Trump loses appeal to stop House subpoena of his tax documents

Taylor said:

No need to apologize, you tacitly admitted that you had no idea what the law says when you asked the question.

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What an interesting conclusion.

Now I have a question for you:

OK, now that I have asked you a question, let's see how many people can read your "You tacitly admitted that you had no idea whether you sometimes already knew the answers to the question when you asked the question.";

akyron said:

"the White House has open-sourced evidence that Ukraine re-opened their investigation into Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden in February 2019; several months before President Trump spoke to President Zelenskyy."

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Did you know that


and


are NOT the same thing?

Did you know that a statement to the effect that

and a statement to the effect that

do not mean the same thing?

Taylor said:

How is this relevant to the release of private tax records to the general public against the wishes of that individual?

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Where is anyone advocating "the release of private tax records to the general public"?

Admittedly the ethical lacunae in the US government (and civil service) are sufficient as to practically ensure that someone in the US government (or civil service) will commit a criminal act and "leak" the documents, but that is NOT what anyone is actually advocating - is it?

HAL9000 said:

Hooray! Now please explain how a House report is binding. Sit the **** down.

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Well, first you print up several copies, then you check to make sure that all the pages are in the correct order, then you make sure that the pages are all stacked up neatly and perfectly aligned, then you take them down to the print shop and give them to the staff there, then they take it over to their old "Unibind"[SUP]®[/SUP] machine, then they put the appropriate "Unibind"[SUP]®[/SUP] covers on the reports, then they run the covers (with covers in place) through the "Unibind"[SUP]®[/SUP] machine and

Well, that makes as much sense as some of the other arguments as to why it would be "binding".

PS - Apologies to the "Unibind"[SUP]® [/SUP]people. I still have one of their old (from the 1980s) machines and a stock of covers. It still works great.

Cardinal said:

Correct. Obviously I wouldn't think a private accounting firm has subpoena power. I can only assume that what Taylor was trolling me for was that typo.

All, to the best of my knowledge, correct.

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I do try.

And, of course, the subsequent

will produce a plethora of "interesting" documentation NONE of which was likely attached to an income tax return and so NONE of which would be covered by the statutory prohibition on the IRS "releasing income tax returns".

TU Curmudgeon said:

Where is anyone advocating "the release of private tax records to the general public"?

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Original stated purpose of this effort.

"Chairman Neal, who was then the Commit-tee’s Ranking Member, repeatedly urged the Committee to invoke section
6103(f) to make the President’s tax returns “available to the public,”
declaring that “Committee Democrats
remain steadfast in [their]pursuit to
have [President Trump’s] individual tax returns disclosed to the public.”

TU Curmudgeon said:

Where is anyone advocating "the release of private tax records to the general public"?

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That's Cardinal's position, which you'll see if you read back through the discussion. He believes that we need "Democrats to get his tax returns" so we can all "see for ourselves if they are clean."

W_Heisenberg said:

First, I think you are confusing two separate issues:

1. Is it legal for Congress to acquire and examine Trump's tax returns as it attempts to figure out whether or not existing campaign finance laws, and the enforcement of existing laws, is adequate?

2. Is it legal for Congress to make Trump's tax returns public?

Second, with respect to your point that 'there is no special law regarding "disclosing tax returns subpoenaed by a private accounting firm"', it doesn't matter Congress is allowed to examine anyone's tax returns with respect to investigations it conducts.

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I'm not confusing anything. You inserted yourself into a discussion with information that you thought relevant, but which had nothing to do with what was being discussed. Hence my question, "what does that have to do with..."

Second, any concerns about "disclosing tax returns subpoenaed by a private accounting firm"' should be directed to Cardinal, as he was the one who brought that herring to the table. As I stated, there is nothing special about that scenario; it changes nothing.

Not sure why Trump's fan boys are worried. He's an honest guy.

W_Heisenberg said:

This is not binding. This is a 1998-era congressional committee trying to figure out which rules the committee will adopt.



I would agree with this. Never before in our nation's history has a President like Trump so flagrantly obstructed congressional investigations and abused the power of the office of the Presidency.

