He refuses to disclose his tax returns...

[SHRED]

...and yet he's headed to the most powerful public job on the planet.

I can't wrap my head around why there isn't more concern about seeing his returns for our national security sake??

[whathehell]

1. What with his "conflict of interest" businesses AND the Russian connection

I think this will be coming up shortly in a stronger way. I certainly hope so.

[SHRED]

2. Why won't our Dem leaders scream about this?

I have yet to see them give a strong national security rationale.

[dhill926]

3. mystery to me as well....

[whathehell]

6. I don't know...Maybe they're getting one ready?

I'm a news junkie and it seems all sides are honing in on the national security issue. I do hope they are NOT holding back for any such nonsense as "fear of looking partisan"...The dems have often had way too many fears, and not enough chutzpah, and I am HOPING that's about to change and change 'bigly'.

[cwydro]

7. I'm feeling very disappointed in our Dem "leaders."

For the first time in my life, I may change my affiliation to Independent.

Been a Dem since I first registered so many years ago.

[lake loon]

14. If they did, would any media hear them?

Doubtful. We are not free.

[Takket]

9. Are tax returns something the press can get under FOIA?

[onenote]

13. No.

[whathehell]

18. I don't know, but that IS an excellent question..

I hope someone can answer that. Listening toThom Hartman now and I would bet he knows -- Will call and try to get through to him.

[mnhtnbb]

20. No, but I wouldn't bet against The Company getting copies.

[Guilded Lilly]

4. He will remain arrogantly duplicitous...because you know, he is

"Super duper huuuugely most special". But we already know what would be in those returns.
No taxes paid
Massive foreign debt
Countless conflicts of interest.

While we can't force disclosure
We know.
We KNOW

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. Bingo - I can't get past this either. Baffling.

[anneboleyn]

17. Me too -- and our so-called "liberal media" has been playing along with Trump's grotesque

carnival at Trump Tower while acting like the Russian infiltration of our election is just "democrats whining" and "sour grapes." Their lack of interest in what is likely one of the biggest infiltrations of our election process EVER is extremely dangerous. They are all terrified of losing Trump's favor as Trump will punish them if they dare to go after him, and this is very like the behavior of a dictator.

And then there are Putin's bizarrely close connections to Trump -- just surreal. What happened to the Republicans screaming about Russia, which was their stance for decades? Even Romney brought it up in 2012? Yet now they all act as if it is just perfectly okay that Trump has all sorts of peculiar, creepy ties to Russia AND Russia helped Trump get elected.

[MineralMan]

8. Yes, he does. And he will do it with impunity.

Since there is no legal requirement for a presidential candidate to disclose past tax returns, it's now too late for them to affect the election.

The question was raised constantly during the campaign, but he refused and now is about to be inaugurated. He's not going to reveal those tax returns, and there's not really anything we can do about it at this point. Even if he released them tomorrow, they would almost certainly not change the outcome.

It should have kept him from winning, but didn't. Blame the voters.

[Sunlei]

22. Like MM said, when trump said in debate "because I'm smart", voters loved him more because they

hate paying taxes. he connected with voters, with regular people like his millions of TV show 'fans'- its what trumps best at.

every regular American sits on 4/15 with their IRS forms and tries to pay as little tax as possible.

[csziggy]

30. I keep remembering that the tradition of presidential candidates relaesing tax returns

Started because Richard Nixon did illegal things on his tax returns.

Nixon's Failed Effort to Withhold His Tax Returns

Aug 2, 2016 3:04 PM EDT
By Stephen Mihm

<SNIP>

But then things unraveled. The best account of Nixon’s tax travails comes from the historian Joseph Thorndike. Thanks to a deposition in a civil suit connected to the Watergate burglary in 1973, reporters learned that Nixon had taken a rather unusual tax break in 1969.

How unusual? The Washington Post determined that he had deeded his vice-presidential papers to the National Archives and taken a charitable deduction of around $500,000. Amazingly, such practices had been legal until 1969: Presidents and vice presidents donated their public papers and took a write-off. But that year, Congress closed the loophole.

<SNIP>

In 1970, Nixon proceeded to donate his papers, but ordered Morgan to backdate the deed of gift to March 27, 1969, before the law made it illegal for him to take the deduction.

But this wasn’t known at the time. In 1973, however, as the Watergate scandal put a spotlight on the secretive president, tax experts called for the IRS to audit Nixon. The agency refused. Then in early October, an employee at an IRS service center in West Virginia leaked information about Nixon’s tax returns showing that the president had only paid $792.81 in federal income taxes in 1970 and $878.03 in 1971, but reported income in excess of $200,000. The explanation, of course, was the fishy charitable donation.

