’s findings during a call Friday morning, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

“It was discussed, essentially in the context that it’s over and there was no collusion, which I’m pretty sure both leaders were very well aware of long before this call took place,” Sanders told reporters at the White House.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.

If Sarah Slanders said "very very briefly", I'm sure it means the entire hour was taken by that topic.

[Howl]

Evan McMullin nails it: 

 

[Alisamer]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

I'll take "Tweets Trump Didn't Write" for $1000.

Honestly if you'd shown me just the tweet uncredited I'd have guessed JillRod, except the spelling and grammar are a little better than hers usually is. And there's no Plexus shilling.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The White House’s latest attack on Mueller reveals an ugly truth about Trump"

Spoiler

President Trump’s latest position on the Mueller report is that it both totally exonerates him and is fatally flawed at its very core — because it doesn’t totally exonerate him.

Signs are mounting that House Democrats are reaching a breaking point in the face of Trump’s maximal resistance to any and all oversight. That resistance just took a new turn, when Trump told Fox News that former White House counsel Donald McGahn should defy a subpoena to appear before Congress.

McGahn’s testimony to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III provided the basis for the report’s conclusions on some of Trump’s worst obstruction of justice efforts, and Democrats hope he can shed more light on them. A major confrontation looks all but inevitable.

So the White House is justifying its maximal resistance with a broadened set of claims. These are set forth in a newly released letter that White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent to the Justice Department, complaining bitterly about Mueller’s investigation.

Because the Mueller report disclosed his conclusion that he could not conclusively determine that Trump hadn’t committed criminal obstruction of justice, the letter argues, the investigation is hopelessly tainted.

What’s more, it argues, Trump fully cooperated with that tainted investigation. But now that it’s over, he retains the right to exercise executive privilege to prevent his advisers from testifying to Congress — that is, to resist all efforts to further flesh out Mueller’s conclusions.

The argument is ludicrous but revealing. It shows in a roundabout way that Trump’s real position is that he should be beyond the reach of accountability entirely.

The new White House argument

Flood’s letter takes issue with the Mueller report’s declaration that he could not reach the judgment that Trump didn’t commit obstruction of justice. Mueller said if he could have reached that judgment, he would have, adding: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Flood argues that this violated basic prosecutorial tenets, because prosecutors are either supposed to bring charges or decline to do so. If they decline, that’s supposed to be the end of the matter. By saying Trump is not exonerated, Mueller strayed beyond prosecutorial boundaries, into the “political.”

But importantly, Flood’s letter doesn’t address why Mueller stated that he couldn’t exonerate Trump.

As you’ll recall, Mueller clearly stated that his team accepted the Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion declaring that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Thus, they didn’t explicitly state Trump had committed crimes, because — without an indictment and a trial — Trump would not have been able to defend himself.

Mueller also laid out extensive evidence of criminal obstruction. But, because Mueller did not think he had the jurisdiction to indict — which constrained him from declaring outright that Trump committed crimes — Mueller declined to render that judgment, which he felt required him to also reveal that this didn’t mean Trump hadn’t committed crimes.

By arguing that Mueller should not have even revealed that, without addressing why Mueller did so, Flood is creating an absurdity: Mueller could not say Trump committed crimes, because that would have been unfair to him, but Mueller also could not say Trump hasn’t been cleared or reveal the evidence of what he did do.

This construction effectively places Trump beyond accountability. If Trump can’t be indicted, the only mechanism for accountability is Congress — yet according to Flood, Congress should not have been informed as to what Mueller learned about Trump’s misconduct.

“The Flood letter is an extraordinary misreading of the role of a special counsel as Mueller understood it,” Mark Rozell, a professor of government who has written on presidential secrecy and accountability, told me. “Because Mueller chose to follow OLC guidance, he was constrained in the conclusions he could draw. He therefore carefully documented evidence which would allow the legislative branch to take action.”

“Flood’s argument, if accepted, effectively puts the president outside the reach of the law and undermines the whole system of democratic accountability,” Rozell continued.

In fairness, one could argue Mueller didn’t have to follow the OLC opinion and could have indicted if he thought it warranted.

But the White House can’t really amplify this argument, because it would tacitly acknowledge that Mueller did amass extensive evidence that could have provided the basis for indicting.

What’s more, Attorney General William P. Barr himself has said Mueller could not indict. During his Wednesday hearing, Barr said Mueller should have declared whether Trump committed criminal acts and that, if so, an indictment would have to wait until after Trump left office.