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Haha. The illogic gymnastics you must perform to undo 150 years of legal tradition must be tiring. First, the groundwork does not exist and now the rules and traditions of the house do not matter.





What this highlights is the vast difference in how other presidents were treated. A fundamental eye towards legal fairness was present in the past in a bipartisan manner. Democrats have thrown out all sense of fairness and gone over the cliff, willing to destroy just about everything in an insane bid to "Get Trump".

This goofy plan will not work out the way they hope.



Let us hope that Trump Derangement Syndrome will be covered in the next iteration of healthcare reform.

I am thinking they have no choice however as more and more of their corruption becomes exposed.

W_Heisenberg said:

When do you think it is acceptable for Congress or anyone else to investigate such matters?

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I've already answered this question numerous times in this thread - their subpoena power is recognized only insofar as necessary to pursue valid legislative goals when operating within a legitimate legislative sphere.

akyron said:

Haha. The illogic gymnastics you must perform to undo 150 years of legal tradition must be tiring.

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There have been instances where impeachments began with a formal vote of the whole House, and there have been instances where impeachments did not begin with a formal vote of the whole House. For instance, impeachment inquiries into three federal judges in the 1980s began without explicit authorization by the full House. Does that not count? What about the second attempt to impeach President Johnson? In that case, the House voted and approved resolutions authorizing the Committee on Reconstruction to begin a general investigation and to obtain evidence gathered previously by the Judiciary Committee, and these resolutions did not even explicitly authorize a second impeachment inquiry. I suppose tradition does not count when it works against your argument? Is this another Trump-inspired situation of Heads I win, Tails you lose? It doesn't work like that buddy.

First, the groundwork does not exist and now the rules and traditions of the house do not matter.

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It's not that they don't matter, they're just not nearly as important as you think they are. The Constitution does not require it. None of the Court rulings require it. The current House rules don't require it. The House rules the House operated under Clinton's impeachment didn't require it, it's a set of rules they chose to adopt.

What this highlights is the vast difference in how other presidents were treated. A fundamental eye towards legal fairness was present in the past in a bipartisan manner. Democrats have thrown out all sense of fairness and gone over the cliff, willing to destroy just about everything in an insane bid to "Get Trump".

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The Republicans obstructed investigations into Trump during the first two years of Trump's presidency, and in fact, tried to investigate the investigators, and are still trying to do so. Heck, you have the Attorney General traveling the world to dig up dirt related to these crazy conspiracy theories. The White House has blocked nearly all testimony and has withheld many important documents from Congress. Let me ask you this. If House Democrats during the 1998-era Congress had publicly expressed their desire to investigate Ken Starr, and made attempts to do so, what do you think the Republicans would have done? Do you think the Republicans would have been so magnanimous? You're being disingenuous. People like Jim Jordan don't care if Trump did anything wrong. And you personally don't even care if Trump did something wrong. You just want to figure out ways to gum up works.

This goofy plan will not work out the way they hope.

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If Trump isn't impeached it will be because the Republicans no longer care about things like morality, ethics, integrity, and traditional values and principles. It will be because Republicans no longer care about the U.S. Constitution, no longer care about the role of the Presidency within our Republic. It will be because Republicans will have put their policy goals above that of the Republic as a whole. It will be because the petty, selfish, mean-spirited Trump supporters think their personal grievances are more important than the Republic as a whole. This moral cowardice in selling their soul to the devil, and their spineless, slavish obedience in the face of what is clearly an authoritarian President will haunt them for the rest of their days.

Let us hope that Trump Derangement Syndrome will be covered in the next iteration of healthcare reform.

I am thinking they have no choice however as more and more of their corruption becomes exposed.

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I do not believe that Republicans have a monopoly on corruption, but how anyone can continue to support Trump after he has so clearly put his own interests above that of the nation, is beyond me.

Taylor said:

I've already answered this question numerous times in this thread - their subpoena power is recognized only insofar as necessary to pursue valid legislative goals when operating within a legitimate legislative sphere.

