re: DC Circuit Rules against Trump re House Request for Tax Records

quote:

---

this may indeed be true of some posters, but it is hardly reflective of the majority.

---

You have data to back this up? How many read your opinion and remain silent on the matter? Can you count them in the majority or not?

quote:

---

How many times in the last year or two and we witnessed a huge celebratory flurry of threads regarding some unimportant procedural ruling in favor of Trump?

---

How many did we see when Obama was POTUS? Jesus man, you really are not good at getting points are you...

quote:

---

How many times have I or one of the other attorneys on this forum tried to explain the non-substantive nature of the ruling and explain/predict the most-likely subsequent events?

---

Maybe you should explain first and then go with your prediction later?

quote:

---

insulting epithets and misrepresentations of the political views of the attorney trying to provide the explanation.

---

Jesus dude, you built this persona and quite frankly it sucks... I really hope you are not like this in real life and if you are, I imagine you miss some opportunities to get punched in the face a lot...

quote:

---

How often are those explanations and predictions proven true, within days or weeks? Almost uniformly.

---

Again, do you have data to back this up?

Now, you missed the entire point of what I posted and this diatribe, pity party you decided to post further proves my point... PEOPLE do not like your opinion because of YOU and YOUR DELIVERY... Again, I am sorry your ego does not allow you to separate the two...

quote:

---

Again, do you have data to back this up?

---

No, I do not maintain a spreadsheet.

But you can look at this thread as an exemplar. It is fairly typical.

quote:

---

But you can look at this thread as an exemplar. It is fairly typical.

---

Ok, so I'll just base it on your oversensitive vagina and leave it at that...

quote:

---

“we detect no inherent constitutional flaw in laws requiring Presidents to publicly disclose certain financial information. And that is enough.

---

So there's a federal law requiring this? No? Sounds like they better get to work passing a law then...

quote:

---

quote:

---

Why do they say this is constitutional, and based on what precedence?

---

have you been paying attention lately?? If Nancy and Schiffty say it’s constitutional, it’s constitutional. But what they deem constitutional today, they may deem unconstitutional tomorrow.

If no precedence exists, no precedence is needed. If precedence does exist, but doesn’t agree with the agenda at hand, it’s not required.

Dems are now determining constitutionality on a day to day basis, depending on what the agenda at hand is.

---

With all due respect, the majority spent dozens of pages outlining precedent. Feel free to disagree with its application, but there is LOTS of it.

quote:

---

All told, from Congress’s centuries-long experience issuing legislative subpoenas, and the courts’ (somewhat less frequent) experience reviewing them, a few principles emerge—principles that control our resolution of this case.

As an initial matter, “whether [a] committee [is] authorized [to] exact the information” it has subpoenaed “must first be settled before . . . consider[ing] whether Congress had the [constitutional] power to confer upon the committee the authority which it claim[s].” Rumely, 345 U.S. at 42–43. In other words, it matters not whether the Constitution would give Congress authority to issue a subpoena if Congress has given the issuing committee no such authority.

That said, once a committee has been delegated “[t]he power of the Congress to conduct investigations,” that constitutional authority “is broad.” Watkins, 354 U.S. at 187; accord Eastland, 421 U.S. at 504 n.15 (“[T]he power to investigate is necessarily broad.”); Barenblatt, 360 U.S. at 111 (describing Congress’s investigative power as “broad”); Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 160 (1955) (same);McGrain, 273 U.S. at 173–74 (same). “It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes,” “[i]t includes surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them,” and “[i]t comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste.” Watkins, 354 U.S. at 187. In short, “[a] legislative inquiry may be as broad, as searching, and as exhaustive as is necessary to make effective the constitutional powers of Congress.” Townsend v. United States, 95 F.2d 352, 361 (D.C. Cir. 1938). Expansive as it is, however, Congress’s subpoena power is subject to several key constraints.

First, because “the power of Congress . . . to investigate” is “co-extensive with [its] power to legislate,” Quinn, 349 U.S. at 160, Congress may in exercising its investigative power neither usurp the other branches’ constitutionally designated functions nor violate individuals’ constitutionally protected rights. Congress may not conduct itself as “a law enforcement or trial agency,” as “[t]hese are functions of the executive and judicial departments.” Watkins, 354 U.S. at 187. And Congress lacks any “general power to expose where the predominant result can only be an invasion of the private rights of individuals.” Id. at 200.

Next, precisely because “[t]he scope of [Congress’s] power of inquiry . . . is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution,” Barenblatt, 360 U.S. at 111, Congress may investigate only those topics on which it could legislate, see Quinn, 349 U.S. at 161 (stating that Congress’s “power to investigate” does not “extend to an area in which Congress is forbidden to legislate”). If no constitutional statute may be enacted on a subject matter, then that subject is off-limits to congressional investigators.

And finally, congressional committees may subpoena only information “calculated to” “materially aid[]” their investigations. McGrain, 273 U.S. at 177. Even a valid legislative purpose cannot justify a subpoena demanding irrelevant material.
With these principles in mind, we proceed to the particulars of this case. The Trump Plaintiffs dispute both the Committee’s authority from the House to issue the subpoena and the House’s authority under the Constitution to confer the same. For reasons that shall become clear later, we address these questions in reverse order.

---

quote:

---

quote:“

quote:

---

we detect no inherent constitutional flaw in laws requiring Presidents to publicly disclose certain financial information

---

. And that is enough. So there's a federal law requiring this? No? Sounds like they better get to work passing a law then...

---

Oh really? Maybe the Qualifications clause?

To be honest I don't see how the USSC would take this up.

quote:

---

subpoena from a House committee to the accounting firm which prepares his taxes, not a request to Trump himself

---

Know how I know you're a leftist?

quote:

---

quote:

---

Reminder, this was a subpoena from a House committee to the accounting firm which prepares his taxes, not a request to Trump himself OR the Committee request direct to the IRS.

---

Know how I know you're a leftist?

---

Please DO share with the class.

I see the identity of the recipient of the subpoena is being highly relevant to the question of whether said recipient will actually comply with the eventual final court order. Do you disagree?

quote:

---

The problem is that Congressional motivation is irrelevant to the question of whether it is entitled to pursue these records, under current law.

---

Which is the craziest thing ever.