More: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-02/nixon-s-failed-effort-to-withhold-his-tax-returns

When he tried to deny any problems Nixon said, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”

Maybe history will repeat itself and some employee of the IRS will leak Trump's returns. Unfortunately, history would repeat in that it will be too late to prevent Trump's election. Let's hope this time it will be in time to prevent Trump's re-election!

[MineralMan]

34. Yes. I remember that, too, very well.

Now, I suppose some IRS employee could release the tax forms in this case. But, since that hasn't been done and since we're only a short time away from inauguration, I doubt that even that would prevent him from becoming President.

Truly, I think our only hope is to shame him into refusing to accept the job. How we could do that is beyond me, though, frankly. He appears to have no sense of shame. It would take something huge to cause him to withdraw, I'm sure. I don't know what that would be, given that we already know he's in Putin's pocket and that's not doing the job.

[csziggy]

38. We're going to have a short fingered vulgarian in the Oval Office

No matter what we do. I've come to accept that no matter how depressed it makes me.

At this point the only thing that might stop The Donal is that he pisses off his followers enough that one of them might take him out. Boy, would that discredit the right wing! But I do not hope or wish for that.

After the sanity of the Obama terms we have to prepare for the chaos and insanity of the Trump reign. I hope that only lasts four very short years!

[MineralMan]

40. I'm very afraid you are correct.

Drives me nuts.

[csziggy]

44. At least for the last few weeks I've had a distraction

Not a good one - my husband burst his appendix on Thanksgiving morning and we didn't realize it for a week. He spent several days in the hospital and finally got the last drain out of his abdomen today. Monday we talk to the surgeon about when to take the remains of the appendix out now that the infections are cleared up.

That has kept me from being nuts about the election. Somehow I don't think the next four years will be better than the last month.

[MineralMan]

45. Yeah. Bunch of crap going on in my life right now, too.

Plus, at age 71, I'm running out of energy for politics, frankly. This election year has really taken it out of me, and I don't see myself being all that active going forward. I see the Democratic Party splintering into several more minor parties, and I don't see any way out of that at this time.

I think we're basically hosed, unless we can all figure out how to work together toward some goal we can all agree about. From what I"m seeing on DU and elsewhere, though, I'm not feeling very confident about that, really. And with all three branches of federal government in Republican hands, I see too many ways they can prevent us from regaining power anytime during the rest of my lifetime.

I'm seriously thinking about going into survival mode from here on out.

[csziggy]

48. The Supreme Court is what will truly screw us for a generation

We should have fought harder for Garland to get in and not let the Republicans block him. Now the chances that Trump/Pence will get to appoint someone in place of Garland and maybe more SCOTUS judges are huge and we know what kind of people they will select.

I worry for the next generations.

[JustAnotherGen]

10. He won't release them

Because Putin doesn't want him to.

[Wellstone ruled]

11. The GOP are giving cover on this issue.

What is needed is input from a Tax Lawyer who deals with these highly levered Real Estate Trusts. If your Account thinks write offs and Appreciation and Deprecation ideas will fly with the help of your Lawyer,go for it. IRS,will challenge it,but at the same time,they allow things based on evidence. Despite what one thinks,the People at the IRS are very helpful rather than hurtful. They have a job to do and they have seen it all.

Trump's Tax returns will prove once and for all,how certain people really twist the ruled to their advantage. And all those Trump voters will go nuts if they see this Guy never pays any Tax and undoubtedly received large negative refunds in the tens of millions. With Tax cuts coming for the very wealthy,you will never see these Tax returns. Call it Political Suicide.

[yeoman6987]

12. It's not mandatory

Until we add this with a constitutional amendment, he will never show them.

[Kingofalldems]

15. Damn, I guess we should just give up then, eh yeoman6987?

[MineralMan]

31. I don't think anyone's suggesting any such thing.

However, there is no law requiring him to release them. The IRS won't release them, because there IS a law against that. You have to file a form, yourself, to allow your tax returns to be released, as anyone who has applied for a mortgage knows.

There is no legal way to compel Trump to release those tax forms, and no penalty for it if he does not release them.

So, what do you propose we do? Either he releases them, or we don't get to see them, unless federal tax evasion charges are filed against him. The DOJ has to file those. Nobody else can.

What do you think should be done? What do you think CAN be done?

[Kingofalldems]

32. I responded to him based on other posts as well, not just one.

[MineralMan]

35. Hmm...well, without knowledge of those other posts,

I can't comment. I saw only your reply to him in this thread. You know more about your responses than I do, apparently.

[Kingofalldems]

37. Search just today.

[dumbcat]

47. But that didn't answer the question

What do you think can be done about it? I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

[CK_John]

16. He is broke, 500mil to China, 300mil to Russia and 2x wives.

[Generator]

19. I know

I've ranted about it on twitter. It's amazing really. Like he gets to be president with ZERO vetting. Party before country. Power before all for those that back him in any way.

