Now maybe we can presume Trump’s tax returns are actually being audited. A Mueller audit.
Yeah. Audited by financial fraud specialists. Should be thorough. Much more thorough than Donnie wants.
And, of course, we can only hope that it gets to testimony, so the rest of the country can finally hear about that which Prez Shitgibbon promised and promised, but never delivered.
Might be getting time to lay in some more popcorn, before there is a run on it.
Popcorn, hell!
I don’t pretend to know a damn thing about tax law, but I was thinking that this could be one of those areas where state law and federal law overlap. By that I mean that if you’ve committed federal tax fraud, you’ve probably also committed state tax fraud. I could be totally wrong on that, but it seems there must be some intersection. Any lawyers with any insight here?
It’s not clear whether Mueller has obtained President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Oh, you tease.
If Dolt 45 deducted the state of New York income taxes he paid, Mueller could subpoena the sate tax returns. Anything found fraudulent in the state return could be turned over to Schneiderman for prosecution. Any conviction on state tax fraud charges would be unpardonable by Dolt 45 or his successor.
Waiting for that big IRS shoe to fall!
State tax shenanigans will hardly land a person is serious hot water unless they’re committed with some sort of malice, calculation and negligence indicating venality on a grand scale. You pay your fines, the overdue taxes, accrued interest and plead to some charge admitting guilt but avoiding jail. Not the type of activity that gets a President thrown out of office. Plausible deniability is built into a wealthy person’s tax situation. Lawyers and accountants prepare the taxes. Sure, by signing the return you take responsibility for their work product. But you can nevertheless fob off any inaccuracies, or even frauds, on their prep work.
“Hey, those returns ran a thousand pages! You think I can actually read and understand all that?! That’s what I paid the accountants and lawyers to do!”
If state tax issues are all Mueller and Schneiderman bring to the table Trump doesn’t have any problems. The same would hold for any of his lackeys.
That’s kind of my point. If Mueller discovers any discrepancies that violate both state and federal charges, he could simply hand it off to the respective state AG. For the record, the Attorneys General in VA, DC, NY, and MD are all Democrats. There are no Pam Bondis in the bunch who can be paid off with a campaign donation.
A particular act may not be subject to both federal and state tax law, but it can be an indication of a pattern of behavior.
Foolish consistency something something.
I’m just pointing out that, should 45 be forced to resign and Pence pardon him, there is still the possibility of going after him on state charges. If that is the scenario, Schneiderman will nail his balls to the wall, and the public will be supportive. The state charges would just be icing on the cake.
Even after Ford pardoned Nixon, if Nixon had been tried on state charges, the juries in the state cases would have been howling for blood.
I’m not looking at these things as separate, but as pieces of a whole of far more serious state crimes as part of a conspiracy.
That’s probably true for your average Joe, even your average very wealthy Joe, but I seriously question whether that’s true for somebody who has evaded other more serious federal crimes via a pardon. I imagine juries and judges don’t take too kindly to people who commit treason and get away with it because the beneficiary of their treason pardoned them.
I don’t see why you would jump to that conclusion.
Maybe, Trump is 71. The legal scenarios we’re contemplating would take a year or more to unfold. Trial delays, pre-trial pleadings, offers of pleas to lesser charges. Motions to suppress. Requests for change of venue. Continuances. Successful motions to delay proceedings until Trump is out of office (for which there is some precedence). Trump will avail himself of every legal maneuver in the book. Like it or not the courts would grant an ex-President a modicum of leeway and deference in fighting the charges, with the same leeway and deference following the process through endless appeals. Trump would likely live out how ever many years he has left merely writing the occasional check to cover the next stall and delay scheme by his legal team. He’d never cross the threshold of a jail cell.
It’s all a part of my rash, impetuous personality. Been that way since the day Billy Johnson dared me to jump off the roof of the garage. Seems like yesterday, hard to believe it was just a year ago now…
Sure, but I’m certainly not thinking only of PP here. Manafort and Flynn have a lot of life left, and neither strikes me as the kind of guy who wants to spend it in a state prison. My thought process, which I didn’t make at all clear, is that either one of them could flip on PP to avoid state charges. I’m thinking the threat of state charges could be used to leverage federal cooperation against PP.
Trump: Obama’s America continues to defy the constitution.
FINALLY someone is looking at these money-grubbing connivers.
Has he paid Texas the $1m he pledged after Hurricane Harvey?