Tag: hiding

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Trump Sues To Block Congress From Accessing His Financial Records

Donald Trump, Rep. Elijah J. Cummings

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump is suing to block Congress – specifically House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings –  from accessing his financial records.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.

Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.

It’s important to note that the House Oversight Committee is specifically charged with oversight of the Executive Branch of government.

Cummings’ committee is seeking 10 years of financial records from Trump.

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President Trump Only World Leader At G7 Summit To NOT Give Press Conference

Remember when Donald Trump dogged Hillary Clinton over how much time had passed since she had done a press conference? He inferred over and over that avoiding the press was due to being crooked.

“She doesn’t do news conferences, because she can’t,” Trump said at an August rally in Ashburn, Virginia. “She’s so dishonest she doesn’t want people peppering her with questions.”

Guess who left the G7 summit today as the only world leader to not hold a press conference?

Via The Hill:

President Trump was the only world leader not to give a press conference following the G7 summit Saturday, adding to already existing tension between the president and the press.

The Trump administration did offer a press briefing after the summit by the president’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn. The briefing, which was given off-camera but on-the-record, took place around the same time other world leaders offered their post-summit press conferences.

According to a report by The Washington Post, journalists at the briefing by Cohn and McMaster were frustrated as the two officials refused to comment on reports that Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner discussed setting up a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow.

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Donald Trump, Breaking 40 Years Of Tradition, Will Not Release His Tax Returns

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/730462228391071745

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has reversed himself and, in an interview with the Associated Press, announced that he will not be releasing his tax returns before the election in November.

From the New York Times:

“There’s nothing to learn from them,” Mr. Trump told The A.P., explaining that he did not think voters were particularly interested in the contents of his returns.

The release of tax returns is not legally required of presidential candidates, but there is a long tradition of major party nominees putting their returns forward for the public to peruse. Joseph J. Thorndike, an adjunct college professor who tracks presidential tax returns as the director of the Tax History Project, said Mr. Trump would be the first major candidate since 1976 to not make any of his full returns public. President Gerald R. Ford released a tax summary that year.

During the heat of his primary battle, Mr. Trump said he would release his tax information and blamed the delay on the complexity of his finances. He later said that he could not do it immediately because he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, and that his lawyers advised him against it. Mr. Trump has also explained that he cannot release returns form previous years because the government audits him almost every year.

Although Mr. Trump has cited the audit as a reason for withholding his returns, Dr. Thorndike noted that President Richard M. Nixon released his under audit, starting the tradition of candidates making theirs public.

“I think 40 years of tradition carries real moral and ethical weight,” Dr. Thorndike said. “It is quite striking that a major candidate would decide not to release their tax information — especially someone with an admittedly complex tax situation.”

Among the most prominent people to call on Mr. Trump to release his returns this year has been Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who did not want to release his tax returns but finally relented under pressure. One of the people who was encouraging him to do so that year was Mr. Trump, who said that Mr. Romney should be proud of his wealth and not hold back his financial information.

“Mitt has to get those tax returns out,” Mr. Trump said in a Fox News interview at the time. “I’m a little surprised they weren’t better prepared for that.”

You have to wonder what he’s hiding, no?