Now, why in the WORLD would the IRS feel the need to do THAT?
The legal fight over Donald Trump's tax returns will likely be over very soon, and the IRS and the Treasury Department are hoping that things don't go Trump's way. The two agencies filed a brief with the Supreme Court this past week basically telling them that Trump has no legal argument to prevent the release of the documents. This is a very interesting move by the departments, and Farron Cousins explains why this brief matters.
*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos. Last Thursday, the IRS and the Treasury Department decided to finally weigh in on Donald Trump's legal battle to prevent Congress the ways and means committee specifically from getting their hands on his tax returns. Now, as I'm sure everybody remembers recently, Supreme Court, uh, uh, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay in that tax return case. Donald Trump had exhausted all of his previous appeals, so he took it directly to the Supreme Court. John Roberts said, Okay, listen, I'm not gonna rule on the case on the merits, but I am gonna say that while we consider this, and actually even while we consider to take it up, cuz we don't even know if they will, you cannot turn his tax returns over to those house committees. So the committees, of course, do not have those tax returns, even though all of the lower courts said, Yeah, you can have 'em. Uh, Supreme Court says, Hold your horses folks, we gotta look at this and see what's happening. So IRS Treasury Department on Thursday filed a brief with the Supreme Court essentially telling them that, Hey, um, Congress needs to see these. Doesn't that seem a little odd? The agencies that have his tax returns are going to the Supreme Court being like, No, no, no. Guys, guys, guys, Congress needs to see these. Okay? Do, do you read between the lines here? Congress probably needs to take a look at these. That's, that's pretty remarkable, isn't it? Because, and they also, by the way, they also said like Donald Trump's legal arguments are garbage. Um, specifically that said, Trump's team cannot satisfy the demanding standard for that extraordinary relief, which basically means they don't have a legal argument to continue blocking the documents from being released. That's it. But what gets me about this, the reason this stands out to me, honestly, the reason I'm, I'm even talking about it is because these agencies didn't have to do this. Right? That's the big, like red flag for me if I'm Donald Trump's legal team, because these agencies are not part of the legal fight. They're the ones being told to release or not to release. They're just sitting there waiting for orders. They didn't have to file a brief, you know, the, the people who filed the original lawsuit to get the documents, they file briefs, Trump's team files briefs, the, the two parties of the lawsuit, not these groups. So the fact that they stepped in, the fact that they're telling the United States Supreme Court Congress probably needs these, that kind of tells me, yeah, there may be a there there, Right? Okay. We're talking about the organizations, The, the government agencies that have seen the tax returns. Like they know what's in them and if they know what's in them and they're going to the Supreme Court saying, Listen, let's, let's get them to Congress. Could you just do that? Trust me, I think that's a big fricking deal. I think that means there's something there. Because again, the most important thing to remember here is that these agencies didn't have to say anything. They're just sitting there waiting for the court's orders to release or not to release. That's their only involvement. The fact that they stepped in and said, Listen, we want Congress to have these. That tells us there is something there. Of course, six three conservative majority on that Supreme Court, we don't know how they're gonna go. But John Roberts did leave the door open with his order of the stay to say that we may not even take the case, right? We're just a little busy right now. We'll look at it and then we'll decide if we're even gonna take it. So if he doesn't take it, it's over for Trump. If they do take it, we gotta wait for the ruling. And of course the Supreme Court deciding not to take it. It's probably the best way for them to not have to weigh in and Donald Trump off. He'll be mad either way, but at least this way they can say like, We never issued a ruling. We just, you know, didn't see any merit to it. So those are the possible options, but again, keep an eye on it cuz I don't think the IRS would've stepped in unless they knew that there was something Congress desperately needed to.
