…. and, according to them, that’s why they should not be released.
Based upon this novel legal theory, law enforcement should only be allowed to investigate the totally innocent, since any evidence exposing the guilty would cause them irreparable harm.
Oddly enough, all candidates for the presidency in modern history have released their returns and it caused them no harm of any kind. Gee, I wonder why Trump is so special.
It’d more acceptable if the “need” for his returns weren’t so apparently political. Sure, other President’s/candidates have released theirs, but that was voluntary.
Has anyone said what crime they’re investigating? Or are they wanting them so they can find crimes they assumed must be happening because of they’re dislike?
As to the harm, why should his competitors know the details of how he sets up his partnerships or his taxes?
Is this really what we want prosecutors to be able to do?
Pretty simple here. The American public should know whether or not our president has received funds from foreign interests that we have proven interfered with the election responsible for putting him in office. Case closed.
As the late, great Tricky Dick Nixon put it so eloquently
The guy was a billionaire long before he became a politician. Personally, I’m more interested in the tax returns of our millionaire congressmen, who became rich while in office. Both parties.
Doesn’t mean he didn’t “earn” that money in a dubious fashion.
Personally I’m more interested in the tax returns of the billionaires who contribute to politicians. That’s where the real evil lies.
PS Its real easy to become a millionaire when you have a 6 figure salary. As most congresspeople do.
No, Brobonk. Trump CLAIMED to be a billionaire long ago. He never proved it. He also went bankrupt, more than once, I believe. No one now knows what his current wealth is, or how he achieved it. If that was true of Obama, you and your kind would never have stopped screaming your heads off for every cent to be disclosed and accounted for. Remember Whitewater, or are you too young?
There is a *huge* difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. Basically, it’s roughly a billion dollars because the million is insignificant next to it.
That grain of rice Bezos video really puts it into perspective.
It’s the grand jury that demanded his financial info. Grand jury proceedings are secret, so we don’t know precisely why they demanded the documents, and it can’t be revealed.
Again, Trump’s lawyers are running out the clock. They are filing obviously non-meritorious arguments to delay any release until after the election and probably also after the expiration of a statute of limitations. We don’t know exactly what is being investigated and precisely which date the lawyers are trying to stall past, so it’s difficult to make a good guess about why the stall is considered useful.
Maybe he should have thought of that before he ran for President. Nobody forced him to. Public interest clearly lies in his returns being public.
You are right, Tanner, but Trump never expected to win. It was just a money-making, fame-enhancing opportunity for him. He was as shocked as the rest of us when he won the electoral vote. I don’t think he made any preparation for victory whatsoever.
You might be correct there…but there was a “risk“ he might win…especially since he asked for Russian assistance.
I would assume that the “irreparable harm” would be based on him being worth far less than what’s publicly perceived. Trumps attorneys will probably make the argument that they are protecting the value of his brand which is based on extravagance, luxury, and wealth. Many don’t know that Trump isn’t the “owner” of many, if not most, of his properties. He licenses his brand, name, and management expertise in exchange for a minority stake in the property. If “Trump” is not a person but is actually a brand, then Trump not being a billionaire could and would devalue the brand in a material way. Just a thought.
As I wrote elsewhere in the thread, that argument was probably never expected to hold water. In fact, they probably don’t want to defend it if the judge wants to know the specifics of why the release will be harmful. They are not going to stand up in court and say what you just said. The lawyers are doing whatever they require to delay the release until after the election. It’s not important whether the argument is valid, only that it’s time-consuming.
Spin it either way to his cult, they have a reason for every eventuality.
He makes a ton and hasn’t paid taxes in his entire life:
“He’s a self made man and smart by not paying taxes because he shouldn’t!”
He doesn’t make as much as he says:
“He’s grounded just like an every guy that speaks to the people, a true populist!”
If there’s 10 possibilities of something in his tax returns looking unfavorable, rest assured his cult will have 100 justifications to create it in their own mind as a positive of Trump’s intelligence or success.
