James downie washington post5/15/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If that means almost all congressional oversight requests - the majority of which may be politically embarrassing to a White House - are political hit jobs, so be it. "(Democrats) know the terms under law by which the IRS can give them documents, but a political hit job is not one of those reasons," said Mulvaney.Īccording to Sekulow and Mulvaney, because the Democrats' request may end up being politically damaging for the president, that makes the request purely political and therefore legally illegitimate. "We should not be in a situation where individual private tax returns are used for political purposes," complained Sekulow. 'There are only the party leaders who will keep swimming in this foul stream leaving behind those that don’t. Sekulow and Mulvaney have one final objection: This is just politics. 'There’s no battle for the party’s soul,' James Downie writes in Opinions. In his letter to the IRS requesting Trump's returns, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., noted that the committee has "oversight and legislative authority over our federal tax laws," including whether the IRS "is enforcing the laws in a fair and impartial manner." And, notably, the president's defenders aren't contesting that Congress is in bounds to ask whether an agency headed by a presidential appointee is reviewing that president's tax returns the same way it would handle anyone else's.īut fear not, the president's personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, has found a novel approach to oversight: If Democrats "want to know if the IRS is doing its job and auditing the president," he said on ABC's "This Week," "well, they could ask the IRS, what job are they doing?" It's a stroke of genius from Sekulow: Just ask an agency whether it's operating by the book, but don't waste time checking whether its answers are truthful! Think of the time this will save future Congresses. ![]()
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