Should We All Snoop to See Nancy Pelosi’s Tax Returns? Jerry Nadler’s? Schumer’s? Al Sharpton’s? Adam Schiff’s? Hillary’s!! Maxine Water’s!! Bernie’s?

Secretary Mnuchin Refuses To Turn Over Trump’s Tax Returns

by John Sexton  at HotAir:

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has formally refused a request the Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee to turn over several years of Trump’s tax returns. This wasn’t unexpected but it does set up a future showdown over the issue. From the Washington Post:

SEE ALSO: Poll: 57% say socialism is incompatible with American values

Mnuchin, in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), said he had consulted with the Justice Department and that they had concluded that it would not be lawful for the Trump administration to turn over the tax returns because of potential violations of privacy…

In his new letter, he said that “In reliance on the advice of the Department of Justice, I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, and…the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.”…

House Democrats have insisted they are on strong legal footing in their request for the tax returns, and several lawmakers said they expect to file a lawsuit so that a federal judge will rule on the matter. This process could take months, though, and ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

There’s no doubt this is a political fishing expedition by Democrats. The only question is whether the law allows them to do it. The 1924 law they are relying on states that the tax-writing committee can request and view anyone’s tax returns simply be asking. There’s no apparent wiggle-room in the language of the law itself but in his letter to Chairman Neal, Sec. Mnuchin states that the request lacks a legitimate purpose. His letter adds that DOJ “intends to memorialize its advice” on the matter soon. According to Politico, it’s not clear who will eventually win that argument in court as legal experts differ:

Some say they are likely to prevail, pointing to the plain language of the statute, which stipulates “the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request.”

Others note there is a long history of court opinions demanding lawmakers have a legitimate policy reason for their investigations — something related to their jobs as policymakers — which some experts say could be a significant hurdle.

Democrats contend they do have a legislative reason for wanting Trump’s returns, saying they want to vet the IRS’s long-standing policy of automatically auditing all presidents and vice presidents, because they don’t know how rigorous those examinations are.

Democrats are lying of course. What they really want is to get Trump’s taxes and scour them for damaging information they can use for purely partisan purposes in the 2020 election. Their argument is that past presidents have always released this information during the campaign so they should have had an opportunity to do this sort of oppo research already but were denied. I guess we’ll eventually find out what the Supreme Court has to say about this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should Journalists Be Held Accountable When Selling Their Lies Knowingly? What Would Happen to the New York Times?

SHOULD JOURNALISTS WHO PROPAGATED THE RUSSIA COLLUSION HOAX BE JAILED?

by John Hinderaker   at PowerLine:

Roger Simon asks that question. He rightly indicts the journalists who spread the idiotic lie that President Trump “colluded” with Putin’s Russia:

[A] penalty of some kind, indeed a serious one, should certainly be levied for misinforming the public on the most important subject of our day, which has happened repeatedly over the last few years concerning the Russia probe. And when these prevarications can be shown to have been deliberate, to have been done knowingly, difficult as that may be to prove, the line to sedition may have been crossed and there is an argument the reporters involved should face legal consequences. They should also be fired.
***
Many of the major media organizations and their reporters lied about Russia collusion on a regular basis, even, in the cases of the New York Times and the Washington Post, winning Pulitzers for their deceptions.

This evolved out of what we might call a “systemic folie á deux,” a corrupt alliance between the (almost always anonymous) leaker with an ax to grind and the leakee (i. e. the reporter) who is all too eager to grind that ax. A search for the leakers, who are in legal jeopardy, is putatively underway by the DOJ, but, although it obviously takes two for this pernicious tango, the leakees seem bound to get off scot-free.

Unjust? Of course, it is. And not so deep down, the media outlets know this.

In the end, Roger isn’t serious about jailing journalists, much as they might deserve it. But I would add this observation: Why is it that journalists who lied about Russia collusion will no doubt “get off scot-free,” while proudly displaying Pulitzers on their mantels? Why is it that the media organizations that employ them and share their political biases feel no need to sanction them in any way, let alone fire them?

The answer, I think, has a lot to do with the virtual abolition of libel law in the political arena. In a sane legal environment, journalists who published lies about people like Carter Page, and even President Trump, would have to worry about legal liability and the humiliation that comes with an adverse jury verdict. More important, perhaps, their employers would have to worry about paying civil judgments.

But when it comes to defamation, we don’t have a sane legal environment. The U.S. Supreme Court has seen to that in a series of decisions that deserve to be controversial. Wherever you think the boundaries of defamation law should properly be drawn, I think it is almost indisputable that our current legal regime goes too far in immunizing reporters, editors, newspapers and cable news networks against the consequences of negligently or maliciously propagating career-destroying and life-destroying falsehoods about public figures and matters of public interest.

Maybe if President Trump gets another Supreme Court appointment our extremist defamation jurisprudence will be moderated so that there is at least a possibility of holding journalists accountable.

Donald Trump for President in 2000, by Dan Rather!