Once this idiot is out of office, I would create a federal program to buy a private island or relocate him and a few million of his cult off to a commune somewhere and give him a blank check to do it.
I think you may be right, Indy, but apparently Trump does not. Or else it is just his vanity. Or maybe once his tax returns can be seen, a whole lot of people he has done business with are going to step forward and point out that the business he did with them is not reflected in his returns. Or that he has claimed payment to them that he never actually made. Given that Trump lies all the time about everything, you can be sure of one thing: his tax returns are not true, full, accurate, and correct.
I literally just wrote that He most likely isn’t a billionaire. I can’t stand the guy. I just hate the progressives more. I truly don’t care about social issues which the progressives can’t shut up about. If you want to tax the hell out of someone go after the hedge fund managers, the Fortune 500 CEOs, and people with 200 billion like Bezos. Have tax brackets that continue to rise for those who make 50m, 100m, or a billion a year. Thats a platform we can all get behind. Stop going after families who make 250,000 a year which is middle class at best in nyc.
What’s ironic if there’s anyone who has a right to complain about taxes breaks, it’s me. Why as a single person who has no plans to have kids, why should those have to tax breaks on dependencies for someone who chose to have kids? Why should those who file jointly get a lower rate than me?
You know, if I wanted to be a dick about it, I could be in the same mindset as you, probably ten fold the value in tax breaks in every area that you’ve personally benefited somewhere in your life. Never had a major health insurance claim of any kind in my life – why should I pay for populace pool that’s wrecked their health by being overweight or obese out of my insurance pool? Or the guy that decides to spend a ton on a car then wrecks it for a total loss that other people have to pay out of when I’m a minimalist and only care enough to use what I need to keep me legal and able to commute?
Or why should I have my federal tax margins decided on based on someone’s cost of living because of the area they chose to live in? No one is forcing you to live there or make those spending decisions.
That’s the irony in all this. You’re bitching about what essentially amounts to a 4-5% marginal rate from 35%-40% change depending on the party in charge, then ignore all the baked in advantages I just listed that people like me don’t get that add up to a hell of a lot more than your staunch stance on nickels and dimes comparatively speaking.
You know the difference between progressives and libertarian? A libertarian is willing to bitch about the single issue of the cut the house takes and ignore the free lodging and service that got them into the door, then looks around to see if the house is taking the same cut elsewhere. A progressive looks at why the house has even rigged the game to begin with and understands nothing can truly change until the tables and corruption are upturned.
That’s the funny thing about this. You get a ton of tax benefits in this country based on how you live your life choosing to start a family, your cost of living, who is paying what for self-inflicted health problems or how much is going to fix some rich guy’s status symbol car he totaled – or for rural Republicans basically have their county services paid by the liberal cities in their state.
We all get advantages or disadvantages based choices we control, don’t control, circumstances, or just sheer chance with great or poor results. In the end, complaining about who gets what changes absolutely nothing about the system, it just perpetuates it.
Finally a thought out response. I agree with you. I always respect those who actually see multiple perspectives but choose one over another. What I can’t stand are those who simply think other perspectives are wrong or those who have them are stupid.
Btw, I’m unmarried with no plans to have kids, no car accidents in my life, and no major health issues.
I am not complaining about “marginal rates” however. I’m talking about the concept of absolute zero. No one can ever make less than zero but you can always make more. So the people who have nothing struggle while Jeff Bezos can buy a country. He can have 30 mansions around the world. He can have a fleet of private jets and an army of servants. Nobody in this country should starve so we can have people who exponentially get wealthier and wealthier.
