Trump Is Still Desperate to Keep His Tax Returns Out of Congress’s Hands for Some Reason

You can’t count on much in life, but one thing you can count on is that Donald Trump will go to the ends of the Earth to keep his tax returns under lock and key. Is this because they contain evidence of fraud and other crimes? While we can‘t say for sure, it certainly seems like it, given the way he guards them like state secrets (and, y’know, the reports of him having committed fraud, which he has of course denied). So terrified is Trump of anyone getting a look under the hood that not only did he break with decades of tradition by not voluntarily releasing his returns while running for president, he panicked and threw the full weight of his lawyers on anyone who tried to access them while he was in office. At the time, this worked out for him, given that the Justice Department was run by William Barr, who fashioned himself as Trump’s personal attorney and refused to allow the Treasury Department to hand them over to Congress. But earlier this year, the Joe Biden DOJ reversed that decision and you’ll never believe it, but someone has gone completely apeshit over the whole thing.

Per NBC News:

Lawyers for former president Donald Trump urged a federal judge late Tuesday to block the Treasury Department and the IRS from giving his tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.… The reason given by the committee chairman, Representative Richard Neal, for seeking the returns, to examine how the IRS audits presidents, is simply a pretext for wanting to search for something embarrassing, they told the federal judge.

“No one believes that Chairman Neal requested President Trump’s tax returns so he can study legislation about IRS audits. No one. Chairman Neal admits that this justification was a mere litigation strategy. His fellow committee members don’t buy it either,” the former president’s lawyers said. “Anyone who’s paid even minimal attention to American politics understands what’s happening here: President Trump did not voluntarily disclose his tax returns during the campaign, his political opponents assume the information would damage him, and so his opponents want to force the disclosure.”

Trump‘s lawyers are arguing that the federal law invoked by the committee to obtain the ex-president’s returns is unconstitutional, which is pretty much their go-to when their back are against the wall. (While he was in office, Trump’s attorneys claimed it was unconstitutional to investigate him for anything, including a hypothetical scenario in which he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue.) Because the committee made its initial request for Trump’s returns when he was still president, the same attorneys have bizarrely claimed that he should be retroactively entitled to the same legal protections he had in while office. “The committee’s request is effectively a request to a sitting president: it was issued while President Trump was in office, was continuously pursued, and has always been tied to his status as president,” his legal team argued.

Lawyers for the House have said the committee’s need for the returns is genuine but that as a purely legal matter, the federal courts have no power to examine the motives of Congress to determine whether its acts are valid under the Constitution. As for Trump’s claims of privilege, the committee said those apply only to a sitting president’s records in response to a subpoena. This request, by contrast, is authorized by a specific federal law, and the standards adopted by that ruling do not apply to a former president’s records.

The Ways and Means Committee first asked for the returns in 2019. The Trump administration Treasury Department refused, and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel backed up the decision, concluding that the request was invalid. But under the Biden administration, the Treasury Department and the IRS said the returns should be turned over, and a new Justice Department legal analysis said the earlier conclusion failed to give a coordinate branch of government the “respect and deference” it was due.

Given the pace at which the legal system moves, it’s unlikely the House committee will see Trump’s tax returns anytime soon, if ever. On the other hand, recent history is not on his side; in February, a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for the Manhattan district attorney to obtain his tax returns, a turn of events Trump responded to in characteristic fashion, screaming in a statement: “These are attacks by Democrats willing to do anything to stop the almost 75 million people (the most votes, by far, ever gotten by a sitting president) who voted for me in the election—an election which many people, and experts, feel that I won.… In the meantime, murders and violent crime are up in New York City by record numbers, and nothing is done about it. Our elected officials don’t care. All they focus on is the persecution of President Donald J. Trump.”

