Day 805: Trump’s transparency fears: Mueller report, tax returns
Transparency is often a huge issue with governments, and Donald Trump has ratcheted that issue up in the U.S. in rarely seen ways.
Currently, he fears full disclosure of two things: the Robert Mueller report and his own tax returns.
On the Mueller front, Trump was thrilled to celebrate his Pyrrhic victory after his attorney general released a favorable summary of the report. However, now that news reports indicate that Mueller’s findings were far from exonerating to Trump, he is desperate for them to remain hidden.
Trump initially celebrated the report’s conclusions, as summarized by Barr last week. But as Democrats in Congress have escalated their efforts to obtain Mueller’s report and evidence, the president is now indicating he has reservations about allowing his Justice Department to fork over the full report to lawmakers.
“There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, naming two top House Democrats seeking the report. “It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!”
As Democrats are subpoenaing the IRS for Trump’s tax returns, he’s fraught trying to keep them from the public eye. Initially saying he would release them during the campaign and later saying he would do so if elected, Trump has never published any of his returns. This despite every major party candidate for president in the last five decades has released their tax returns.
There are legitimate reasons for Democrats to seek Trump’s returns beyond merely embarrassing him: there are questions about foreign influence, emoluments, corruption, transparency and accountability. Presidential candidates release tax returns to show the American people that they have no undue dealings. Trump — whose businesses have faced a myriad of bankruptcies, complaints, fines and other issues — has more questions about his financial history than anyone else who has run for president. And yet he has managed to not provide a shred of documentation showing clean hands, choosing to dubiously hide behind a claim that he is still being audited.
Audits do not preclude someone from revealing their returns. Even Richard Nixon voluntarily revealed his tax returns while under audit. Additionally, notwithstanding the audit excuse, Trump could hand over decades’ worth of returns from before he was audited.
Trump is so concerned about Democrats succeeding that he lobbied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to bring the nomination of an IRS attorney to the floor before that of the attorney general, a much more important role.
Trump really, really likes to claim that he has nothing to hide and that everything is on the up-and-up — or “very legal & very cool” — but when his bluff gets called, he’s terrified to show his cards.
805 days in, 657 to go
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