Tag: what is Trump hiding?

Trump administration to appeal ruling over former WH counsel McGahn testimony

The Hill logoThe Justice Department on Tuesday said it would appeal a ruling by a federal district judge ordering former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before Congress.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) also asked the judge to pause the ruling while the appeal plays out. In the interim, House Democrats, who issued the subpoena for McGahn’s testimony, have agreed to a weeklong suspension, or stay, of the ruling that was issued Monday night.

DOJ lawyers argued that a stay pending appeal should be granted because there is a “significant chance” that a federal appeals court will find McGahn is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony.”

View the complete November 26 article by John Kruzel on The Hill website here.

Trump appeals to Supreme Court to keep tax returns from NY prosecutors

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Thursday appealed to the Supreme Court, asking it to reverse a court order requiring his accountants to hand over eight years of tax returns, in a dramatic escalation of his fight to keep his financial records private.

Trump’s request comes after a federal appeals court in New York last week said Manhattan prosecutors could enforce a subpoena against Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA for his personal and corporate financial records from 2011 to 2018.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, Trump’s personal lawyers called the records request “politically motivated,” and said the subpoena should not be allowed to pierce the immunity the Constitution gives to the president.

View the complete November 14 article by John Kruzel on The Hill website here.

Trump Tax Return Case Confronts Supreme Court With a Momentous Choice

New York Times logoRichard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton sustained unanimous losses when they sought to withhold evidence, suggesting that President Trump may face an uphill fight.

WASHINGTON — In a matter of days, President Trump will ask the Supreme Court to rule on his bold claim that he is absolutely immune from criminal investigation while he remains in office. If the court agrees to hear the case, its decision is likely to produce a major statement on the limits of presidential power — and to test the independence of the court itself.

Mr. Trump has been the subject of countless investigations and lawsuits since he took office, including a 22-month inquiry by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel appointed to look into his campaign’s ties to Russia. But the new case, concerning an investigation by Manhattan prosecutors into hush-money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump, will be the Supreme Court’s first chance to consider the president’s arguments that he is beyond the reach of the justice system.

The case concerns a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat. On Monday, the federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected Mr. Trump’s request to block the subpoena, which seeks eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

View the complete November 5 article by Adam Lipton on The New York Times website here.

Appeals court rejects Trump’s attempt to withhold tax returns from local prosecutors, setting stage for Supreme Court fight

Washington Post logoA federal appeals court on Monday unanimously rejected President Trump’s effort to block New York grand jury subpoenas for his tax records, setting up a possible Supreme Court showdown.

New York prosecutors are seeking eight years of Trump’s tax returns from his accounting firm in their investigation of hush-money payments made by Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen before the 2016 election.

Trump’s attorneys have argued that as president, Trump is immune not only from prosecution but from investigations. But in the decision, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that “any presidential immunity from a state criminal process does not bar the enforcement of such subpoena.”

View the complete November 4 article by Jonathan O’Connell and Ann E. Marimow on The Washington Post website here.

Trump-Appointed Judge Tried To Shield His Taxes

At the first opportunity, Judge Neomi Rao tried to do what Donald Trump put her on the second-most powerful court in the country to do: run interference for Trump.

On Friday, the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling in Trump v. Mazars. That’s the case about whether Trump can stop his accounting firm, Mazars, from giving his tax returns to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform as part of its investigation into Trump’s finances.

The Oversight Committee has argued that its investigation underpins a larger inquiry as to whether Congress needs to amend disclosure and ethics rules. Trump has contended the committee has no right to investigate him because it’s looking at his underlying criminal behavior, and it should only be able to do that in an impeachment proceeding.

View the complete October 14 article by Lisa Needham on the National Memo website here.

Scoop: Trump letter dares Pelosi to hold vote on impeachment inquiry

Axios logoThe White House is planning to send Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter as soon as Friday arguing that President Trump and his team can ignore lawmakers’ demands until she holds a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry, 2 sources familiar with the letter tell Axios.

Why it matters: By putting in writing the case that Trump and his supporters have been making verbally for days, the White House is preparing for a court fight and arguing to the public that its resistance to Congress’ requests is justified.

  • Trump wants to force House Democrats in vulnerable races to be on the record if they favor pursuing impeachment, these sources tell us.
  • Republicans also say the minority party can exert more influence over hearings and other aspects of an inquiry once it is formalized with a vote.
  • By calling this an inquiry without holding a vote, Pelosi and the Democratic committee chairmen are having it both ways, one official said. “They want to be a little bit pregnant.”

View the complete October 3 article by Alayna Treene and Margaret Talev on the Axios website here.

Court fights over Trump tax returns ramp up

The Hill logoCourt cases over President Trump’s tax returns and financial records have seen a flurry of activity in recent weeks.

Lawsuits are pending in federal courts in a host of disputes concerning Democrats’ efforts to obtain information about the president’s finances.

Some of the lawsuits involve efforts by Democratic-led House committees to get their hands on Trump’s financial information. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday said she’s directed the committees to proceed with their investigations under the “umbrella of impeachment inquiry.”

Here’s where the various lawsuits over Trump’s tax returns and financial records currently stand:

View the complete September 29 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Trump sues Manhattan DA to block release of tax returns

Axios logoPresident Trump on Thursday sued Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in an effort to block New York prosecutors from obtaining 8 years of his personal and corporate tax returns from his longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA.

Context: The New York Times reported this week that Vance’s office had subpoenaed Trump’s tax returns as part of its investigation into hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

  • This will be at least the third time Trump has sued to block the release of his tax returns. Earlier this year, the president filed a lawsuit against House Democrats and the state of New York over a law that would permit tax officials to turn over Trump’s state tax returns.
  • Trump, his family and his company also filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank to block the bank from complying with congressional subpoenas for their business records. A federal judge in Manhattan declined their request to block Deutsche Bank, which later confirmed that it is indeed in possessionof Trump’s tax returns.

The big picture: A federal investigation into the payments resulted in Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, and it “effectively concluded” in July with no further charges.

  • Vance’s office opened a new investigation last month into whether the Trump Organization falsely listed its reimbursement of Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels as a legal expense, which would be illegal under New York law.

View the complete September 19 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Trump sues lawmakers, NY officials to thwart potential release of state tax returns

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday sued the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee, the New York state attorney general and a New York state tax official to try to block any potential efforts by lawmakers to obtain his state tax returns.

The president filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) is considering using a recently passed New York state law to try to get Trump’s state tax returns.

“Because the Committee’s jurisdiction is limited to federal taxes, no legislation could possibly result from a request for the President’s state tax returns. The Committee thus lacks a legitimate legislative purpose for using the TRUST Act,” the lawsuit states.

View the complete July 23 article by Jacqueline Thomsen and Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Trump’s lawyers just had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morning

Turns out, the rule of law still applies to the president.

Judge Neomi Rao is a cartoonishly right-wing judge. President Donald Trump’s appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit once criticized a French court decision upholding a ban on “dwarf tossing.” She’s argued that much of the executive branch is unconstitutional, in part because members of Congress sometimes write letters to heads of agencies.

And yet, at a hearing Friday morning concerning President Trump’s ability to resist congressional oversight, even Rao appeared skeptical of many of the president’s lawyer’s arguments. Though the bulk of her questions suggested that Rao, a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and a former senior Trump White House official, will give her vote to Trump, even she grew impatient with many of Trump’s claims. And there is little risk that she picks up a majority. Continue reading “Trump’s lawyers just had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morning”