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The first few pages of this PDF document represent a good lay summary of what constitutes a valid legislative purpose:

Legislative Purpose and Adviser Immunity in Congressional Investigations [May 24, 2019]

I encourage you to read it.

Interesting article here?


WITHOUT following the link, who is the article referring to?

akyron said:

Haha. The illogic gymnastics you must perform to undo 150 years of legal tradition must be tiring. First, the groundwork does not exist and now the rules and traditions of the house do not matter.

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– Thanks to HAL 9000 (where he got it from I don’t know)

W_Heisenberg said:

The first few pages of this PDF document represent a good lay summary of what constitutes a valid legislative purpose:

Legislative Purpose and Adviser Immunity in Congressional Investigations [May 24, 2019]

I encourage you to read it.

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Thanks, though it's a rather brief summary (and definitely more summary than analysis). The author doesn't make much of a prediction on how things are likely to play out, other than to say that Trump may "face an uphill battle" based on what the author himself admits are "broad interpretations" of case law.

Fact is, there aren't any great precedents for this case. It's an important question that deserves at the very least the full attention of the appeals court - although with Trump a direct appeal to SCOTUS seems more likely.

Either way, at this point it's looking less likely than not that House Democrats will succeed in leaking his tax returns prior to the election.

Praxas said:

As they should. But we know you love leaks when it deals with a dem president.

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Ol i can't wait for the next democratic president. I really hope it is warren or biden and i can't wait for there to be a republican congress.
endless streams of investigations, tax audits, business examinations, and everything else under the sun and you had better support everyone of
them. their entire lives exposed in every detailed and all of it leaked to the press.

you should be 100% for all of it.

Taylor said:

I've already answered this question numerous times in this thread - their subpoena power is recognized only insofar as necessary to pursue valid legislative goals when operating within a legitimate legislative sphere.

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they don't care about facts. everyone know this already. that is why they are not issuing subpoena's as pompeo clearly said.
Ignore the hype — this is not an impeachment inquiry | TheHill

i posted this to them plenty of times they continue to ignore it.

Moreover, there are no subpoenas. As Secretary Pompeo observed in his fittingly tart response on Tuesday, what the committee chairmen issued was merely a letter. Its huffing and puffing notwithstanding, the letter is nothing more than an informal request for voluntary cooperation. Legally, it has no compulsive power. If anything, it is rife with legal deficiencies.

But standing committees do have subpoena power, so why not use it? Well, because subpoenas get litigated in court when the people or agencies on the receiving end object. Democrats want to have an impeachment show — um, inquiry — on television; they do not want to defend its bona fides in court.

In criminal proceedings, prosecutors demand information all the time and witnesses often resist — just as congressional Democrats encouraged the Justice Department and FBI to resist when Republican-controlled committees were trying to investigate such matters as Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. Presumptively, resisting an information request is not evidence of obstruction.

the whole thing is a circus.
the reason they won't take it to the floor to vote is because it opens the whole thing up.
there is a reason that everything is closed door and no transparency.

every time schiff speaks he lies more and more about what is going on.
and the rapid lemmings continue to fall off the cliff with them.

Taylor said:

Thanks, though it's a rather brief summary (and definitely more summary than analysis). The author doesn't make much of a prediction on how things are likely to play out, other than to say that Trump may "face an uphill battle" based on what the author himself admits are "broad interpretations" of case law.

Fact is, there aren't any great precedents for this case. It's an important question that deserves at the very least the full attention of the appeals court - although with Trump a direct appeal to SCOTUS seems more likely.

Either way, at this point it's looking less likely than not that House Democrats will succeed in leaking his tax returns prior to the election.

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Tax returns are submitted under privacy. this is written into the tax code for a reason.
it is a right of privacy that your information will not become subject to this sort of display and the
reason that it was written that way was to prevent this very thing.

I find it interesting that NY had no problem with trump paying his multi-million dollars in taxes every year to them which has already been shown to be true.
i also find it interesting in all the years that he lived in NY that he never underwent a tax audit by the NY state government.

