They just openly tell us the law can’t touch them.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday that Democrats will never get their hands on President Trump’s tax returns, adding that the request is “a political stunt” that the IRS will not comply with.
How is it a stunt? There is a massive amount of evidence-based reporting on Trump’s many cheats and crimes over the decades, and there is precedent that presidential candidates are transparent about their tax returns so that we the voters and citizens can have confidence that they’re not corrupt or thieves or both. Also there is a legal basis for the request that the IRS hand over Trump’s returns, so Mulvaney is saying “fuck the law.”
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9 responses to “Mulvaney to the laws: No”
“How is it a stunt?”
Could well be just one such, confected to draw attention away from his own apparently deteriorating mental state. It is possibly the last rational act of a president steadily losing it.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-is-unraveling-before-our-eyes-20190404-p51al7.html
But the “it” referred to the House request to the IRS, not to anything Trump did.
OB:
Ah, yes. THAT ‘stunt’, not the other one from Trump involving tax returns.
In any case, in Trump’s stunty universe, the President is above the law. And perhaps his alleged mental state is just a cunning diversion. If so,he has certainly fooled the Washington Post.
In Trump’s Stunty Universe should be the title of something.
Nancy Pelosi seemed very certain yesterday that the law does indeed require Trump to honor a House request (from certain members) for his returns.
And unlike Trump & co she probably knows what she’s talking about!
And what happens if (when?) he keeps saying no? Is there any leverage to make him comply? In this world, court orders, subpoenas and such seem to be meaningless…
Helicam, they could put on sanctions – he doesn’t get ice cream or big macs until he complies.
I believe a court could hold the IRS Commissioner in contempt, and I don’t think the presidential pardon power extends to civil contempt. So ultimately there is an enforcement remedy I believe, though the problem is that this is likely to be a very slow process.
Congress also has other tools at its disposal, of course — the House could refuse to fund certain government operations until Trump complies — but that has political dangers. Shutdown politics never works out well for the party threatening it.