Trump's Lawyers Beg Appeals Court To Shield His Tax Returns From Congress

Donald Trump's lawyers have had quite a busy week, and one of the battles they fought was in front of a panel of appellate judges as they continue their quest to block Congress from getting Trump's tax returns. In December, a Trump-appointed judge through out their legal reasoning and sided with Congress, and the conservative judges on the panel this week appear ready to do the same thing as they completely dismantled the lawyer's arguments. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump's lawyers have apparently been very, very busy this week. In addition to filing the lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and the DNC, Donald Trump's lawyers were also in court this week, arguing in front of an appellate judge panel that the House ways and means committee should never under any circumstances, get their hands on Donald Trump's tax returns. A matter that had technically been settled last December when a Trump appointed judge actually said, yeah, your legal reasoning is, is bogus and, uh, you're gonna have to turn over those tax returns. Well, of course, as they promised, they appealed it. This week they got a hearing and even, by the way, one of the conservative judges on that court much like the previous conservative judge who sided against Trump, the conservative justice, judge David Sentelle, the senior judge said this.

Your pleading may not carry the ball for you because there may be a legislative actor who has two purposes. You allege they have one, and I'm asking you, why isn't it possible they have two? I like that line of questioning, by the way, from the judge, because honestly it just feels like something I would say like, okay, well you're saying they only have one reason. Why not two? I mean, really like I could see myself saying that if I was on that bench, but here's the thing. They went to court arguing that, hey listen, the ways and means committee just wants to get the tax returns because they wanna embarrass Donald Trump. That's their reason. And the judge says, okay, well technically that may be part of it. But if they say they got a legislative reason, then we kind of have to go with that. You know, we can't prove either thing. We can't prove, you can't prove lawyers, that they wanna do this to embarrass Donald Trump.

Right? You can't prove something that hasn't happened and something that hasn't been explicitly said. Sorry, that's the way the law works. So we have to assume that they're being honest about their claim that they wanna make sure the IRS is auditing a former president. Well, technically president at the time when they requested the tax returns, we just wanna make sure everything's on the level. Make sure the IRS is doing their job and if they're not, we need to come up with legislation, you know, to kind of guide them through auditing a president of the United States. Fair enough, right? Is it a bogus reason? Honestly, I kind of feel like it probably is. But at the same time, I don't care either. Like you asked them to give you a reason in the early days of this legal challenge, they gave it to you. So it doesn't matter that you don't like it. It doesn't matter that you don't believe it. You asked for it. They gave it to you. And every judge that has looked at it prior to this has said, nah, they got you.

You wanted 'em to do this and they did it. And again, the judge that ruled on this back in December and sided against Donald Trump was a Trump appointee. The lead judge on this appellate panel is a conservative judge appointed by a Republican. Like even they are looking at this, like you guys have no hope. Your argument is that bad. So it's likely Donald Trump is going to lose this case as well. And eventually as he always does, he's gonna appeal it to the Supreme Court. You know, this thing is gonna drag on probably beyond the 2022 midterms.