The Omnibus P01135809 Criminal Investigation Thread

I mean, it was literally a Nixon tax scandal (not Watergate) that led to that, and Congress has had this authority for a hundred years.

one fun fact already emerging: since at least 2015 there has only been one initiated audit (same day Richie Neal wrote to the IRS to say "WTF?") and it was never completed - and the punch line is that every president IS audited every year they are in office as a matter of routine policy but Trump's lacky put a stop to that in order to cover for him.

First they came for the Average Americans like billionaire (claiming) former Presidents, but people said nothing.

Turns out that the former IRS head that made sure Trump didn't get audited (though it's been standing policy to audit every POTUS for the last 70 years) was also the man who helped Donald Trump make one of his first real estate deals in 1976.... what a coincidence.

https://twitter.com/mbaram/status/1605562357249241088

Trump’s tax returns

https://twitter.com/soyboyhey/status/1605684996097724417?s=46&t=MVDgKbcgjeABdiw6xOaq9Q

Billions!

His taint-lickers will just say "this proves that he lost money by being president ... how noble!"

I guess it is good he is laundering his political donations directly into his pockets by selling NFT village idiot cards. He is going to have to have some money not to pay his bills with.

I hear the sound of the boy felching something.

Melania Could Face Prison Over Jointly Filed Fraudulent Taxes

Pretty fucked up that you used a photo of her wax museum likeness.

So, in the wake of the IRS failing to follow the law and audit Trump while he’s in office, this story from 2020 about the head of the IRS seems timely.

https://www.citizensforethics.org/r...vestigations/charles-rettig-trump-properties/

Trump's Brazen Tax Cheating Revealed | DCReport.org

Mark Meadows Burned Documents After W Meetings: Testimony (mediaite.com)


Former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burned documents at the White House about a “dozen” times, his ex-aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the House Jan. 6 committee

The committee released the remaining transcripts from Hutchinson’s testimony on Tuesday.

The transcripts add some details to a report published by Politico in May. A source told the publication Hutchinson told the committee “she saw Meadows incinerate documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry.”

CNN’s Jessica Schneider flagged the excerpt on Tuesday’s edition of The Situation Room.

Schneider reported that Hutchinson “told the committee she actually saw Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times, which she says amounted to about once or twice a week between December 2020 and January 2021.”

Hutchinson testified that on at least two occasions, Meadows burned documents after meeting with Perry, who refused to comply with a subpoena from the committee.

Perry was one of the people in Donald Trump’s orbit working to keep Trump in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. Trump has falsely claimed the election was stolen from him.

Hutchinson also testified Meadows mentioned conspiracy theories floated by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

Trump’s falsehoods ultimately sparked the January 2021 Capitol insurrection, where a mob of his supporters stormed the building in a failed attempt to overturn the election results.

CNN Commentator Reacts to Report Mark Meadows Burned Documents (mediaite.com)


Gloria Borger said former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows violated the Presidential Records Act in the waning days of the Trump presidency.

Borger was reacting to a newly-released testimony by the House Jan. 6 committee.

On CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer cited a transcript wherein Cassidy Hutchinson said Meadows burned papers following meetings as then-President Donald Trump sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Hutchinson told the committee she witnessed her then-boss Meadows burn documents in a fireplace on about “a dozen” occasions.

Blitzer asked Borger, CNN’s chief political analyst, “How incredible is it that Cassidy Hutchinson saw Mark Meadows burning documents?”

Borger responded:

It is remarkable, it is absurd, and it is clearly in violation of the Presidential Records Act, assuming that every piece of paper in the White House should be archived. We don’t know what these things were that he was throwing in the fireplace, and we had known he had on occasion thrown something in the fireplace.

Unless this was a newspaper clipping or something to that effect, I think he’s got a lot of questions he needs to answer.

CNN’s Jessica Schneider viewed Hutchinson’s testimony and reported:

We’re learning more details, particularly how she told the committee how she saw Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents around a dozen times, which she says amounted to once or twice a week between December 2020 and January 2021. She says at least twice she saw meadows burning documents after he had meetings with Republican congressman Scott Perry, who, in fact, was subpoenaed by the committee but never actually complied.

