Monday, August 24, 2020
'Very Bad News for Trump' as Federal Judge Rejects His Claim That Tax Records Subpoena Amounts to 'Harassment'
"The grand jury is getting its hands on those tax returns."
by
Julia Conley, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/20/very-bad-news-trump-federal-judge-rejects-his-claim-tax-records-subpoena-amounts
The district attorney of Manhattan can obtain President Donald Trump's tax records, according to a federal judge who ruled Thursday against the president's claims that a subpoena for the documents was issued "in bad faith."
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero blocked (pdf) Trump's latest attempt to keep his tax records hidden as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance investigates payments that were made to two women by the president's former lawyer during the 2016 election and whether the payments amount to a campaign finance violation.
"This is very bad news for Trump," tweeted Slate staff writer Mark Joseph Stern.
Trump's legal team argued that Vance's attempt to uncover the records amounts to "harassment," even after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major ruling last month stating that Trump's presidency does not make him immune to criminal investigations or state court rulings.
"Despite his best efforts to stymie this investigation into his criminal wrongdoing, this decision affirms that Donald Trump is not above the law," said Ryan Thomas, spokesperson for Stand Up America. "However, it's incredibly telling that Trump doesn't want congressional and criminal investigators to see what he's hiding in his tax returns."
Following Marrero's ruling, Trump's lawyers requested a delay in enforcing Vance's subpoena to allow for an appeal. Vance's office agreed to a one-week delay.
After the Supreme Court decision last month, a grand jury issued a subpoena to Mazars USA, the president's accounting firm. In addition to seeking eight years of business and personal tax records pertaining to payments to the two women, for which Trump reimbursed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, Vance is also reportedly probing possible bank and insurance fraud by the Trump Organization.
Following the indictments and convictions of a number of the president's close associates—including former adviser Steve Bannon on Thursday—Marrero's ruling will bring investigators one step closer to proving that "Trumpism is just another word for criminality and corruption," said Thomas.
Law professor Jennifer Taub tweeted that considering Bannon's indictment and the ruling were announced within hours of each other, "I hereby declare August 20 to be Nobody is Above the Law Day."
Following the ruling in Manhattan, the president complained to the press about what he called "a continuation of the witch hunt, the greatest witch hunt in history," and said that "the Supreme Court shouldn't have allowed this to happen."
The ruling, wrote Stern, means that regardless of Trump's protestations, "the grand jury is getting its hands on those tax returns."
"Today's decision was inevitable—the Supreme Court left Trump no real wiggle room to challenge this subpoena," he wrote.
'Complete Bombshell': Former Top USPS Official Reveals 'Disturbing' New Details of DeJoy Selection and Mnuchin Sabotage of Mail Service
According to David Williams, Mnuchin required members of the USPS Board of Governors to "come to his office to kiss the ring."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/21/complete-bombshell-former-top-usps-official-reveals-disturbing-new-details-dejoy
In his first public remarks since resigning from the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors in protest at the end of April, David Williams on Thursday offered a number of alarming new details surrounding the selection of Trump megadonor Louis DeJoy as postmaster general and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's efforts to exert influence over mail operations and finances.
Williams, the former vice chairman of the USPS Board of Governors with decades of federal government experience, testified to the Congressional Progressive Caucus that what he witnessed in his final months at the Postal Service was unprecedented, detailing how Mnuchin required members of the supposedly independent board to "come to his office to kiss the ring and receive his blessing before confirmation" and made "illegal" demands of officials.
Williams told lawmakers that the removal of USPS mailboxes in several states was specifically advocated by Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who was reportedly involved in the recruitment of DeJoy for the postmaster general position."The Secretary has called over board members to provide instructions and requests and express his displeasure, which is really striking. I'm not sure I've run into that before, where one department is trying to run another department," said Williams, who previously served as USPS inspector general. "Normally you would simply reject the effort and report it to Congress."
"The blue boxes were maybe the most interesting of all," said Williams, a Democrat who was appointed to the Board of Governors by President Donald Trump. "Those were not part of ongoing plans. To my knowledge, as a matter of fact... Secretary Mnuchin wanted that done. His study of the Postal Service asked that it be done."
In response to Williams' account of Mnuchin's interference at the independent agency, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said the treasury secretary should be called—and, if necessary, subpoenaed—to testify before Congress.
"This hearing is a complete bombshell," tweeted David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, which first reported that Williams resigned from the Board of Governors in protest.
Williams also offered an inside look at the process that led to the Board of Governors' selection and May appointment of DeJoy, a former logistics executive with zero experience working for the Postal Service.
Asked whether the board interviewed other qualified candidates for the postmaster general role, Williams answered in the affirmative and characterized DeJoy as uniquely unfit for the job, recounting that he had to be coached through his interviews. Williams said DeJoy's appointment was pushed by John Barger, a board member and Republican donor who—according to Williams—helped DeJoy "finish a number of sentences where he got stuck" and "explained to the board what Mr. DeJoy meant during the presentation."
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) called Williams' description of the selection process "very, very disturbing." Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Williams' testimony was "stunning."
Williams' revelations came just hours before DeJoy is set to appear before the Republican-controlled Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he is expected to face questions about his sweeping policy changes that caused massive mail backlogs across the nation.
A day after DeJoy vowed to suspend the operational changes until after the November election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the postmaster general "frankly admitted" to her that he has "no intention of replacing the sorting machines, blue mailboxes, and other key mail infrastructure that have been removed and that plans for adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail, are not in the works."
In a letter to the USPS Board of Governors on Wednesday, 90 House Democrats demanded the immediate removal of DeJoy for using his brief tenure as postmaster general "to sabotage the United States Postal Service."
"Despite recent claims by Mr. DeJoy that implementation of certain changes may be delayed," the lawmakers wrote, "he has already done considerable damage to the institution and we believe his conflicts of interest are insurmountable."
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