I agree the game is rigged however I disagree with how and what. Don’t raise someone’s rates from 35 to 40. That doesn’t do a thing. If you want real change, leave it at 35 and then tax 40 on everything over 1m. Then 45 on everything over 10m. Then 50 on everything over 15m, then 75 on everything over 50m, then 90 on everything over 100m. The liberals are going after the middle class and think they are going after the wealthy. How can you consider 50k a year “middle class” when someone made 50billion? Literal “Middle class” is 1m a year, 5m a year, maybe 10m a year. Stop pinching nickels and dimes. Go after dollars. Break up monopolies. Break up google and Facebook and amazon. Let the banks fail. Let GM go bankrupt. We don’t need multinational conglomerates that have more power than the government.
Small business and the blue collar worker are the lifeblood of this country. The democrats forgot about them and now sit back and call former lifelong democratic supporters “deplorable” and “rubes”. That’s why Trump exists.
The liberals sit in ivory towers pontificating, trying to social engineer equality while ignoring the opportunity to provide opportunity by dismantling those who who have a stranglehold on opportunity. The white male is not the one who is privileged. The small business owner who makes 2m a year is not the one who is privileged.
The privileged are the ones in those ivory towers and the ones who have monopolized opportunity so they can be gods on earth. Why the fuck are the kardashians all billionaires? Why is Kanye west a billionaire? The privileged are the ones calling others privileged and don’t even recognize how blatant their hypocrisy is. I don’t want to hear from Alyssa Milano. I don’t give a shit what Michael Moore has to say or what Taylor swift thinks. I couldn’t care less what Bezos or Musk think. I don’t care what kaepernick or LeBron think. These are the privileged because none of them have worked a day in their lives and they’ve never suffered a day in their lives. This is why you have trump. You reap what you sow.
And as far as the difference between a libertarian and a progressive, you only touched an ancillary issue. The truth is the difference is that progressives pretend to care about everyone while libertarians actually care about those they choose to care about.
How can you say Democrats forget about small business when it’s the Republicans at a logical level are the ones who wipe them entirely out through policy?
Look at it as a system. When Donald Trump makes a corporate tax rate drop from 35% to 20%, what do you think happens? The corporations gain more money to hoard, with already gigantic stock piles. And what do they do with the money? They don’t create jobs and they sure don’t raise wages, that’s been proven through studies and surveys – so what do they do with it? They buy back stock, because the executives compensation depend on it and they get richer. And the second thing they do is wipe out competition through mergers and acquisitions. How does that help small businesses?
The way I see the world economy wise as a system is three fundamental forces, where at its worst you wouldn’t want any one of the three having total control. You have the force government (authoritarianism, fascism), the force of corporations (used loosely, this includes any organization such as private equity firms, venture capitalist hawks, and so on) and the force of the collective populace.
Really, think about this. If you have the government as one force as an impediment to small business because of overreach or taxation, or you have corporations with the lack of oversight to allow corruption, which one is the major problem here?
The Mom and Pop store isn’t going out of business due to ‘big government’ liberal oversight – its going out of business because you damn near can’t do anything running a small business with the fundamental force of corporations undercutting your every move. It’s not overreach causing small businesses to fail its the LACK of any reach at all over the corporations.
And who’s to blame? I certainty won’t defend the neoliberal side of Democrats who support corporations, obviously, but on the Republican neocon side there’s absolutely ZERO intention to ever keep them in check to protect small businesses, and they support the opposite! Every single bill EVER proposed to do reign in what corporations do to small business are blocked on the spot by McConnell. Every. single. bill.
You want to rent office space to start a business? Well good luck, private equity firms scoop up every piece of property they can fin to make a profit off of, which it seems about every Republican Congressman has a stake in, including Mr Republican Sean Hannity.
Want to start a small ISP or anything that may utilize big telecom/internet’s turf and offend them in anyway? Be prepared to get the shit sued out of you, as it always happens. Guess who Trump’s FCC sided with on net neutrality? Big telecom. Which means if they want for any reason they can decide your traffic should cost more to use their lines, because they don’t like you.