His taxes where already audited by the IRS before he became president it is a requirement. he passed with flying colors.
unlike Democrats who the Sec. of the Treasury was busted for not pay taxes.

IRS staffers owe $5.4M in back taxes
Access to this page has been denied.
Federal employees owe $3.3B in back taxes

maybe congress should be worried more about these people than trump who has paid all the taxes he has owed.

ludin said:

they don't care about facts. everyone know this already. that is why they are not issuing subpoena's as pompeo clearly said.
Ignore the hype — this is not an impeachment inquiry | TheHill

i posted this to them plenty of times they continue to ignore it.

Moreover, there are no subpoenas. As Secretary Pompeo observed in his fittingly tart response on Tuesday, what the committee chairmen issued was merely a letter. Its huffing and puffing notwithstanding, the letter is nothing more than an informal request for voluntary cooperation. Legally, it has no compulsive power. If anything, it is rife with legal deficiencies.

But standing committees do have subpoena power, so why not use it? Well, because subpoenas get litigated in court when the people or agencies on the receiving end object. Democrats want to have an impeachment show — um, inquiry — on television; they do not want to defend its bona fides in court.

In criminal proceedings, prosecutors demand information all the time and witnesses often resist — just as congressional Democrats encouraged the Justice Department and FBI to resist when Republican-controlled committees were trying to investigate such matters as Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. Presumptively, resisting an information request is not evidence of obstruction.

the whole thing is a circus.
the reason they won't take it to the floor to vote is because it opens the whole thing up.
there is a reason that everything is closed door and no transparency.

every time schiff speaks he lies more and more about what is going on.
and the rapid lemmings continue to fall off the cliff with them.

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On September 27th, several days before this article by McCarthy was written, two letters were sent to Pompeo:

1. One letter included a subpoena only for documents:

https://oversight.house.gov/sites/d...ff to Pompeo- State re Document Subpoena.pdf

2. The second letter was a request for employees of the State Department to appear before Congress. This second letter, which is the one McCarthy referenced, did not include any subpoenas with it:

https://oversight.house.gov/sites/d...l Schiff to Pompeo- State re Depositions.pdf

--

McCarthy mislead you and all Trump supporters when he wrote that article on October 3rd.

--

3. Further, when the State Dept. refused to allow State Dept. employees testify:

Yovanovitch was subpoenaed for her testimony:

The Latest: Ex-diplomat's testimony ends after 9-plus hours - StarTribune.com

Gordon Sondland was subpoenaed for his testimony:

Subpoenas issued in impeachment inquiry following blocking of ambassador deposition - CNNPolitics

George Kent was subpoenaed for his testimony:

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/trump-impeachment-inquiry-latest-george-kent-testimony-2019-10-15/

--

This isn't a joke. What Trump did was wrong, and he's going to get impeached for it.

W_Heisenberg said:

but how anyone can continue to support Trump after he has so clearly put his own interests above that of the nation, is beyond me.

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Except, he hasn't......in any real form, he hasn't.

You might think he has, because you don't like what he says, or you may dislike his policies, you might think him a liar etc,

But he hasn't put his own interests ahead of the nation, that's just a talking point by people who don't like him.

Point out EXACTLY where he has, BE SPECIFIC. Generalities don't work when making that kind of accusation.

W_Heisenberg said:

There have been instances

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I notice you avoid the most recent salient examples in order to justify unfairness.

The rules only matter if you intend to play the game again. Republicans chose to play by the agreed upon rules to look to the future. Democrats don't have that concern right now.

Weismann concluded his report and unable to do what he wanted (after crying at Hillary's party), he chose to leave the innuendo on the floor for nutcases in congress to paint the walls. The AG is following up on existing investigations as officials in the CIA, FBI,DOJ have proven unworthy of their offices having abandoned justice in preference to their own fantasies.

If the president is impeached based on unfairness, this will mean a large setback to the country and possibly worse.

If republicans allow this, it will be due to their own entrenchment in the swampy system designed to enrich them over the people of the USA.

