I haven’t seen any press coverage on that. What is “heightened need?” And I assume this is one of those issues where the DoJ disagreed with Jay what’s his name, the Blue Haired Lawyer from the Simpsons?
There is another issue; can Trump prevent Trump’s accountants and banks from answering a subpeona for their records? Trump is suing to prevent that. This is an investigation for tax fraud in NY State. I have further thoughts on the subject, but rather than hijack this thread, I will start another.
There seemed to be absolutely no concern that Trump was seeking to intervene in a case where a third party was subpoenaed. It was taken as a given that since the records related to Trump’s accounts that he has standing to seek to quash the subpoena.
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The “heightened need” referenced a DOJ argued standard that a house of Congress should show a particular need for records that could not be easily obtained elsewhere and those records reasonably relate to a legitimate legislative function and not be targeting the individual as an exemplar of a general class.
Chief Justice Roberts asked the House attorney to articulate an example of a subpoena that could not sustained by an argument that legislation is being contemplated. He could not provide a single example.
If the precedent set is that the president has to release his tax returns to congress when subpoenaed, and the democratic candidate has already released their tax returns, what exactly is the chilling effect here?
We want our presidents to be open and transparent, and if this sets a precedent for our presidents to be open and transparent, then that is a good thing for everyone. Everyone, that is, that doesn’t have things to hide in their tax returns.
Not to mention, the previous Republican congress(es) used all kinds of subpoenas and suits against the last Democratic president(s). If it is precedent that you are worried about, that precedent has already been set. Are you telling me that you think that if the Democratic Congress just let Trump be, and did not exercise their constitutional duty of congressional oversite, that the next time Republicans hold congress and Democrats the White House, the Republicans will leave the president alone?
So, why is it that Republicans support it when Republicans want to investigate the Democratic president, but consider it beyond the pale to hold a Republican president to anywhere near the same standard?
While I did not listen to the entire oral argument, I heard several justices ask questions relating to why Trump could quash a subpeona that wasn’t directed at him. I don’t think they were terribly impressed with the responses, but that may be my bias - SCOTUS tends to have the best poker faces of any branch of government.
I am confused why there needs to be a judicial limit on Congress’s oversight power. That oversight power should be, IMO, absolute. If they’re abusing it, that’s what elections are for. There’s no way that they can use this power to undermine democracy itself. Having an executive branch immune from oversight is obviously much more detrimental to our system of government than having a legislative branch that can see everything the executive branch is up to.
I expect nothing more from this Supreme court than to side with Trump, or punt the ball.
I think Congress can abuse the power (like the McCarthy hearings) but this case about tax returns is small potatoes compared to the total stonewalling by Trump and his criminal gang for the subpoenas relating to impeachment.
This idiot in charge has established the precedent that Congress will never again be able to get evidence to investigate a future criminal President. A future Richard Nixon has literally nothing to fear because any future Watergate investigation can never get off the ground.
The problem I have is that this unlimited power can easily be abused. It seems that from listening to both sides, if I was to piss off the wrong member of Congress, a single committee could then decide to investigate me, say under the guise of using me as a case study for tax policy and how it impacts those living in rural states.
It then subpoenas my tax returns and all financial documents, all emails and text messages that I have sent to my wife, you know to see a case study about happiness and mental health, also perhaps to determine the underlying level of possible domestic violence, and then asks me what and how much I eat and drink, how much exercise I get, and how often I have sex with my wife. The committee could ask her the same things to compare them to my answers.
While that seems absurd, I cannot find any reason why a single Congressional committee couldn’t ask that of any American, under any of the arguments presented today.
If you’re president, what’s the problem? In all likelihood such obviously unjust demands would backfire, as the Clinton impeachment backfired on the Republicans in the 90s. You’d soar in popularity and the opposition would tank.
If you’re not president, then congress wouldn’t be able to do that, because you’re not on the executive branch and thus their oversight powers wouldn’t apply.
Ninja’ed.
