What Donald Trump is really hiding

| 12:01 pm EDT July 25, 2019
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Remember when Donald Trump said that President Obama’s birth certificate must have something really bad in it if he wouldn’t release it? Obviously, there’s something “really bad” in Trump’s taxes, given the way he is fighting their release. Not long ago, New York passed a law allowing the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain Trump’s state income tax returns. At the time, Richard Neal, head of the committee, said that he wasn’t interested in Trump’s state returns, but I guess his word isn’t good enough for Trump.

According to Politico and the Hill, Trump has sued to prevent the House Ways and Means Committee from getting his state tax returns. Remember, Neal has repeatedly said he isn’t interested in Trump’s state tax returns, but Trump and his lawyers think they’re smarter than everyone on the planet, so they have taken a peremptory strike, stating in their filing that Democratic lawmakers can request his state returns “at any time, with no notice to the President.” They’re not the only ones speaking out about this new battle. New York AG Letitia James, who is named in the suit as a defendant, pointed out that “President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits, but, as New York’s chief law enforcement officer, I can assure him that no one is above the law — not even the president of the United States.” If only other enforcement officers felt this way, we would be rid of Trump by now. James has shown that she fiercely upholds the law, and you have to admire her for her apparent fearlessness.

Neal has said very little publicly about Trump’s tax returns, other than that he’s not interested in the state returns and that he’s not even sure if the New York law is applicable. Neal has already filed suit in federal court for Trump’s federal returns, so what is Trump’s point with this suit? There’s something in those state returns he doesn’t want any of us to see. CNN’s Chris Cillizza points out that Trump doesn’t want anyone to know just how much his father’s money helped him. He likes to pretend that he is a self made man when he is not even close. According to Cillizza, Trump claims that he took a “small” loan of $1,000,000 from his father to start his businesses. The truth, however, is that he took “many millions” from his father, to the tune of $60,000,000. Cillizza, referring to a piece in the New York Times, reveals that Trump has taken over $400,000,000 from his father’s holdings.

Donald Trump is and always was a huge liar. If he tells you the sky is blue and the sun is out, grab your umbrella. The man wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in his derriere. Hopefully, he will allow his lawyers to speak in this lawsuit as opposed to peppering the record with his ridiculous lies. According to Letitia James, none of that matters. “We have all the confidence that this law is legal and we will vigorously defend it against any court challenge.” So continues the saga of Donald Trump and his stubborn litigiousness.