Mueller did not make that declaration either way out of an abundance of fairness. Now the White House is exploiting that in bad faith to, in effect, declare that Mueller should not have left open other avenues to accountability.

Trump is above accountability

All this points to Trump’s actual position, which is that he is above accountability entirely. Trump has said the administration will defy “all” subpoenas. The White House letter declares that Trump can defy congressional efforts to further flesh out Mueller’s findings on the basis of executive privilege, such as by blocking McGahn’s testimony.

Rozell tells me that while presidents can legitimately claim executive privilege to protect the secrecy of deliberations, this is “not an absolute or unconstrained power.” Rozell adds: “The privilege weakens substantially when there are allegations of wrongdoing.” Which is the case now.

Meanwhile, Barr still hasn’t said when Mueller will be permitted to testify to Congress. Needless to say, Mueller will be asked why he declined to exonerate Trump, at which point he may well communicate in some way that a good deal of evidence did indeed point to Trump’s criminality.

It is precisely this type of further fact-finding by Congress that Trump is so desperate to close down.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, I didn't realize that Diet Coke + Big Macs = God: "Trump says he leaned on God to survive Mueller probe"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump said Thursday he leaned on one thing to get through special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election: his faith.

“People say, ‘How do you get through that whole stuff? How do you go through those witch hunts and everything else?’” Trump said at the White House during a National Day of Prayer service.

He looked over to Vice President Mike Pence and shrugged.

“We just do it, right?” the president continued. “And we think about God.”

Since a redacted version of Mueller’s report was released last month, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the implications of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the president obstructed justice.

Mueller wrote that there was insufficient evidence to find that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin. The special counsel did not take a position on whether the president obstructed justice but detailed a number of instances in which the president attempted to interfere in Mueller’s investigation.

Democrats have used the report as justification to ramp up congressional efforts to investigate the president and his actions, with some lawmakers calling to launch impeachment proceedings immediately. The White House, meanwhile, has led Republicans in arguing that Mueller found “no collusion.”

Heading into 2020, Trump will look once again to appeal to white evangelical Christians, a voting bloc that played a huge role in his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. The president has touted his Christian faith in the past and filled his administration with advisers who are outspoken about their faith, perhaps most notably Pence.

The Trump administration has also pursued key policies sought by evangelicals, such as restricting abortion access, allowing religious nonprofits to make political contributions and establishing a Justice Department task force on religious liberty — accomplishments he trumpeted at the prayer service.

The president also condemned the “evil and hate-filled attacks” on religious communities throughout the world in the past year, inviting victims of a shooting at a California synagogue Saturday to speak.

“Every citizen has the absolute right to live according to the teachings of their faith and the convictions of their heart,” Trump said. “This is the bedrock of American life.”

 

[fraurosena]

But, why would he? He knows he will never win the election without it.

 

[Howl]

Our president just chatted on the phone with a vicious dictator murderer who leads an enemy state, who utilized active measures to influence the outcome of our election, and Trump just gave him a pass on that.  If that isn't treasonous, I'm not sure what is.  And if that doesn't bring Mueller out of whatever underground bunker he's in, I don't know what will.  I'm past the point of caring about what an up-fucking-standing man of integrity, stand up, by-the-damn-book kinda guy Mueller is, he needs to come to the defense (again) of his country. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

On 5/4/2019 at 9:03 AM, Howl said:

  And if that doesn't bring Mueller out of whatever underground bunker he's in, I don't know what will.

Nothing will.  Just like nothing will spark Nancy and company to do their damn jobs and hold him accountable.

[GreyhoundFan]

"In reversal, Trump says Mueller ‘should not testify’ before Congress"

Spoiler

President Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should not testify before Congress, reversing course from his previous position that the decision is up to Attorney General William P. Barr.

“Bob Mueller should not testify,” Trump said in an afternoon tweet. “No redos for the Dems!”

Trump also insisted that Mueller’s 448-page report found “no collusion” and “no obstruction,” overstating the conclusions of the two-year investigation.

In the report, Mueller’s team wrote that while the investigation established that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from” information stolen in Russia-backed efforts, it “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Mueller also found 10 “episodes” of potential obstruction of justice but ultimately concluded that it was not his decision to determine whether Trump broke the law.

The House Judiciary Committee has been seeking to hear from Mueller amid disagreements about whether Barr mischaracterized the special counsel’s report in his congressional testimony and statements.