[Sunlei]

21. Republicans know-never pays any income taxes & personal expense a tax free charity, just like them.

why should peon Americans see that?

[Jacob Boehme]

23. Donnie F. Trump (With apologies to Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia)

Driving that train, a man with no shame,
Donnie Boy you better, watch your deeds.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
But you know that notion won't cross his mind.

This old country ain’t' makin' no time,
Leaves expectations way far behind,
Hit Russia Junction, what's wrong with you,
With a crazy con-man you know he's pushin' on through.

Driving that train, a man with no shame,
Donnie Boy, you better listen and heed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
But you know that notion won't cross his mind.

Trouble ahead,
What's in his head?
Follow his lead and we’ll all end up dead.
Switchman's sleeping,
What goes on in his mind?
This train’s off the track and headed for you.

Driving that train, a man with no shame,
Donnie Boy, you better watch your deeds.
Trouble ahead, you know, trouble behind,
But you know that notion won't cross his mind.

Trouble with you leaves trouble for me,
You got two good eyes but still don't see.
Come to your senses, you don’t have the means,
The populace dreams to put an end to your schemes...

Driving that train, a man with no shame,
Donnie Boy you better watch your deeds.

Trouble ahead, you know, trouble behind.
But you know that notion won't cross his mind. ...
But you know that notion won't cross his mind.

[SHRED]

24. Creative...I like it

[kentuck]

25. He's not going to release his tax returns.

He's not going to divest in the Old Post Office Bldg

He's not going to do anything about his conflicts of interest.

He's not going to be transparent in any way, and everybody knows it.

He is going to continue to lie, to distract, to attack his critics, and to obfuscate on everything.

He is going to continue to be a dangerous demagogue and nobody is going to do a damn thing about it.

[doc03]

26. It looks like he can do anything

like a dictator nobody can old him accountable.

[bdamomma]

27. is it because

he owes so much money to those he does business with??? just a thought.

[Moostache]

29. This is the thing everyone avoids discussing...

Trump is compromised and in debt up to his ears. Much of that debt is held by Russian oligarchs with ties to Putin. To save his own fat ass, Trump has cut a "deal" with his creditors to give them the necessary concessions politically and environmentally to make back their money and the vig on his debts through the presidency of the USA.

It is beyond obvious that Trump is compromised as a "leader" in innumerable ways...but the fact that this grifter shitheel is going to use the office of the Presidency to achieve debt relief for his latest failures in business is beyond sickening.

I keep saying it to anyone that is listening, but if you are not preparing for the second US civil war already, you better start and start soon. The entire west coast is not going to sit by while Trump and his evil minions and vial deplorables ransack the future. This country will eventually resemble the Dominican Republic and Haiti...countries on a common land mass but with vastly different economies and realities on the ground.

[Rex]

28. It is a sign of the times - blue blooded plutocrat refuses to divulge tax returns.

Wins the WH. We have one of the most corrupt systems on the planet, it was just a matter of time before the worst possible person would be elected to finish us off.

[pansypoo53219]

33. the electors NEED to SEE his taxes 1st. no vote if they don't or its NOT RUMP.

[MineralMan]

39. Have any electors said that?

Not that I'm aware of. In fact, I'm not really seeing a wholesale revolt against Trump among Republican electors at all. I don't think the electors have demanded his tax returns, and he wouldn't be required to provide them anyhow. Not much time remains, really, until they vote, either.

We need to be looking at ways to so embarrass or shame Trump in public that he decides for himself not to accept the inauguration. We have more time to do that, actually. We need some sort of serious leak from somewhere of something so shameful and abhorrent that he has no choice but to withdraw at the last minute.

I don't know what that would be. If I did, I'd say what it was. But, that's really our only hope at this point.

[BigDemVoter]

36. I don't get it either.

It is so goddamned disgusting. If ANY Democrat refused to release returns, can you imagine the shit storm?

[AlexSFCA]

41. trump voters dont care

IRS has his tax returns so government has all the data. Unfortunately, he is under no obligation to release them and he was voted him in and his boters did not at all care about it.

[TeamPooka]

42. The country had the nerve to elect a black President and then run a woman for the job so....

between the misogyny and the racism there's no room for common sense.
This is their revenge.

[Fast Walker 52]

43. under the circumstances, it's FUCKING INSANITY

[kimbutgar]

46. Brainwashed people can not think rationally

Those that voted for orange hitler were manipulated, and propagandized right under our noses. They liked the strong daddy in orange hitler. I would bet a significant proportion of them had lousy childhoods. So even though they do their taxes we mustn't get strong daddy upset and by asking him to do the same.