Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand."
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Yet Trump’s tax returns should have been public knowledge.
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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@Mik said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yet Trump’s tax returns should have been public knowledge.
I don't really know the details of what Hunter's doing and whether this stuff ought to be disclosed, but isn't there a difference between the President and his family members? Hunter isn't the one running for office.
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@Mik said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yet Trump’s tax returns should have been public knowledge.
I don't really know the details of what Hunter's doing and whether this stuff ought to be disclosed, but isn't there a difference between the President and his family members? Hunter isn't the one running for office.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
I don't really know the details of what Hunter's doing and whether this stuff ought to be disclosed, but isn't there a difference between the President and his family members?
Yes. There SHOULD be. However, we know that Hunter had access to the classified documents at Biden's home, as did his sister and others.
So, how, exactly does that happen, without an intersection of the son and the father's business?
Biden's executive assistant asked Hunter (and others) for help locating some "Vice President notecards."
Oh, and Hunter had access to the garage as well.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
I don't really know the details of what Hunter's doing and whether this stuff ought to be disclosed, but isn't there a difference between the President and his family members?
Yes. There SHOULD be. However, we know that Hunter had access to the classified documents at Biden's home, as did his sister and others.
So, how, exactly does that happen, without an intersection of the son and the father's business?
Biden's executive assistant asked Hunter (and others) for help locating some "Vice President notecards."
Oh, and Hunter had access to the garage as well.
@George-K said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yes. There SHOULD be. However, we know that Hunter had access to the classified documents at Biden's home, as did his sister and others.
So, how, exactly does that happen, without an intersection of the son and the father's business?
Biden's executive assistant asked Hunter (and others) for help locating some "Vice President notecards."Well, to be fair, my son has access to pretty much everything I have in the house, too, but to describe us as being in a business arrangement would be pushing it a bit. Unless my paying for every freaking thing he gets counts.
I don't know, maybe there's something there, but I rather doubt it's going to amount to much.
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@George-K said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yes. There SHOULD be. However, we know that Hunter had access to the classified documents at Biden's home, as did his sister and others.
So, how, exactly does that happen, without an intersection of the son and the father's business?
Biden's executive assistant asked Hunter (and others) for help locating some "Vice President notecards."Well, to be fair, my son has access to pretty much everything I have in the house, too, but to describe us as being in a business arrangement would be pushing it a bit. Unless my paying for every freaking thing he gets counts.
I don't know, maybe there's something there, but I rather doubt it's going to amount to much.
@Doctor-Phibes sure. As long as there's no there there, that's fine.
However, the committee that does oversight (I know that because it's in its name) should have access to these records to assure itself that there's nothing improper going on between the (then) Vice Presdent and his (then) crack-addict sons and his business.
Sunshine, and all that shit, you know.
And they're laughably claiming "national security issues?" If Biden, the Lesser is truly a private citizen with no government role, why are there security issues. The only such security issue I can see is protecting the Doddering Old Man.
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Hey, it's The Truman Show!
https://thespectator.com/topic/stepping-out-into-freedom-fbi-twitter/
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You want to compare this to Trump's tax returns?
With regards to "tax return," IT'S THE LAW.
See 26 U.S.C. 6103(f)(1)-:Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, ...
This Hunter Biden case is about "suspicious activity report," not about "tax return."
Find me a U.S. law that compels an Executive Branch agency to furnish to Congress upon request any specific "suspicious activity report," then you can claim equivalence between the two cases.
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You want to compare this to Trump's tax returns?
With regards to "tax return," IT'S THE LAW.
See 26 U.S.C. 6103(f)(1)-:Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, ...
This Hunter Biden case is about "suspicious activity report," not about "tax return."
Find me a U.S. law that compels an Executive Branch agency to furnish to Congress upon request any specific "suspicious activity report," then you can claim equivalence between the two cases.
@Axtremus not to derail here, but you conveniently omitted the last part of that paragraph.
"...except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure."
Yes, the committee had the right to examine the tax returns, they did NOT have the right to release them without consent, and therefore are in violation of that law.
Carry on.
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@Axtremus not to derail here, but you conveniently omitted the last part of that paragraph.
"...except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure."
Yes, the committee had the right to examine the tax returns, they did NOT have the right to release them without consent, and therefore are in violation of that law.
Carry on.
@George-K said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yes, the committee had the right to examine the tax returns, they did NOT have the right to release them without consent, and therefore are in violation of that law.
