Donald Trump’s impeachment equation just changed entirely

Over the past several weeks, even as others have yelled “why doesn’t somebody do something,” Palmer Report has been explaining that House Democrats can’t really start impeachment hearings against Donald Trump until they win the necessary court battles over testimony and evidence. Imagine televised impeachment hearings that don’t include any first-hand witnesses, or any Trump financial records, or anything that can change minds. There would be no point to it.

It’s not that House Democrats have to win all of their court battles. They just need the courts to order a few key witnesses to show up and testify (Don McGahn alone could be enough). And they just need some of Trump’s criminal financial records to put on display, not all of them. To that end, the easiest way to get there on the evidence front would be to simply acquire Trump’s tax returns.

Today, Deutsche Bank formally confirmed to the court that it does indeed possess Donald Trump’s tax returns. This means House Democrats don’t have to fight an endless battle to try to obtain them from Trump’s Treasury Department. Instead, now the Deutsche Bank has acknowledged it has Trump’s tax returns, the courts will end up ordering that it turn them over to House Democrats, and impeachment will be off to the races.

To be clear, that’s not going to happen today or tomorrow or next week. Even when things are a foregone conclusion, the courts simply don’t move that quickly. But we now know that House Democrats are going to end up with Donald Trump’s tax returns, with plenty of time to used them to put on compelling and devastating impeachment hearings before the election. The impeachment equation just changed entirely.