This is a hill
Huh. Really?
Admin official slams House Dem demands for Trump's tax returns: "This is a hill and people would be willing to die on it… we will see you in court."
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 5, 2019
People would be willing to die on the hill of Trump’s ability to keep his tax returns secret? Really? That’s their noble cause?
Maybe it’s just the one spokes. Maybe everybody else in there is saying “Nope, nope, not me, get yourselves some other fool to die on that hill, I’m not interested.”
President Donald Trump continues to hold his ground against Democratic efforts to obtain his tax returns, with one administration official telling CNN that the President and his team are willing to fight the House Democratic request all the way to the Supreme Court.
“This is a hill and people would be willing to die on it,” the official said.
Of course, there aren’t actually militias outside the Supreme Court ready to shoot down any administration officials who approach.
Yeah, your last sentence pretty much explains it. There’s no downside to this for Trump. He’s already taken whatever hit he’s going to take for refusing to disclose his tax returns. A few more headlines about the legal battle are not going to make a difference. Best case scenario for Trump: his judicial lackeys rule in his favor. Worst case scenario for Trump: he loses, but stalls long enough to postpone any actual production of his returns until after the 2020 election. Either is better than disclosing voluntarily.
And these people would be amongst the FIRST to complain if any Democratic President (assuming there are ever any more of them) were to refuse to disclose their tax returns.
The fact that all candidates release this information routinely and voluntarily shows that Trump has something to hide. These people “willing to die” are defending his ability to conceal things he wants to keep hidden and secret. At best, he’s hiding something embarrassing (like being worth a lot less than he claims*). At worst…who knows?
*But then again a lot of us already know he’s worth a lot less than he claims. In all senses of that phrase…
Better than preserving slavery I guess.
Assuming Trump actually filed his returns in the first place, if he refuses to comply with the subpoena could the House committee directly subpoena the IRS for the information?
AoS, the House subpoena is to the IRS, so the fight is whether the IRS will comply, not whether Trump will comply. The media aren’t making this clear, how our checks and balances work.
Yes, but the IRS Commissioner is a recent Trump appointee, and Trump reportedly told Mitch McConnell that getting that nominee confirmed was as high a priority as getting Barr confirmed as Attorney General. So I fearlessly predict that the IRS will do whatever Trump wants here.