Indeed 26 USC 6103(f) does not explicitly authorize the public disclosure of tax returns. But you are wrong to claim that public disclosure of tax returns is in violation of it. 26 USC 6103(f) is silent on the public disclosure of tax returns, it does not explicitly forbid such disclosure. Other laws need to be relied upon to determine whether public disclosure is forbidden after a tax return becomes "Congressional record."
The topic at hand (at least as framed in your opening post) talks only about Congress asking for certain records from the Executive Branch, not about the subsequent public disclosure thereof. Hence my previous reply also focused only on whether Congress is entitled to certain records from the Executive Branch and remained silent on any subsequent public disclosure thereof.
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@George-K said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Yes, the committee had the right to examine the tax returns, they did NOT have the right to release them without consent, and therefore are in violation of that law.
Indeed 26 USC 6103(f) does not explicitly authorize the public disclosure of tax returns. But you are wrong to claim that public disclosure of tax returns is in violation of it. 26 USC 6103(f) is silent on the public disclosure of tax returns, it does not explicitly forbid such disclosure. Other laws need to be relied upon to determine whether public disclosure is forbidden after a tax return becomes "Congressional record."
The topic at hand (at least as framed in your opening post) talks only about Congress asking for certain records from the Executive Branch, not about the subsequent public disclosure thereof. Hence my previous reply also focused only on whether Congress is entitled to certain records from the Executive Branch and remained silent on any subsequent public disclosure thereof.
@Axtremus said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Indeed 26 USC 6103(f) does not explicitly authorize the public disclosure of tax returns. But you are wrong to claim that public disclosure of tax returns is in violation of it. 26 USC 6103(f) is silent on the public disclosure of tax returns, it does not explicitly forbid such disclosure.
"ONLY when sitting in closed executive session" sounds pretty forbidding to anything else to my ear.
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You want to compare this to Trump's tax returns?
With regards to "tax return," IT'S THE LAW.
See 26 U.S.C. 6103(f)(1)-:Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, ...
This Hunter Biden case is about "suspicious activity report," not about "tax return."
Find me a U.S. law that compels an Executive Branch agency to furnish to Congress upon request any specific "suspicious activity report," then you can claim equivalence between the two cases.
@Axtremus said in Treasury to GOP: "Pound Sand.":
Find me a U.S. law that compels an Executive Branch agency to furnish to Congress upon request any specific "suspicious activity report,
Here you go. Basically, McCarthy states that law is The Constitution: https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/congress-must-not-tolerate-the-biden-administrations-obstruction/
In our system, the principal check on executive misconduct is Congress. The Framers did not need to trouble themselves with the farcical proposition that executive misconduct could be contained by prosecutors — i.e., middling executive officials who are subordinate to the president and may be fired by him at any time. When the Constitution went into effect in 1789, federal law enforcement barely existed. It was the states that exercised the police powers of investigation, prosecution, and punishment. The Constitution does not provide for an attorney general; the first Congress did, in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Congress did not create the Justice Department until 1870, and the FBI was not established by statute until 1933. The Framers did not give much thought to federal prosecutors, much less “special” federal prosecutors tasked with probing the executive branch itself.
But, as I related in my 2014 book Faithless Execution, the Framers did give a great deal of thought to how best to rein in potential abuses of the awesome powers they were endowing in the office of the president. Their solution was to make Congress the most powerful branch. (Contrary to popular belief, the three departments of government were not conceived to be “co-equal,” though they are peers.) Congress was given the tools necessary to check executive excess — the power of the purse, the power to create or dismantle executive agencies, the power to conduct oversight of executive operations, the power to reject presidential appointees and treaties, and the power to impeach federal officers up to and including the president, among others.
Needless to say, unlike federal prosecutors and directors of intelligence agencies, Congress does not work for the president; to the contrary, it has an institutional obligation to investigate and effectively address presidential misconduct. If presidential administrations attempt to thwart Congress in that constitutional mission, Congress has the power not just to fight but to overcome such obstruction. All it requires is the will to do so.
The Biden administration is using special counsels as a ploy to obstruct Congress. As we’ve previously discussed (see here and here), there was no reason to appoint a special counsel in Trump’s classified-information case. As for Biden, under long-standing Justice Department guidance, he is not subject to indictment by any federal prosecutor, special or otherwise, while he is a sitting president. It would be wrong under any circumstances for Congress to be told it had to suspend its public-interest and national-security inquiries while prosecutors took their time deciding whether to file charges. It is flatly ridiculous for the administration to take such a position when no criminal charges can be filed for, one presumes, at least two years.