Trump’s Sunday tweet marks a shift from what he said Friday on the matter during an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Asked then whether Mueller should testify before Congress and whether he’d like to see the special counsel do so, Trump replied, “I don’t know. That’s up to our attorney general, who I think has done a fantastic job.”

Barr said at a news conference last month — and reiterated during his testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee — that he has no objection to Mueller testifying.

Trump’s reversal came hours after a key member of the House Judiciary Committee said that the panel has proposed a date of May 15 for Mueller to testify but that no agreement has been reached yet.

Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) had said Sunday morning during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” that a “tentative date has been set” for Mueller’s testimony. But he said in a later tweet that he had misspoken.

“Just to clarify: we are aiming to bring Mueller in on the 15th, but nothing has been agreed to yet,” Cicilline said in the tweet. “That’s the date the Committee has proposed, and we hope the Special Counsel will agree to it. Sorry for the confusion.”

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

In late March, Mueller wrote a letter to Barr voicing dissatisfaction that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of his investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his work.

Barr defended his handling of the case during a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. He repeatedly denied accusations and insinuations by Democrats that he had lied or misrepresented anything.

“I wasn’t hiding the ball,” Barr told Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), who pressed the attorney general on whether he omitted key details of Mueller’s report from his initial account of the findings.

In his “Fox News Sunday” interview, Cicilline said the panel hopes Mueller will agree to testify.

“We think the American people have a right to hear directly from him,” he said.

Asked whether Mueller himself has agreed, Cicilline responded, “The representative for the special counsel has, but, obviously, until the date comes, we never have an absolute guarantee.”

 

[Dandruff]

Hope this isn't a dumb question, but why is Mueller being asked if he wants to testify vs. being called in to testify?

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF? "Claiming two years of his presidency were ‘stolen,’ Trump suggests he’s owed overtime"

Spoiler

Democrats running for president are weighing the idea of government reparations for black Americans to compensate for slavery and discrimination.

President Trump on Sunday seemed to warm to the idea of reparations — for himself, and in the form of an unconstitutional, two-year addition to his first term in the White House.

He retweeted a proposal offered by Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, that he be granted another two years in office as recompense for time lost to the Russia investigation. Half of his first term, Trump wrote in a Twitter dispatch of his own, had been “stolen.”

The argument was perhaps tongue-in-cheek, leading some legal experts to dismiss the comments as bravado. Others, however, saw the president’s apparent longing to overstay his four-year term in office as an assault on the rule of law. That it was raised playfully, they said, was small comfort, especially given Trump’s playful refusal, in the fall of 2016, to say that he would accept the outcome of an election that polling suggested he was destined to lose.

“I will keep you in suspense,” he said at the time.

Now, as the nation gears up to decide on Trump’s reelection, the question of whether he would abide by an unfavorable result has again become acute, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that Democrats must win overwhelmingly to ensure he walks away from the White House. A CNN poll last week found that a handful of Democratic candidates would beat Trump in a head-to-head contest. Meanwhile, the president has been lashing out at former vice president Joe Biden, who has polled as a top contender since entering the race last month.

The emergence of these battle lines was the context for Trump’s weekend decision to broadcast the idea that he is owed presidential overtime. His claim is that the first two years of his presidency, which he also says were the most successful in history, were denied to him by a Democratic-led putsch, in the form of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The probe was led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a Republican, who was named by another Republican, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

Trump got the idea from Falwell, who is an embodiment of the unlikely alliance between evangelical Christians and a thrice-married reality television personality who has appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine. Falwell took to Twitter on Saturday to celebrate the “best week ever” for the 45th president, echoing Trump’s misleading characterization of the findings of Mueller’s probe and touting robust economic performance.

“I now support reparations,” he declared, adopting the language of Democrats discussing what is owed to historically oppressed minority groups. The evangelical leader argued that Trump should have two years added to his first term “as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup.”

Trump retweeted Falwell’s assertion to his 60 million followers on Sunday. Then, he made the case for himself.

In a pair of tweets — reposted Sunday night to correct a spelling error in his earlier pronouncement — the president said two years of his presidency had been squandered by the “Collusion Delusion.” The rhyming catchphrase is his name for the probe into Russian election interference and the quest to discover whether members of his campaign team worked to enable foreign meddling and whether he acted unlawfully to obstruct the investigation. He also repeated his denouncement of the inquiry as a “Witch Hunt,” even though he also claims falsely that it exonerated him.

