To embarrass and cudgel
The Treasury Department must turn over six years of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns to House investigators, the Justice Department said in a legal opinion issued on Friday that most likely paves the way for their eventual release to Congress and potentially to the public.
Treasury says okie doke.
Yet even as the decision lowered a key barrier for Congress, it was unlikely to be the final word in the dispute. A highly litigious and determined protector of his financial records, Mr. Trump could seek an injunction in the coming days to try to stop the transfer, setting off a new round of legal wrangling that could take weeks or longer to resolve.
Jobs program for lawyers.
Mr. Trump’s son Eric Trump and his allies in Congress recoiled at the prospect of his political adversaries gaining access to six years of his personal and business tax data, as well as related I.R.S. files. They accused Mr. Neal and House Democrats of lying about their real intentions, which they claimed were to embarrass and cudgel Mr. Trump.
Oh dear, really? How shocking, when he’s such a nice man.
If everything is in order, what is there to be embarrassed about? If anything, the embarrassed ones will be the prosecutors, who pushed so publicly for the tax records only to come up with nothing.
“If you’re innocent, then you have nothing to hide.”
Isn’t that how that old chestnut goes?
If you’re running for public office, your sources of income are of public interest, a way of seeing if there are any skeletons in your closet. It should not just be customary practice, but legally required to release this information upon announcing one’s candidacy. Trump is scared shitless because he knows that his closet looks like a section of the Catacombs of Paris.
I would have no embarrassment about turning over my tax returns, because there is nothing fishy in them. We don’t cheat even a little bit, even on things we could get away with, listing every $10 or $20 that comes from the direct sale of one of my books.
Other presidents have had no problem turning over their tax returns. DJT doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s been doing on his taxes, and there is almost certainly a nefarious reason for that. Although it may just be he doesn’t want people to know he isn’t as rich as he claims.
It’s puzzling that Trump’s supporters, many of whom are ordinary middle or working class people, don’t find a millionaire desperately trying to hide his financial records in the least bit disturbing. Somehow, this elitist bastard has managed to make them think he’s “one of them.” So what do they think he’s trying to keep off the public record — that extra bit of unreported cash he makes by putting up some shelves for the couple down the block or altering old dresses? I’ve no idea.
Maybe they’re fundamentally incurious because “if it upsets the Democrats, go for it.”
He might be an elitist bastard, but he’s their elitist bastard.
It’s a comparatively benign way of demonstrating their loyalty and pissing off Dems. At least supporting Trump in his efforts to conceal his tax records doesn’t leave you breathing through a machine, and dying alone.