Tag: Treasury Department

Judge says Treasury must give Trump 72 hours before releasing tax info to Democrats

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A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary order that will require the Treasury Department to give former President Trump‘s personal lawyers 72 hours notice before providing Trump’s tax returns to House Democrats.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a judge in federal district court in Washington, D.C., appointed by Trump, directed the Treasury Department and IRS to provide Trump’s personal lawyers with the three-days notice before providing the former president’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.

The order lasts until Feb. 5. Continue reading.

The Treasury Department Should Lead the Fight Against Corruption and Kleptocracy

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Introduction and summary

The United States today faces a pressing threat to its national interests: the strategic use of corruption by autocratic and kleptocratic states to undermine the integrity of democratic institutions and interfere in the politics of democratic states for geopolitical advantage. Such strategic corruption is not a new phenomenon, but it has become more acute and sophisticated with the rise of offshore financial centers and the growing assertiveness of authoritarian competitors in using nontraditional means of projecting power and wielding influence. In recent years, strategic corruption has been deployed more systematically and with greater success against the United States and its democratic partners than in previous eras.

As with earlier threats that have been fueled by access to mobile capital, strategic corruption has thrived thanks to international financial connectivity. More specifically, it has risen because of enduring ungoverned financial spaces in the global economy and gaps in anti-money-laundering frameworks both in the United States and in many other advanced economies. These features of strategic corruption mean that an effective response will require the participation of a broad set of stakeholders within the national security community. In particular, curbing strategic corruption and the kleptocratic networks that enable it will depend critically on the analytic capabilities and regulatory power of the actors within the U.S. government tasked with supervision of the international financial system, above all the Treasury Department.

Over the past 30 years, the United States has become increasingly effective at using its influence over the global financial system to protect its national security. In the 1980s and 1990s, concerns over drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism led to the creation of an infrastructure aimed at identifying and disrupting the flows of funds that enabled those crimes.1 After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration built on this foundation to create a formidable interagency mechanism, centered in the Treasury Department and supported by new legal authorities, to stop the financing of terrorist groups, and also deployed these capabilities to shut down the banks that were funding North Korean nuclear proliferation.2 More recently, the United States has used many of the same tools developed to combat terror financing to weaken the financial support networks of transnational criminal organizations and other malign actors that depend on access to foreign markets.3 Continue reading.

Mnuchin reveals White House lawyers consulted Treasury on Trump tax returns, despite law meant to limit political involvement

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Treasury Department lawyers consulted with the White House general counsel’s office on President Trump’s tax returns. (The Washington Post)

Treasury Department lawyers consulted with the White House general counsel’s office about the potential release of President Trump’s tax returns before House Democrats formally requested the records, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

Mnuchin had not previously revealed that the White House was playing any official role in the Treasury Department’s decision on releasing Trump’s tax returns.

Democrats are asking for six years of Trump’s returns, using a federal law that says the treasury secretary “shall furnish” the records upon the request of House or Senate chairmen. The process is designed to be walled off from White House interference, in part because of corruption that took place during the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s.

View the complete April 9 article by Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.

House votes to reopen Treasury Dept., IRS

The Democratic-led House approved a bill Wednesday to reopen the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service and Small Business Administration, among other federal agencies.

The chamber voted 240-188 to advance the measure, with eight Republicans bucking party lines to back the bill, which is the first of four bills expected to be brought to the floor by Democrats.

The Republicans who voted to advance the measure Wednesday included Reps. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Will Hurd (Texas), Fred Upton (Mich.), John Katko (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Greg Walden (Ore.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Herrera Beutler (Wash.).

View the complete January 9 article by Juliegrade Brufke on The Hill website here.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s weak-dollar myopia is dangerous

The following article by Benjamin J. Cohen, Professor of International Political Economy at the University of California/Santa Barbara, was posted on the Conversation website January 25, 2018:

Credit: AP

Breaking with long-standing tradition, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin endorsed the weakening of the dollar as “good” for the United States.

Speaking during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 24, Mnuchin said: “Obviously, a weaker dollar is good for us as it relates to trade and opportunities.”

The reaction was swift. The greenback dropped like a stone as news of his comments spread, hitting a three-year low in currency markets.

Never before in living memory has one of America’s top economic officials spoken in favor of a weaker dollar. The president himself dove into the mix by reassuring nervous investors after he arrived in Davos that he does, in fact, favor a stronger dollar. Continue reading “Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s weak-dollar myopia is dangerous”

‘Like Bond villains’: What happened when Steven Mnuchin and his wife posed with a sheet of money

The following article by Eli Rosenberg was posted on the Washington Post website November 15, 2017:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, posed with a sheet of new $1 bills Nov. 15. (Associated Press)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did what just about anyone would do when presented with a newly minted sheet of American currency bearing their name and signature on Wednesday: He posed for a photo.

Coming in the midst of tax-overhaul plans by President Trump and congressional Republicans that nonpartisan analysts say would disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy individuals, among others, the photo of Mnuchin and wife Louise Linton holding up the sheet of new $1 bills became an instant meme and drew wide mockery around the Internet. Continue reading “‘Like Bond villains’: What happened when Steven Mnuchin and his wife posed with a sheet of money”