Schneider also said Hutchinson’s testimony showed QAnon conspiracy theories “permeated” the White House in the final days of Trump’s term in office.​

And not directly related to any of his current legal perils, this is a gift link (no paywall) to a long read about manafort and the Russian connections

The Untold Story of ‘Russiagate’ and the Road to War in Ukraine - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Yeah, it's been pretty clear for a while now that Russia's efforts in Ukraine and their efforts to put Trump in power were one in the same. After all, the first thing Manafort did (with Trump's blessing) was remove defending Ukraine from the Republican Party Platform.

Bolton stated it openly after he resigned. Trump was planning to remove the US from NATO in his 2nd term. You might disagree with the War Walrus on a dozen things, but as Trump's National Security Advisor chief he clearly was in a position to know. Thank goodness Tre45on never got that term.

I hate to say it, but I don't think it's right that they obtained Trumps tax returns against his will and then released them to the public like that. It really is a violation of his privacy, and if it had been done to anyone but Trump I think more people would be rightfully outraged.

I get that presidential candidates traditionally release them voluntarily, but if a candidate chooses not to, they shouldn't be forced. The voters should accept that choice, while at the same time recognizing what a massive red flag it is.

Eh, there's a lot of government jobs, including elected ones, where you're required to make your tax returns public. It doesn't sound like an unreasonable request at all to me.

No, this isn't like FDR's polio, or JFK's Addison's.
Whether you're ripping off the government you're serving is something we need to now.

My thought is if you want public office it should be a requirement. It is not a law, but it should be. If your privacy is that important to you, then you do not serve the public. At this point if he wasn't running again, which he decided to do, I would agree with you that it was wrong, but I would have better battles to fight.

He has chosen to run again, and we should see them, and that applies to every candidate.

That's an incredibly dumb post. The minimum expectation for anyone holding the highest elected office in the land should be that they truthfully and transparently disclose their financial affairs.

Nothing that was revealed in Trump's tax returns should surprise anyone. It simply confirms that he's completely full of shit and not the financial wiz he claims to be. In fact, it appears quite likely that many of his finances have been structured in such a way as to constitute criminal tax evasion.

EDIT: Not that I'm expecting anything to change with the cult of MAGA.

Yes we need to know if a wannabe or actual President is ripping off the government. Tax returns could quite possibly be useful in determining if there's a potential conflict of interest when it comes to their finances and possible obligations to a foreign (and possibly hostile) party.

-I agree that Trump should have released his returns, but once he refused to do so it should have been up to the voters to punish him for it, not for the Democrats to forcibly release them for not other apparent reason than spite.
-It's infuriating that he wasn't properly audited, but that's a whole separate issue.
-Like you said, nothing that ended up being revealed was actually a surprise, and none of it is likely to change his supporters minds either. So what was the point?
-What happens in 2024 when the Republicans in congress decide the voters need to see Hunters tax returns?

dude... we live in a province with a publicly available "sunshine" list of all public employees pulling in (I think) over $100K

seems pretty normal for the public to have a right to know who's getting how many of our dimes...

Fer Chrissake the President, by law, is supposed to have his returns audited and the House Ways and Means committee has the right to release them. By the way, one of the interesting things they've revealed is that he lied about closing a Chinese bank account in 2013. In a perfect world... oh never mind...

First they'll need to demonstrate to a judge that there's a legitimate legislative purpose.

They may well draw a Trump-appointed judge who's willing to rubberstamp the request, but then what happens is ... they get and release Hunter Biden's tax returns. Which will probably be redundant, as there's a good chance he will have been indicted for fraud by then.

Which will, in turn, reveal Joe Biden's complete lack of any attempt to use his power to cover for his fuckup son.

Oh and Trump pays more taxes to China than to the U.S. Nothing to see here, right?

If they want to pass a law making it a mandatory process, I'd be fine with that.

Haven't you heard? "The big guy gets 10%" or whatever today's Fox News conspiracy is.

I have no issue with that at all. That's a good policy. I'd be happy with that being retroactive, even. Maybe if you officially register your candidacy or win a primary your last five or ten years are automatically audited.

Do they need a reason, or can they do it just because they feel like it? Honest question.

Nope. They won’t release them unless there is something obviously incriminating about Joe Biden in them. They’ll just hold onto them and insinuate there’s wrongdoing which the conservatives and idiots will lap up. If they release them there’s a serious risk that the “reality-based community ” will be able to demonstrate there’s nothing there.