Judging Freedom - SCOTUS delays handover of Trump tax returns

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 1st, 2022. It's about 1.45 in the afternoon. Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court of the United States has just signed an order holding in place the obligation of the Treasury Department to surrender the tax returns of now private citizen Donald Trump to the House Ways and Means Committee. This is a long and tortuous litigation. And it starts with a federal statute that I bet most of us didn't even know existed. I didn't know it existed until the Trump case made it apparent to us. And that is that the Treasury Department shall, I'm quoting the statute, shall furnish to the House Ways and Means Committee the tax returns of any taxpayer that the committee asks for. A statute going all the way back to the time of Woodrow Wilson was modified in the time of Franklin Roosevelt, but it's still there, and it allows Congress in secret to look at anybody's

tax returns. So they asked for Trump's tax returns. There were all kinds of rumors about him receiving money from foreign governments. And I guess they wanted to see if any of it is in there. Your tax returns don't show the origin of your income. They just show the amount. But nevertheless, they sought this. A federal trial judge ruled they can have it. The United States Court of Appeals

for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that they can have it. Trump appealed it to the full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that they can have it. Trump appealed it to the full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from three judges to 13. They decided not to reverse the three. And on Friday, Trump asked the Supreme Court to hold this in place, that is not to allow Treasury to release the tax returns until after the Supreme Court can rule on the case. Chief Justice Roberts agreed that Treasury would not release the tax returns until the court decides whether or not to hear the case. So the DOJ here representing the House Ways and Means Committee has until next week, until November 10,

that's next Thursday, to file its papers with the court. My prediction is that the court is not going to get involved and Trump will, and he's not surrendering them, Treasury will. Treasury will be surrendering those tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. Trump, of course, as he many times does so effectively, is trying to run out the clock because the House Ways and Means Committee is controlled by the Democrats. Since there are a majority of Democrats in the House, the Republicans expect to take over the majority a week from today. They wouldn't actually take it over until next January, but they expect that a week from today, the midterm elections will result in there being the majority party in the House. And then the Ways and Means Committee run by Republicans will

rescind their request for Trump's tax returns, if you follow all this. Some of this is just a pissing contest, if you will, between the Treasury Department and the Ways and Means Committee and between the House of Representatives and Trump. It could all go away if the Republicans win in the midterms or the House Ways and Means Committee could get his returns next Thursday when the Supreme Court decides if it's going to take the case. The court does not like to get involved in cases like this. It doesn't like to be the arbiter between a citizen and the Congress when it's just one citizen involved. If Congress enacted a statute that would publish everybody's tax returns, that'd be a different story, but that's not the case here. Does anybody think that Congress will keep Trump's tax

returns private? Of course not. Once this information is released or leaked to Congress, members of Congress will reveal it if they think it will harm Trump because that's just the way the system works. But this will be resolved in about two weeks, shortly before Thanksgiving. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.