https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/04/...t-nadler-investigation-impeachment/index.html Mueller report may just be the beginning of Trump's investigation woes (CNN) The impeachment of President Donald Trump suddenly looks like much more than just a theoretical possibility. Democrats on Monday will launch an "abuse of power" investigation that could be easily transformed into an even more serious process, with an expansive demand for documents from Trump's government, his family and even his real estate empire. The President reacted to his worsening plight with a vehement defense on Sunday, after a week in which testimony from his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen deepened his political vulnerability and ahead of the expected filing soon of special counsel Robert Mueller's report. "Presidential Harassment by 'crazed' Democrats at the highest level in the history of our Country. Likewise, the most vicious and corrupt Mainstream Media that any president has ever had to endure," Trump tweeted Sunday night. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who would eventually lead any impeachment proceedings, on Sunday signaled a significant escalation into congressional inquiries into the President. The New York Democrat plans on Monday to request documents from 60 people and entities close to Trump, including from the Department of Justice, the White House and the Trump Organization. The document trawl will be used "to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, about corruption and abuse of power," Nadler said on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday. Nadler stuck to the House Democratic position that impeachment "is a long way down the road," apparently in order to avoid Republican arguments that the decision has already been made to try to oust Trump. The document requests are not taking place under the auspices of an official impeachment investigation. But Nadler said nevertheless that he believes the President had obstructed justice, a potentially impeachable offense. And given his responsibilities and powers, the warning from Nadler took the President's political and legal nightmare to a new plane, and opened a new, more serious stage of the showdown between House Democrats and Trump. It was the latest sign that investigations sparked by accusations that Trump's campaign team cooperated with Russian election meddling has mushroomed into a relentless examination of Trump's political, personal and business life. The latest blow to the President further intensified pressure on the White House as Washington waits for another shoe to drop — with Mueller expected to file his long awaited report from Monday onward. The Nadler investigation, along with parallel probes into Trump's presidency by the House Oversight and Intelligence committees means that the structure of a political investigation into the President based in Congress is now in place, alongside the legal inquiries led by Mueller and prosecutors in New York and other jurisdictions. Trump showing signs of stress In the last week, partly through Cohen's testimony, it has become clear that even if the special counsel does not find direct wrongdoing by the President, Trump's legal troubles will linger deep into his presidency and probably beyond. Trump is showing increasing signs of stress at being surrounded. He spent much of the weekend laying out a likely defense should any of the multiple probes find him guilty of wrongdoing and bolstering his stranglehold on the Republican Party that could eventually be key to saving his presidency in a Senate trial if House Democrats opt for impeachment. "I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election!" Trump tweeted Sunday. In a mostly unscripted two-hour speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday — one of the most demagogic and inflammatory appearances of his presidency, Trump lacerated Mueller and his investigation. "So now we're waiting for a report, and we'll find out ... who we're dealing with ... We're waiting for a report by people that weren't elected," Trump said at CPAC. "You put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't be there, and all of a sudden, they're trying to take you out with bullshit, OK," Trump said. Trump also sketched a defense for two potential areas of vulnerability: his call for Russia to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails during the 2016 campaign and his firing of former FBI Director James Comey in 2017. He said he was being "sarcastic" when he asked Russia to find Clinton's emails and was having fun with his audience. Mueller's team has already filed an indictment against 12 Russian intelligence operatives, accusing them of hacking into Clinton's personal emails for the first time on the same day — July 27, 2016 — as Trump's appeal. Trump's comment is often cited by his critics as an instance in which his campaign colluded in plain sight with the Russian election meddling effort. The President also used his speech at CPAC to knock back accusations that his firing of Comey was an attempt to shut down the Russia investigation and therefore fits the definition of obstruction of justice. "I said, 'Melania, I'm doing something today, I'm doing it because it really has to be done ... he's a bad, bad guy,'" Trump said, arguing that he thought Democrats would welcome the move given their anger at Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation. "I