Addressing constitutional limits on his time in office at a rally last month in Green Bay, Wis., Trump told his supporters, “I promise at the end of six years, I’ll be very happy.” He ridiculed those warning that he would not step aside as “sick people.”

Among those who have sounded the alarm is Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and fixer, who is reporting to federal prison on Monday. In testimony before the House Oversight Committee in February, Cohen said part of his motivation for laying bare his dealings with Trump was his concern that his former boss would not settle for being a one-term president.

“I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” Cohen said. “And this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”

Legal experts were divided about the significance of the president’s new complaint that he has been denied his due time in power.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” said Michael W. McConnell, a former federal judge who now directs the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.

McConnell, who was named to the federal bench in 2001 by President George W. Bush, dismissed the tweets as “bluster.”

“If there were the remotest chance he were serious, and had power to put his words into effect, I might be concerned,” he said. “But he is not serious, and he could not do anything about it even if he were serious.”

But Jon D. Michaels, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he took Trump at his word.

“I don’t take this lightly because there’s been a persistent campaign by this administration to undermine the rule of law in any number of respects, from not accepting the considered findings of judges because of their nationality or purported nationality to calling judges ‘so-called judges’ or ‘Obama judges,’” Michaels said. “It’s disconcerting.”

Whether Trump means what he says, his protest “paves the way for future occasions to disregard or dispute the legitimacy of an election,” the constitutional law scholar warned.

He also noted that some of Trump’s followers on social media may be learning the rules and requirements of democracy from their president’s utterances on Twitter. What some see as bombast, others may view as “an alternative trajectory for how this could all play out, departing from the basic tenets of our system."

There is no such thing as purloined years of a presidency, Michaels said, and the idea of a two-year extension is plainly unconstitutional.

“It’s not like soccer where there’s a penalty time, so they just add a couple minutes to the end of the game or the half,” he said.

Unlike in a parliamentary system, where votes of no confidence are possible and the government enjoys leeway to call early elections, the constitution is explicit about the regularity of elections.

Certain assumptions about the electoral system are in fact coming under question, Michaels noted, including the value of the electoral college. But these discussions presume the need for constitutional revision, he said.

Trump is hardly the only president who has confronted the limits of his tenure. Most recently, President Barack Obama was asked by wistful supporters in the twilight of his second term to stay for a third, which is proscribed by the 22nd Amendment.

“Four more years,” they chanted during his farewell address in Chicago in January 2017.

“I can’t do that,” he told them.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

5 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Idk how Twitter works, but do people respond?

I mean if when he did something like this if hundreds of thousands of people immediately responded as you did here would that be a deterrent?  Clog his feed or something?

[AmazonGrace]

Freedom of speech means that the government can't  put you in jail for expressing opinions. It doesn't mean that private companies must provide you a platform. Just like it has never meant that Penguin must publish your poems or that Hollywood must buy your movie script.

But  let no one say that Donald Trump doesn't stand up for the free speech rights of Russian bots.

Edited May 6, 2019 by AmazonGrace

[GreyhoundFan]

53 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Idk how Twitter works, but do people respond?

I mean if when he did something like this if hundreds of thousands of people immediately responded as you did here would that be a deterrent?  Clog his feed or something?

Yes, lots of people responded to both Klain and Dumpy. Unfortunately, Dumpy just blocks accounts that are critical. I believe there's a lawsuit pending because he shouldn't be able to block dissenting voices on what he is using as an official account.

[AmazonGrace]

52 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Idk how Twitter works, but do people respond?

I mean if when he did something like this if hundreds of thousands of people immediately responded as you did here would that be a deterrent?  Clog his feed or something?

Tons of people respond to every single one of his tweets but it makes no difference.

I don't believe he reads most of the comments.

Just my theory but I think his staff probably mutes frequent responders who express views that would upset the adult baby.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "Let’s give Trump cash reparations — in exchange for his retirement"

Spoiler

How can we ever repay Donald Trump?

The sad truth is we probably cannot. And yet, conscience dictates that we try.

This is why we should welcome Jerry Falwell Jr.’s proposal: America owes President Trump reparations.

The president of Liberty University floated this fine idea over the weekend, and Trump himself quickly embraced the proposal with a retweet, adding a rationale: “Despite the tremendous success that I have had as president, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any president in history, they have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.”

