Pirate's Cove

They just won’t give up. They aren’t doing a damned thing to help American citizens in the House. They’re trying to give themselves a pay raise, they’re trying to protect illegal aliens, and they’re trying to take away lawfully owned firearms. And fishing for Trump’s tax returns

House Democrats file lawsuit to obtain Trump tax returns

The Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to enforce subpoenas and obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns, an escalation in a fight for the President’s personal financial information.

The lawsuit was filed in D.C. District Court against Treasury and the IRS and their respective leaders, Steve Mnuchin and Charles Rettig.

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal is seeking the President’s tax returns using a little-known IRS provision known as 6103, which allows the Chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to request and obtain an individual’s tax information for a legitimate legislative purpose. (snip)

Jay Sekulow, counsel to the President, responded to the suit Tuesday afternoon by saying in a statement, “We will respond to this latest effort at Presidential harassment in Court.”

The complaint states that the “refusal to produce the requested materials” has deprived the House panel of “information necessary to complete its time-limited investigation,” and goes on to say that the committee is asking the court to order the defendants “to comply with Section 6103(f) and the subpoenas by producing the requested information immediately.”

Do they have an actual reason, an actual investigation?

The complaint argues that the committee is not required to justify its reasons for seeking tax returns under Section 6103, but states that the panel “is investigating the IRS’s administration of various tax laws and policies relating to Presidential tax returns and tax law compliance by President Trump, including whether the IRS’s self-imposed policy of annually auditing the returns of sitting Presidents is working properly.”

Let’s jump back in time to a post from November 8, 2018, in reference to 26 US Code 6103, in which I wrote

When we are talking about that law, we need to dip down to (f) Disclosures to Committees of Congress, (3) “Any resolution described in this paragraph shall specify the purpose for which the return or return information is to be furnished and that such information cannot reasonably be obtained from any other sources.” In other words, there needs to be an actual, material reason to see the returns. It can’t be simply because they want to see them. Quora notes

The house and senate both have a subpoena power. This is expressed in the rules of each of body. Specifically in Senate Rule XXVI and House Rule XI . There are some definite restrictions in both rules. The subpoena has to be issued by majority vote of a committee, and according to Wilkinson v US it must meet three conditions to be “legally sufficient”:

1. First, the committee investigation of the broad subject area must be authorized by its Chamber
2. the investigation must pursue “a valid legislative purpose” but does not need to involve legislation and does not need to specify the ultimate intent of Congress
3. the specific inquiries must be pertinent to the subject matter area that has been authorized for investigation

These rules apply to any subpoena. If a subpoena is made against the sitting executive, then issues of separation of powers will arise. These would likely play out by the executive asserting “executive privilege”, which is the power claimed by the President and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government to access information and personnel relating to the executive branch.

Under what rationale would a Democrat run House committee/subcommittee deem these tax returns of a private citizen (that’s what he was at the time) necessary, rather than just a fishing expedition and/or an attempt to embarrass Mr. Trump?

If those things happens, then if a subpoena goes to Trump or the IRS it’s going to immediately be responded to with an “executive privilege” claim. To overcome that, it will go to Judicial branch. It’s going to be very hard to claim the tax returns are “essential to the justice of the case” without already knowing they prove something specific. No court is going to authorize a fishing expedition.

Let’s further consider that even if a House committee gets their hands on them, per that same law cited above they can only be viewed in closed door executive session, and the information may not be shared with anyone outside of. So, the entire point in attempting to show them to all their Democratic voters would be meaningless, and any leaks would be a federal felony. Since this would be a small group viewing the tax returns, it would be pretty easy to figure out who did it.

Further, they should be careful in playing this game, because, get this: section (g) gives the “President and certain persons” the power to demand the tax returns of citizens in the same way. Do nutters like Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, and others want Trump looking at their returns?

The highlighted section is important, as, no matter what the Dems say, it is a fishing expedition. And even if they find a judge to approve it, it will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. And they still cannot do a damned thing with them even if they get them. Again, if they got leaked, that’s a felony.