Democrats drop basic human rights from Biden bill

Despite the fact that every other wealthy nation in the world provides paid family and medical leave to workers, lawmakers have apparently decided that’s a bridge too far for the U.S. Per NBC News:

Democrats are dropping family and medical paid leave from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending package, multiple sources confirmed to NBC News, as the party feverishly works to narrow down the bill and secure an agreement. The move comes after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key centrist, raised objections to including guaranteed paid leave in the social safety net spending bill. Its removal deals a blow to Democrats who viewed the proposal as a key component of Biden’s legislative agenda.

Manchin recently indicated he was not in favor of including four weeks of paid family and medical leave to the bill. The four-week plan was presented as a compromise to the 12 weeks Biden initially proposed. Biden announced the scaled-back version during a CNN town hall last week. The U.S. is one of just eight countries without national paid maternity leave. Manchin is also souring on Medicare vouchers to help cover annual dental costs, as well as a push to expand Medicaid in Republican-led states that have not expanded coverage. Biden’s original proposal called for broadening Medicare coverage to include dental care.

Apparently Manchin believes that only some people should be allowed to stay home when they’re sick, and others should have to work until they die. As for teeth, apparently those aren’t a guaranteed right, either.

Meanwhile, in Florida

The surgeon general appointed by Ron DeSantis apparently still doesn’t know how COVID works, thinks it‘s fine to go mask-free in the presence of someone with a compromised immune system, and is using the absolute lamest excuse to defend his decision to do so:

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Tuesday defended his decision to refuse to wear a mask during a meeting with a state senator who has breast cancer.  “It is important to me to communicate clearly and effectively with people. I can’t do that when half of my face is covered,” Ladapo said in a tweeted statement. “Having a conversation with someone while wearing a mask is not something I find productive, especially when other options exist,” Ladapo’s statement also said.

Ladapo’s remarks follow an incident last week at the office of Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky. Polsky offered the surgeon general and his two aides masks and asked them to wear the protective gear because she told them she had a serious medical condition. At the time of the meeting, the state senator had not made her breast cancer diagnosis public. Ladapo offered to hold the meeting outside or to sit outside of her office in the hallway, but Polsky “did not consider any of these options to be satisfactory,” according to Ladapo’s tweet.  “He is completely unfit to be the surgeon general. He didn’t care about my health, so imagine how he would care about the health of 21 million Floridians,” Polsky said on MSNBC. 

Having a weakened immune system, which would be the case for someone with cancer, makes one extra vulnerable to infections like COVID-19 and at risk for getting severely ill and dying. Polsky and other lawmakers have called on DeSantis to withdraw Ladapo’s nomination for state attorney general, though given that the Florida governor is currently offering unvaccinated police officers $5,000 to relocate to his state, that seems unlikely to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ted Cruz

Elsewhere!

Democrats Clash on Billionaire Tax as Neal Rejects Senate Plan (Bloomberg)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bought shares of Trump SPAC Digital World Acquisition as stock skyrocketed (CNBC)

With FDA authorization expected soon, states are already placing orders for pediatric vaccine (Washington Post)

Brazilian president Bolsonaro Accused of Crimes Against Humanity Over COVID Response (Intelligencer)

Covid cases and deaths grossly underestimated among meatpackers, House investigation finds (Washington Post)

Trump must take fight against Twitter to California, judge rules (NYP)

Bidenomics Is Working (Intelligencer)

Hundreds of rolls of toilet paper spilled onto California highway (UPI)

Halloween Candy, Ranked (The Cut)

— Mike Pence Is Already Cashing In on His Potential 2024 Run
— Katie Porter and Her Whiteboard Are Just Getting Started
— Trump’s New Social Media Company Is His Biggest Scam Yet
— Former Bush Guy Matthew Dowd Is Trying to Turn Texas Blue
— Joe Manchin Is About to Make Life Worse for His Own Constituents
— David Zaslav Is Angling to Become America’s King of Content
— Colin Powell’s Death Has Officially Been Hijacked by Anti-vaxxers
— Rigged State Governments Are Steadily Undermining Democracy
— From the Archive: Rupert Murdoch’s Tumultuous Third Marriage
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.