Theft! A tangible wrong. And yet — incredibly — when I search GoFundMe for “Trump Reparations,” I find nobody attempting to compensate Trump for his suffering.

Certainly, others have a more compelling historical claim on reparations. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren floated reparations for Native Americans, who suffered genocide. Another Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, has revived the idea of reparations for African Americans, for centuries of slavery.

But perhaps nobody, living or dead, has alleged more grievances than Trump. “No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly,” Trump has said, placing his suffering ahead of Benito Mussolini (executed corpse beaten and hung upside down) and Oliver Cromwell (body drawn and quartered, head hung on spike).

Consider the litany of wrongs done to him in the past few days alone, as chronicled in his Twitter output: He is being targeted “by the deep state” and he is suffering from congressional “bullying.” He is the victim of “a complete setup,” and he lamented with Vladimir Putin a “Russian hoax” perpetrated against them both. The “FBI sent undercover agents to spy on” his campaign. His enemies went after him with “18 Trump Hating Angry Democrats & 49 FBI Agents” — and now Democrats want a “redo”!

Additionally, his fellow conservatives are being “treated so horribly” by Facebook, and “it’s getting worse and worse.” His opponents are playing “very dirty . . . like never before.” Andrew Napolitano, once an ally, is now talking about Trump’s guilt on Fox News (“Take him off the air!”).

In a video clip Trump shared, a Muslim cleric vows to “conquer America” and “this tyrant” — Trump presumably — then “kill them and take their women and smash their churches” if Americans don’t convert to Islam. Trump is further vexed by “drug cartels & violent criminals” at the border and stubborn Chinese trade negotiators (hence his threat to raise tariffs again). Even the officials at the Kentucky Derby let him down — by disqualifying the winner because of “political correctness.” And Hillary Clinton’s emails!

During this extraordinary recitation of wrongs inflicted on him, Trump retweeted a question posed on CNN: “Is Trump not getting enough credit for the economy?”

Of course he isn’t! And somebody must pay.

Falwell’s proposed remedy, that Trump have “2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup,” has a practical flaw: At the rate Trump’s would-be Democratic challengers are joining the field, there would be more than 250 of them on the debate stage in 2022. (Also, the idea is unconstitutional, though the Supreme Court has recently granted Trump considerable leeway with that document.)

A less messy solution: cash reparations — a victim’s fund for our beleaguered billionaire. This would be relatively simple to implement, because we already have considerable experience shifting funds into Trump’s pocket.

Ivanka Trump got trademarks from the Chinese government. Jared Kushner feted would-be lenders at the White House. The federal government disregarded the provision in the Trump International Hotel in Washington’s government lease, which says no “elected official . . . shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease.” On Monday evening, Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tiger Woods, a sometimes Trump business associate. On top of this, political parties, campaigns, foreign governments, lobbyists and federal agencies have funneled tens of millions of dollars to Trump properties.

And yet, all these reparations payments have been insufficient; Trump still feels aggrieved and wronged. A bolder gesture is needed.

I propose, therefore, the mother of all emoluments: $10 billion. That’s the amount Trump has said he’s worth but is more than triple his estimated worth . Divided among all Hillary Clinton voters, it’s only about $150 per person — and that’s before George Soros’s subsidies. In further compensation, Trump would be awarded the title he has envied since it was given to China’s Xi Jinping: “president for life.”

In exchange, Trump would agree to stop being the actual president, to delete his Twitter account and to retire to Mar-a-Lago, which would be renamed — and I’m just picking a couple of names at random here — Elba or St. Helena.

Maybe then, once Trump feels he’s been made whole, the rest of us can finally heal.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The nightmare scenario for Democrats on Trump’s corruption"

Spoiler

The administration’s categorical refusal to release President Trump’s tax returns heightens the difficult question Democrats face, and raises the prospect of a nightmare scenario — both in political and substantive terms.

Democrats must now choose between continuing to pursue the returns through conventional channels, which carries some risk of failure, and getting serious about impeachment hearings, which would likely minimize that risk to the greatest extent possible.

If Democrats go with the first, it raises at least the possibility that they could squander months in court, only to fail to secure Trump’s returns at the end — at which point they’d decide it’s too late to pursue impeachment, because 2020 would be looming.

To be sure, there are many other reasons to initiate an impeachment inquiry, beyond overcoming resistance to releasing the returns. But this dispute throws the broader choice Democrats face into sharper relief.