And this comment box I’m typing on at this very moment? Its a web application on a web server somewhere on the internet. These applications are called through Application Protocol Interfaces that are free use for anyone to interface with applications, has nothing to do proprietary information, and there’s a SCOTUS case pending at this very moment between Oracle and Google on if those would be patented. And who does the Trump side with? Oracle of course, because what the hell, breaking the shit out of the internet and computing as we know it to allow big business to sue the shit out of someone to non-existence is what the Republican’s are all about baby!
There’s a few very simple examples of why small business fails, so I really, REALLY don’t get how you think Republican’s are the lesser of two evils here. They never vote for oversight and actively promote corporations to use every dirty trick in the book to run small businesses directly out! Hell, they basically let their private capital buddies and lobbyists pull from the small business fund for free will – I heard Steve Mnuchin got a nice little kickback for that. And they never have ANY intention of transparency.
It’s funny, whenever I go down this path you’ll give me the “well I’m not either side” but then you’ll keep with the narrative that Democrats are the enemy of small businesses. Why is that, I mean do you live in a cave or something? Do you have your head in the sand when each and every bill comes in that is blocked that would ever do anything about this?
If your theory were correct, tax revenues would be flowing like wine, Amazon wouldn’t have completely run every small business in the world in whatever category they decide to pursue into the ground, Jeff Bezos wouldn’t be worth $200 billion, and you wouldn’t see urban decay of vacated properties where small businesses used to exist.
You just have a very, very bizarre view of the world in what your responses, and who you say you support are in direct contradiction of each other.
And I’ll also note on the ‘limousine liberal’ note – I agree with that completely about the fakeness, and I don’t do hero worship of any kind and I don’t need them to drive the cause. I really can’t stand millionaire celebrities lecturing on societal ills when they get to sleep in a bed at night that’s probably costs more than three months of pay for a blue collar worker.
But if you want fakeness and pretending to care to extreme, conservatives are it. Remember, this is the party of evangelicals, the same people this will throw religion in your face at every turn but wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire unless you were a part of their cult. People like Mitch McConnell show up at church and act like they’re pro-values and be glad to shove their hand picked religious views down everyone’s throat and conveniently ignore the ones about the rich man in heaven and the golden rule.
The party of ‘Back the Blue’ and ‘Support the Troops.’ Well which party allows not even the least amount of oversight of guns that puts the police in a worse position to be paranoid on a constantly basis on already a terrible foundation.
And ‘Support the Military’ goes a long way when it comes to bombs and dead soldiers, but when it comes to the veteran that has to go to VA hospitals for substandard care because he was in Vietnam and got sprayed with agent orange and funding for that – well that policy is the same it’s always been: fuck off.
So in other words, I’ll agree on any celebrity fakeness but you want fake, you got it in spades with Republicans. I’ve never seen as fake of a bunch of people who will smile through your teeth at you with a shit eating grin while sticking a knife in your back at the same time.
So Steverino…you’re an incel?
I don’t see where they said the harm would be caused by him being guilty of something. Did I miss that part? Or do you just assume that?
“The filing said enforcing the subpoena would cause Trump irreparable harm.
“It is disclosure of these records to the government—not just to the public—that causes injury,” it said. ”
Trump’s lawyers. From the article. Try reading the whole thing next time.
Steve: the answer to both of your questions is “no.” It never said exposure would show him to be guilty of something, nor did I.
What I did say is this: “irreparable harm” is not a legal defense. The judge’s proper response is “Even if true, not relevant.” If causing irreparable harm were a legitimate legal defense, there could be no investigations at all.
“Your honor, if my client, Mr. Capone, is forced to turn over his tax returns, it would cause him irreparable harm.”
“Oh, well, then never mind.”
Trump’s lawyers have not been able to find a legal defense, so they are presenting a political one. I think Trump will have to present a different line of argument if he wants to succeed.
But …
I don’t think the lawyers ever expected that argument to succeed. It’s designed as a stall tactic. At this point I think they are just trying to run out the clock with nuisances and distractions. The question is how long the courts will allow the stall.