Remind me again how many times Hillary Clinton was investigated over Benghazi?
I’ll help you…ten.
What wrongdoing did they find?
I’m pretty sure none.
Republicans have noooo problems with investigations and clearly think it is in their purview to do them as members of congress.
Because it first is a serious separation of powers issue. Put Trump aside. I know that most people here think he is an absolute danger to the country, but this isn’t just about Trump; it is about all presidents going forward.
And the bottom line is that the Constitution does not require a presidential candidate to release his or her tax returns. Congress could not pass a law requiring that. The remedy for that is that you as a voter refuse to cast your vote for someone who does not release his or her tax returns.
If they cannot get this information out the front door, they should not be able to get it out the back.
If this was done the other way, say Trump had the FBI gather personal information on members of Congress for political uses, then there would be howling. Remember Hoover and his dirty tricks? That is universally condemned and I don’t know why this should be different.
And if you are honest with yourself, this is pure politics. There is not going to be an entry on his tax return saying “Received from V. Putin for veto of bill–$15,000,000.” You are looking for things like: 1) he does not make as much money as he claims, 2) he has not paid any income tax for the past X years, 3) here is a list of companies he controls, and we look at them for seedy practices, etc. It’s a fishing expedition and it is what is done in 3rd world countries.
It would come under their “legislative investigations” power that was discussed. In other words, Congress is considering legislation and they need full information in order to pass the best bill possible.
So, they (pretextually) claim that the plight of the halfway to alcoholic lawyers in rural states is a matter of national interest for legislation. So they use me as a case study. From what I heard today, that is completely legit.
Did Hillary ever challenge the subpoenas? If not, then that’s not really the right question.
Yes. It’s about all Presidents going forward. That’s the point. You may be obsessed with defending Trump against those no-good liberals, but I’m looking at all the Presidents in the future who may also take advantage of a gutting of oversight over the Chief Executive.
Whoa whoa whoa, why not? The Constitution doesn’t require a lot of things that Congress has legislated on. Campaign finance laws, for example.
This isn’t for political purposes, no more than the multitude of FBI investigations into members of Congress in recent years have been for political purposes.
This is about checks and balances. It’s only political if someone wants to protect Trump from oversight.
As a general principle, should all laws apply equally to the President as to halfway alcoholic lawyers? Like, should you also be prohibited from receiving emoluments for foreign princes?
Or maybe — just maybe — congressional oversight of the government deserves more latitude than investigations into random private persons.
Naaaaaaaaaaah.
The administration would have made this decision. Likely Obama’s choice.
And the point is Obama was not mad enough to claim absolute immunity for his administration.
Indeed.
If Trump prevails here remember this the next time a democrat becomes president.
This is just a pretty straight forward request for his tax returns. He declined to release them, the Dems are pissed and are using a pretext to get them. This is not “oversight.” There is no probable cause or any other cause to believe that his tax returns contain criminal information, but they likely do contain embarrassing information or other information that can be used for political purposes.
What legitimate information do you believe is contained in Trump’s tax returns? If the answer is “I don’t know, that’s why we need them” then that’s a power that has never been asserted by Congress prior to this. Nobody has ever argued that Congress should be able to turn a president’s life upside-down just to see if something shakes loose.
Probable cause isn’t necessary for congressional subpoenas, but there’s obviously been a ton of smoke around Trump for years. We obviously don’t know what’s in the returns but we do know that he still has close family members running his businesses which has repeatedly led to conflicts of interest, some of his former associates have testified that he directed them to commit financial crimes and we know foreign entities have made suspicious loans to him.
Practically, he could have confessed to shooting someone on 5th avenue in his returns, and congress still wouldn’t have the majority to impeach, or even override a presidential veto if they try to pass legislation with some sort of safeguard against his crimes, but standing down because of it seems futile would be both stupid and dangerous.
The reason for the subpoena is irrelevant. It was lawfully issued.
Are you saying the President should be able to ignore a lawfully issued subpoena?