said to the first lady, I said, 'but you know the good news, the good news is that this is going to be so bipartisan, everyone's going to love it' — so we fired Comey." In May 2017, Trump told NBC News that he was thinking of the "Russia thing" when he dismissed Comey. His lawyers have argued that since he is the titular head of the US government and legal system, the President has the right to dismiss anyone in the executive branch and therefore cannot be guilty of obstruction. It may soon be Mueller time Mueller has not so far produced any evidence that Trump is guilty of cooperating with the Russian election interference effort, or of obstructing justice. He has however sprinkled tantalizing clues in indictments of a handful of Trump associates that have sparked intrigue about what his eventual findings — that will be presented to Attorney General William Barr — will show. In a moment that will have dramatic overtones given the timing, Barr is due to deliver brief remarks on Monday at an event at the White House hosted by the President for state attorneys general, a Justice Department spokesman said. Trump's fierce political campaign against what he calls Mueller's "Witch Hunt" and "hoax" investigation is apparently aimed at discrediting any conclusions that Barr choses to share with Congress and the public. But his increasingly emotional denunciation of the various legal and political investigations — that are now focusing on his business, his campaign, his transition, his inauguration and his presidency is not giving the impression that he is a President who is confident there will be no charges to answer. Nadler is expected to give further details of his document request on Monday. But he said on ABC that it would stretch from the White House, to the Department of Justice to Trump's son, Donald Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Given that he believes that Trump obstructed justice, Nadler was asked on "This Week" whether the decision not to pursue a formal impeachment investigation at this point was merely a political distinction. "We do not now have the evidence sorted out and everything to do an impeachment. Before you impeach somebody you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the opposition party voters, the Trump voters," Nadler said. Republicans accused Nadler and fellow Democrats of lining up a fall back investigation to pursue the President in case Mueller does not find offenses that rise to the level of impeachment. "I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the President the day the President won the election," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on "This Week." "He talks about impeachment before he even became chairman and then he says, you've got to persuade people to get there." McCarthy also argued that the hush money payments made by Trump to two women who accused him of affairs before the election did not amount to the standard of impeachable offenses. Cohen last week produced a check for $35,000 which he said was proof that Trump was reimbursing him for what may amount to an infringement of campaign finance laws even while he was in office. But McCarthy argued that campaign finance violations merit a fine, not the ultimate sanction Congress can take against a President. "Those aren't impeachable in the process," he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/us/politics/democrats-trump-tax-returns.html?module=inline House Democrats Begin Push to Secure Trump’s Tax Returns WASHINGTON — Democrats took the first cautious steps on Thursday in their quest to obtain President Trump’s long-hidden tax returns, further inflaming the contentious relationship between the president and the newly empowered House. A fractious afternoon hearing of a Ways and Means oversight subcommittee was intended to begin building a case that Mr. Trump’s withholding of his returns was not only flouting modern political norms but also potentially hiding violations of federal tax laws and compromising the interests of the United States. Democrats argued that they had the legal authority and good cause to invoke an obscure provision in the federal code that gives the committee’s chairman access to private tax information to find the answers and potentially inform other related inquiries into Mr. Trump’s financial positions. “We are not interested in getting someone,” Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said during one exchange. “We are interested in following the law, period.” The Democratic lawmakers faced stiff objections from congressional Republicans, who accused them of seeking to violate Mr. Trump’s privacy, setting a dangerous precedent for political retribution and abusing the power laid out in the law. Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had said the House’s multiplying inquiries into him, his business and his administration constituted “presidential harassment.” “The Dems and their committees are going ‘nuts,’” he wrote on Twitter. Tensions have also simmered between Democratic leaders who want to proceed slowly and liberals who think they are wasting time. But by the time the gavel fell in the Ways and Means hearing room, the Democrats had already made clear they were undeterred. “Overwhelmingly, the public wants to see the president’s tax returns,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “They want to know the truth. They want to know the facts. And he has nothing to hide.” You have 2 free articles remaining. Subscribe to The Times What comes next is far less clear. The statute in question — Section 6103 of the federal tax code — gives the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee extraordinary powers to request that the Treasury Department release to him tax information on any filer, including the president. The provision allows the committee to review the tax information privately, but it would have to vote to disclose any return information or findings to the public. There is scant precedent for its use to investigate an individual, much less someone of Mr. Trump’s stature. That and an all but certain legal challenge from the administration will most likely leave the outcome to the federal courts. The tax policy experts assembled by the committee generally supported Democrats’ view of the law, arguing that Section 6103 gave the chairman wide discretion as long as he could show a “legitimate purpose” for obtaining sensitive records. “Congress in effect placed tax return information in a locked safe in 1976, but it preserved one key for purposes of disclosing such information to the public,” said George K. Yin, a University of Virginia tax law professor. “It gave that key to the tax committees. The law therefore should be interpreted to enable the tax committees to use the key in appropriate and necessary circumstances.” Only one of the panelists, Ken Kies, a former Ways and Means aide and veteran Republican tax lobbyist, disagreed. The committee’s chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, is working closely with the House’s general counsel, Doug Letter, to build a legal rationale that could withstand a court challenge. Mr. Neal, who prides himself more on his bipartisan policymaking skills than hard-nosed partisan oversight, is reluctant to move too quickly and risk making a mistake that could be exploited in court, people familiar with his thinking said. Though it focused almost exclusively on invoking existing authorities, for instance, Thursday’s subcommittee hearing was technically a legislative session concentrated on a portion of Democrats’ broad election reform bill that would require all presidents and vice presidents to disclose their tax returns going forward. But pressure from Mr. Neal’s left flank is growing. Three liberal groups — Tax March, Stand Up America and Indivisible — recently wrote a letter urging the chairman to “stop slow-walking” and even attached another form letter, addressed to the Treasury secretary and the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, for Mr. Neal to sign formally requesting the returns. Liberal lawmakers, too, are growing impatient. Mr. Neal has not indicated when he plans to make a formal request under the law, how he would review what he got or if his committee or others will convene additional hearings first. Nor has he said whether he will request tax information on the Trump Organization or just the president’s personal returns. As written, the law does not give the Trump administration clear grounds to deny a request from Mr. Neal. It says only that the Treasury secretary “shall” furnish the information upon request. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has said he will comply with all legal requests from Congress for the tax returns of any taxpayer, including Mr. Trump. However, Treasury officials are preparing to challenge the legitimacy of any requests coming from the committee that they could argue are political in nature and not related to real legislative work. Republicans forcefully defended Mr. Trump, beginning with a letter from the committee’s ranking member, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, early Thursday urging Mr. Neal to reconsider “weaponizing the nation’s tax code” for political purposes. “This isn’t about the tax returns of presidents and vice presidents but about making sure Congress does not abuse its authority,” he wrote. “This is about protecting the private tax returns of every American.” In the hearing room, Republicans tried out various arguments. The current law does not actually require presidents or candidates to release their tax information, they pointed out. Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the oversight subcommittee, said a committee review would be redundant since the I.R.S. is mandated to audit all presidential returns. Representative Brad Wenstrup, Republican of Ohio, compared requiring candidates to release their tax returns to asking them to make their medical records public. “Where does it end?” Mr. Kelly asked. “What about the tax returns of the speaker? Members of Congress? Federal employees? Or, for that matter, any political donors? There is no end in sight for those whose tax information may be in jeopardy.” Democrats called that argument ridiculous. They said their case was about a specific president who had defied norms and was known to have complicated financial entanglements. They also pointed to reports in The New York Times and other news media outlets that suggested that Mr. Trump had substantially misled the public about certain aspects of his wealth. Mr. Trump is the first president or major party nominee to refuse to release his personal tax returns since doing so became the norm in the 1970s. During the campaign, he cited a continuing I.R.S. audit of his returns, but since taking office, the White House has signaled that Mr. Trump has no intentions of making the material public regardless of an audit.