As to the question of magnanimity. We have our answer in their statements of legal and moral fairness that are beyond question. How are they beyond question? Because opponents are allowed to ask questions... That is how. Democrats do not have a legal or moral concern with fairness now.

"It is the intention of the Committee that its investigation
will be conducted in all respects on a fair, impartial and
bipartisan or nonpartisan basis. In this spirit, the power to
authorize subpoenas and another compulsory process is committed
by this resolution in the first instance to the Chairman and
the Ranking Minority Member acting jointly. If either decline
to act, the other may act alone, subject to the right of either
to refer the question to the Committee for a decision prior to
issuance and a meeting of the Committee will be convened
promptly to consider the question."

Both parties have equal subpoena power.

Need for the Resolution
Because the issue of impeachment is of such overwhelming
importance, the Committee decided that it must receive
authorization from the full House before proceeding on any
further course of action. Because impeachment is delegated
solely to the House of Representatives by the Constitution, the
full House of Representatives should be involved in critical
decision making regarding various stages of impeachment."
"Also, a resolution authorizing an impeachment inquiry into
the conduct of a president is consistent with past practice.
According to Hind's Precedents, the ``impeachment of President
Johnson was set in motion by a resolution authorizing a general
investigation as to the execution of the laws.'' When the first
attempt to impeach President Johnson failed, the House
``referred to the Committee on Reconstruction the evidence
taken by the Judiciary Committee in the first attempt to
impeach President Johnson.'' 3 Hind's Precedents, Sec. 2408.
The impeachment investigation of President Nixon was
explicitly authorized by the full House. During debate of H.
Res. 803 in 1974, Congressman Rodino, then chairman of the
Committee on the Judiciary, stated:

We have reached the point when it is important that
the House explicitly confirm our responsibility under
the Constitution.
We are asking the House * * * to authorize and direct
the Committee on the Judiciary to investigate the
conduct of the President of the United States * * *.

* * * * * * *

Such a resolution has always been passed by the
House. The Committee has voted unanimously to recommend
that the House of Representatives adopt this
resolution. It is a necessary step if we are to meet
our obligations * * *."

"the Committee adopted, by voice vote, a number of protections
for the President. The President and his counsel shall be
invited to attend all executive session and open committee
hearings. The President's counsel may cross examine witnesses.
The President's counsel may make objections regarding the
pertinency of evidence. The President's counsel shall be
invited to suggest that the Committee receive additional
evidence. Lastly, the President or the President's counsel
shall be invited to respond to the evidence adduced by the
Committee at an appropriate time. The provisions will ensure
that the impeachment inquiry is fair to the President."

H. Rept. 105-795 - INVESTIGATORY POWERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY WITH RESPECT TO ITS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY105th Congress (1997-1998)


At the core, this circles back to one thing:

sjmay said:

Except, he hasn't......in any real form, he hasn't..

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Losing millions in your own personal businesses and subjecting your family to the slings and arrows of crazed loons is somehow "in his interests".

"Peter Fonda tweets he wants to 'rip Barron Trump from his mother' and put him in a 'cage with pedophiles'"

What exactly is wrong with these people?

View attachment 67266254

akyron said:

Losing millions in your own personal businesses and subjecting your family to the slings and arrows of crazed loons is somehow "in his interests".

"Peter Fonda tweets he wants to 'rip Barron Trump from his mother' and put him in a 'cage with pedophiles'"

What exactly is wrong with these people?

View attachment 67266254

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When was the last time Trump apologised for his hateful words?

from your link

Hours later, Fonda released a statement to Fox News apologizing for his comments.

"I tweeted something highly inappropriate and vulgar about the president and his family in response to the devastating images I was seeing on television. Like many Americans, I am very impassioned and distraught over the situation with children separated from their families at the border, but I went way too far," he wrote. "It was wrong and I should not have done it. I immediately regretted it and sincerely apologize to the family for what I said and any hurt my words have caused."

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Somerville said:

When was the last time Trump apologised for his hateful words?

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What hateful words?