• Treasury secretary misses deadline for providing Trump tax returns
    14 replies, posted
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury-likely-to-defy-tuesday-deadline-to-turn-over-trump-tax-returns/2019/04/23/daa7da46-653e-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.ee1cefce6faa Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday told a key lawmaker he would make a final decision as to whether to furnish President Trump’s tax returns by May 6, committing for the first time to a specific deadline in what has become a major Washington power struggle. Neal’s request relies on a 1924 federal law that says the IRS “shall furnish” any individual’s tax returns if they are sought by a chairman of Congress’s tax-writing committees. The law was written this way to make it nearly impossible for the White House to block disclosure of tax returns, following the Teapot Dome scandal during the Harding administration. Crosspost from CNN's coverage: "Although federal law establishes no deadline for a response to your request, we expect to provide the Committee with a final decision by May 6, after receiving the Justice Department's legal conclusions," Mnuchin wrote in a letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal.
When you hear fox news say that Congress needs to have a reason or that its a vague law, they're full of shit. This law was expressly written to fight a corrupt president and its air tight.
Well apparently the law's not airtight if everyone in Congress is either too cowardly or corrupt to actually bother punishing those who break it.
In a just world: "Ding dong, go to jail, fucknut." In this world: "Oh jeez, they didn't follow the subpoena again, what do we do!" "M-Maybe send another? We don't want to look too political "
They are going to go to court and if that fails, the Sergeant at Arms will arrest Mnuchin.
Its just not often used as until very recently it required house a 2/3rds majority on a committee to use it but fortunately the republicans needed to find out who Ben Gazi was and nixed that, and also because basically every politician since Nixon has given out their tax returns because this law exists.
Subpoena, no-knock raid. That's how you respond.
I can't wait to read the strongly worded letter the Democrats are going to write then not do anything about it anyway.
Can you no-knock raid the white house
Fuck a subpoena, get a court ordered search warrant. With the Mueller Report, even in its heavily redacted form, available there's plenty of probable cause.
The Democratic Party seems to win moral victories and not much else. :I
Democrats need to wake up to the fact that we are not living in normal times. This is not a normal election season. Our democracy faces an existential threat and I’d we don’t do something about it, and do something quickly, then we’ll be living in an autocracy by 2030 if not sooner.
Not to mention, Climate Change induced refugee crises will make people more willing to tolerate alt-right despots who allow them to indulge their xenophobia.
and how do you suppose they do that when the scotus is stacked by people who seemingly justify all executive decisions
Charge the lot of those who refuse to cooperate with them under Inherent Contempt. It hasn't been used in a hundred years but it's outside of Trump's legal ability to pardon and is a power entitled exactly to Congress and no-one else. Under such terms they can literally jail those who refuse to comply with their demands. Any other route they'd have to either get into the court system or fight it out with the executive; inherent contempt is exclusive to them and is constitutionally empowered and SCOTUS-ruling verified. Doing this, however, will be the death of civility. I'm not sure it's not already dead, however.
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