10:30 am || Delivers remarks at the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride; East Room
11:45 am || Meets with Secretary of State Pompeo
1:30 pm || Receives his intelligence briefing
4:00 pm || Departs White House
6:55 pm || Arrives Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida
All times Eastern
Democrats long ago decided that there were not differences on policy between themselves and Republican. There was good, and there was evil, and they were the former, and that was the difference.
But what seems to be new is this decision that not only are Republicans’ views evil, but that they are probably criminal as well.
It is looking increasingly like the investigation into “collusion” with Russia was based on the overeagerness at best, and the cynical guile at worst, of Democrats who could not abide their loss in the 2016 election and decided they would burden President Trump with a wide-ranging probe. If not collusion, then something criminal would be discovered.
So far, no such luck.
Some Democrats, led by Rep. Maxine Waters of California, were demanding Trump’s impeachment before Mueller had even plugged in his iMac. Presumably, the high crime and misdemeanor was getting elected.
Democrats don’t like senior White House policy advisor Stephen Miller’s views on immigration, and so they want to drag him to Capitol Hill to give him an “opportunity” to “explain” his thinking.
What this will be, of course, is an opportunity for Democrats to make Miller, who tends to have a hard edge when he speaks in public, the Mephistopheles of Trump’s immigration policy. It has nothing to do with oversight or any kind of policy discussion.
And I’m sure Democrats are hoping he will inadvertently perjure himself and give them a chance to get him, and his policy views, out of the White House. Just hauling him before a committee makes him look like he’s done something wrong.
According to the Washington Post:
House Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies.
The talk of hauling Miller before lawmakers comes days after The Washington Post reported that he played a key role in a plan first discussed last year to release undocumented immigrants into “sanctuary cities” represented by President Trump’s Democratic critics. While the plan never came to fruition because of objections from agency officials, Trump has since embraced the idea.
With a spate of new vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security, including the departure last week of the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, Miller has emerged as a key target for Democrats who see him as an influential survivor in an administration that has otherwise churned through personnel.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Sunday cited Miller’s role in developing the targeted-release plan in calling on him to testify. “Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies,” he said in a CNN interview.
My bet is that Miller would relish the chance to cross swords with lawmakers who know about a tenth as much as he does about immigration policy. But he’s unlikely to go, because White House officials are not confirmed by Congress and are not necessarily responsible to it.
The president has the right to private advice from his advisors, and they are rarely called to testify and can refuse the demand. And that’s exactly what Miller should do.
10:40 am || Departs White House
12:25 pm CT || Arrives Minneapolis, Minnesota
1:00 pm CT || Participates in a roundtable discussion on the economy and tax reform; Nuss Truck and Equipment, Burnsville, Minnesota
2:40 pm CT || Departs Minneapolis, Minnesota
6:10 pm || Arrives White House
All times Eastern except as noted
It’s not clear yet why he did this, although you won’t lose points if you’re playing along speculating he’s not pleased with President Trump.
“A male subject operating an electronic wheelchair-type scooter lit his outer jacket on fire while sitting along Pennsylvania Ave. outside the North Fence Line. Uniformed Division Officers immediately responded, extinguished the fire and rendered first aid,” the Secret Service said.
Democrats have spent the entire Trump presidency complaining about alleged abuses of power.
And then, they turn around and demand the man’s tax returns. So, if you to be president – or, by extension, serve the country in any official capacity or even become famous – politicians in Congress can just decide they want to extract your taxes from the bureaucracy and look them over. Especially, you know, if they don’t like you.
Now that’s abuse of power.
Here, according to Politico, is their justification for seeking President Trump’s taxes:
Democrats contend they do have a good policy reason for getting Trump’s returns, saying they have a responsibility to oversee the IRS and want to know how well the agency — which has a policy of auditing every president — is scrutinizing Trump’s returns.
Let’s talk about that. They want to do IRS oversight by looking at how the agency handled one man’s taxes before he became president.
It’s like a doctor saying he wants to check your brain function by examining your toe. Oh, your toe works pretty good, and the brain controls the toe. So your brain must be fine.
That is, this is not IRS oversight, obviously. It’s Trump oversight. It’s a fishing expedition. Or a witch hunt, take your pick.
It’s a toe examination, not a brain scan.
The courts will consider just this kind of thing when they decide whether the Ways and Means Committee actually has the right to Trump’s tax returns under a law that says they “shall” get them. It’s possible they “shall not.”
According to Politico.
A looming legal showdown between Democrats and the White House over lawmakers’ bid to vet President Donald Trump’s tax returns could turn on a single question: Why do Democrats want them?
Motivations will matter because, while Democrats are relying on a statute declaring that the Treasury Secretary “shall” hand over any returns requested by the heads of Congress’ tax committees, the courts have said lawmakers need a legitimate legislative reason for their investigations.
Lawmakers routinely use the law to privately examine the confidential tax returns of companies, for example, to help inform the tax policymaking process. But it’s another thing entirely to seize the president’s returns with plans to release at least some of his confidential tax information to the public.
Determining who is right — if Democrats’ demands are motivated by political animus or if lawmakers are just doing their jobs — will be a key issue as the battle moves into the legal system as expected.
There is no reasonable person who thinks this is about IRS oversight. And now that Trump is appointing them, there are a growing number of reasonable judges.
11:30 am || Receives his intelligence briefing2:25 pm || Delivers remarks on United States 5G deployment; Roosevelt Room 3:15 pm || Meets with the Fraternal Order of Police Executive Board; Cabinet Room All times Eastern Facebook Twitter Reddit Linkedin email Continue Reading
Democrats don’t like this one bit. They and their allies in the media are suddenly recoiling from the notion of investigating someone. Because that someone is suddenly them, or their friends in the Obama administration. And so they’ve become shrill, attacking Attorney General Barr as a hack whose gone from an honorable public servant to… Continue Reading
I wonder what the Democratic leadership and the 2020 candidates think of this? From the Washington Examiner: Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wrote in 2017 that America was founded by genocide and our foreign policy smacks of “neocolonialism.” “We must confront that our nation was founded by genocide and we maintain global power through neocolonialism,” Omar… Continue Reading