The Treasury Department has declared that it will not release Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. This appears to violate the law, which says the returns of any individual “shall” be furnished upon request by tax-writing committees.

Democrats on Ways and Means now have two leading options, according to Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Democrats can subpoena the Treasury Department for the returns, or they can sue to force the department to comply with the law, or both, Rosenthal tells me.

But either of those two paths would likely require a lengthy court battle — one that Democrats might lose before the Supreme Court.

The legal case for getting the returns appears strong. In requesting Trump’s personal and business returns, Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the chair of Ways and Means, argued that Congress needs them to scrutinize whether the IRS is enforcing tax laws against the president. Thus, Neal furnished a legislative rationale that the law doesn’t even appear to require.

But that doesn’t mean the legal case for getting them is airtight. Rosenthal says that in either case, the Supreme Court could side with Trump, by arguing that Democrats “are applying the statute unconstitutionally.”

In this telling, the court would rule that Congress’ power to solicit tax returns is not unlimited, and cannot be applied for illegitimate purposes. The court could decide Democrats are “just rummaging through Trump’s returns to embarrass him and not for a legitimate legislative purpose, and that Neal’s explanation is a pretext,” Rosenthal told me.

Daniel Hemel, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, agrees. He told me the court could rule that the statute “can’t sweep more broadly than Congress’ constitutional authority,” which “doesn’t include the power to investigate except for legitimate legislative purposes.”

To be sure, Democrats could win this battle, both experts said, because they actually do have multiple legitimate purposes for getting the returns. But this is hardly guaranteed, particularly with this court. And it could take months or years.

The bottom line: A loss, coming next fall or later, is at least possible. And at that point, Democrats would likely be even more reluctant to launch impeachment hearings, with 2020 right around the corner.

This would constitute an epic, disastrous failure. Not getting Trump’s returns would allow him to get away with one of his most blatant acts of contempt for transparency, for the separation of powers and for the notion that basic accountability should apply to him at all.

And we simply don’t know how much corruption — from tax fraud to emoluments clause violations to compromising foreign financial entanglements — this might end up concealing from view.

Impeachment hearings could strengthen Democrats’ hand

The idea here is that, if Democrats were to initiate an impeachment inquiry, it would create a legislative purpose for compelling release of the returns that is basically unassailable — that legislative purpose being impeachment.

“I think Ways and Means’ argument is fundamentally solid,” Rosenthal said. But he added that if Democrats stressed that an impeachment inquiry were its purpose, “I don’t see how any information can be withheld — the Mueller report, tax returns, anything. This would make it airtight.” Other legal experts agree.

It’s possible that Democrats might not even have to go this far. They could potentially state that they are soliciting information for the express legislative purpose of deciding whether to launch an impeachment inquiry, Rosenthal says.

That latter possibility needs more expert attention. But the bigger point here is that more forthrightly embracing an impeachment inquiry as a key rationale — immediately, or the question of whether to launch one — very well might strengthen Democrats’ hand.

This is the case not just on Trump’s tax returns, but also in other areas, as Rosenthal points out. That includes empowering Democrats to fight against efforts to conceal the unredacted Mueller report; and efforts to prevent former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who witnessed extensive obstruction of justice, from testifying, and possibly special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as well.

“Congress’ hand is strengthened across the board by acknowledging that the information is relevant to a possible impeachment inquiry,” Rosenthal tells me.

Jonathan Bernstein argues the contrary case: This is a contested view; Democrats might prevail on some fronts without impeachment; they can employ other tools.

It’s true this is a contested view. But that means it might prove correct, and the question still remains whether Democrats will at least try to use all the tools at their disposal, and what the dangers are in not doing this. The argument isn’t necessarily that Democrats must launch an inquiry right this second. But it must be put on the table clearly as a point toward which they are converging out of necessity, in response to Trump’s worsening abuses.

Democrats (and other impeachment skeptics) need to more forthrightly engage with the argument that the failure to do this could end up with Democratic oversight mostly being neutered, with no remaining options.

Yes, Democrats could then beat Trump in 2020. But what if they don’t, after having seen their oversight efforts largely blocked, and having failed to exercise all the powers they have at their disposal?

 

[formergothardite]

They aren't going to get the tax returns. At least not legally. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

31 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

They aren't going to get the tax returns. At least not legally. 

Just read something interesting about his old tax returns.  Shows over 1B in business losses.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html