The House Ways and Means Committee filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force the Trump administration to disclose the President’s tax returns.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1232834
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1232834
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Bravo! No more Mr. Nice Guy!
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And now, Trump will react according to his original label instructions:
blather, mince, retweet…
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And if they refuse still? (spoiler alert: it goes up the courts to the illegitimately stacked Supreme Court which will rule in favor of trump)
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From the department of ‘About f***ing Time!’.
I do think Pelosi has moved a little since the last Congressional recess. We have dates for Mueller, and this new law suit. Still haven’t seen anything filed on the McGahn/Hicks matter which is actually more critical for the purposes of getting fact witness testimony before a live audience. I would also like to see the Speaker use that bully pulpit to highlight what’s going on in the detention centers and to threaten impeachment over it.
That said, I do see baby steps and I welcome that movement.
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Even that worst case scenario result is good for the people to understand what we’re up against and for Pelosi to get that the only remedy for rampant lawlessness from the sitting POTUS is impeachment.
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Six months after the Dems took over the House of Representatives, the investigations are still on square one.
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No, they literally aren’t.
However, it’s fair to say Neal was very disappointing with his foot dragging on this particular move.
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I would also like to see the Speaker use that bully pulpit to highlight what’s going on in the detention centers and to threaten impeachment over it.
Pelosi’s communicating skills are just terrible. Assign a Communications Director to get the message out.
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Neal being “empowered by law” means nothing to Trump. The law is what he says/thinks/wants it to be. The Dems are far more interested in getting the GOP to like them than they are in getting the returns. Dems behave like battered wives; they actually start to defend their abusers. Trump is a bully and a punk, so someone needs to punch him right in the nose and this shit will stop. Deep down, bullies are cowards. Kick Trump in his tiny shriveled nuts and he’ll run like a scalded dog. Get the returns regardless of the fight required, then make them public.
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Keep it coming, Mr. Chairman.
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Well, now I know what mandamus and ultra vires mean. My legal education continues, and my Latin vocabulary just expanded a wee bit.
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Be that as it may, the following may be a little too cute:
Neal narrowly tailored the rationale for the initial April request, asserting that the tax returns were needed to conduct oversight of whether the IRS is impartially auditing Trump’s tax returns. He reiterates that argument in the Tuesday lawsuit, saying that Congress must investigate the matter in part because “President Trump himself has repeatedly questioned the integrity of the process by which the IRS audits his tax returns.”
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The docket sheet does not yet indicate which judge the case has been assigned to. The large majority of the currently active judges are Obama appointees, with a couple Clinton appointees still hanging around too. But Trump does have four appointees of his own at the district court level. The split is 7 D / 4 R at the court of appeals, with only two of the 4 R’s being Trumpers.
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That is actually unlikely. This would be a ruling on a very clearly worded statute that has existed for nearly 100 years and with a very clear legislative history. Roberts would have to be willing to seriously embarrass the Court and undermine his legacy just to protect Donald Trump personally. This isn’t a matter of “conservative values” or even Republican power. Roberts knows that if Trump goes down Pence steps in.
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That’s deliberate, just like South Park’s intentionally bad animation graphics. She wants muddle, not clarity. If she pursues the path of clarity she accelerates impeachment or she embraces ‘case closed’ which would hasten her removal as Speaker in the next House.
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I’m not sure I agree. She has done well in some circumstances, just not when it comes to convincing what we can laughingly call “undecideds.”
In this case – what to do about Trump this year – I’m not sure that it’s her skills that are at issue.
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This is a defeatist attitude that says no one should do anything ever to pushback on the corrupt republicans because it will only be met with defeat somewhere down the line. Ergo, Democrats should do nothing but accept what the Rs dole out. But if they were to do nothing, that would bring on a whole other kind of criticism.
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People’s criticism of Pelosi’s “communicating skills” are centered on the sound of her voice which is the voice of a woman of a certain age. She doesn’t shout, she’s not bellicose, all those things we’ve come to expect from those who have a bully pulpit esp. one in the WH.
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You may be right, but I hope not.
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