Trump Is Desperate To Shield His Tax Returns From Congress

Donald Trump is so desperate to keep his tax records out of the hands of Democrats in Congress that he sent his lawyers to Washington, D.C. this week to argue that Congress has no right to access those materials. Congress actually DOES have the right to view any American citizen's tax records, and Trump should be no different now that he is a private citizen. Farron Cousins explains what's happening and why Trump is so desperate.

Don't forget to like, comment, and share! And subscribe to stay connected!

Connect with Farron on Twitter

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump is so desperate to prevent Democrats in the house of representatives from getting their hands on his tax information that he sent his lawyers to Washington DC this week, where they went in front of a judge and begged the judge to go ahead and issue a summary judgment telling house committee. They can not have Donald Trump's tax information from his accounting firm, maze ours. And by the way, the legal argument they used is absolutely mind blowing considering their previous arguments. Now in the past, Donald Trump's lawyers had gone into court and they said, listen, they can't have his tax information. He's the president of the United States. He can't be burdened with this kind of thing. He's a busy guy, not to mention. They argued. It's not related to any specific legislation. So, you know, they really, really have no, no room to do this to the president of the United States.

So this week, this week, they go to court in front of a judge and they say the Mays, our subpoena remains a demand for the president's information based on precedent, specific justification, subject to president's specific defenses, the committee's justification's concerning the Trump presidency cratered once he stopped being president. So, so his lawyers had previously [inaudible] argued in court. You can't have this information because he's, and now they went to court and said, you can't have this information because he's not president. So whether he is, or isn't president, you are not allowed to have his info because we say you're not how, I mean, I hope they do some stretches before they jumped into those legal linguistic gymnastics, because Holy cow, that's bad lawyering. Uh, the Supreme court obviously has already ruled, uh, not necessarily for Congress, but for the investigations up in New York, they said, listen, you're not protected by executive privilege anymore.

Your arguments that I can't do this because I'm the president, you can't make those arguments. And so therefore Donald Trump had to turn his information over to those investigators up in New York. There is literally no reason to think that courts wouldn't rule in the same way. With regard to this matter. See the house oversight committee wants their hands on Donald Trump's tax information to identify any potential conflicts of interest that at the time existed or now would have existed during Donald Trump's presidency. And sure it wasn't related to any specific legislation, but that doesn't matter because the committee actually has the authority to request the tax information of any American citizen that they please and Donald Trump tried to argue, or his did that. He wasn't just a citizen. He was the president, but now as they made clear, he is not the president of the United States.

He's just a citizen. And therefore, within their own argument, based on their previous argument, it's all nullified big question of the day here, right? Why the hell does Donald Trump care? What are you trying to hide? That's the question. I think everybody at this point still wants answered. What are you trying to hide? Why are you so desperate to keep these tax returns from landing in the hands of the house oversight committee? There is obviously no doubt at this point among rational thinking human beings, that he clearly is hiding something. Maybe he's hiding from embarrassment, you know, showing that he's not quite worth as much as he likes to claim he is that would hurt his ego, but it wouldn't affect literally anything on this planet. Or he could be hiding some potentially, uh, problematic financial connections. I'm guessing it's one of the two. And to be honest, I actually think it's more of the embarrassment thing. I do believe Donald Trump has been lying about how much he is worth for many, many years. And he doesn't want the truth to come out because in Trump world being embarrassed is actually a hell of a lot worse than being basically accused of criminal conduct.