Trump team adds insults to their unwillingness to provide his taxes to Congress

On Tax Day, Trump’s lawyer says House Dems seeking his returns have a “radical view of unchecked congressional power.” https://t.co/Q9tNCpUVxb

— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) April 15, 2019

As @paulwaldman1 notes, the argument that the White House is making against release of Trump's tax returns is akin to saying:

Sure, I conned you in the last election. But this is your fault. You were dumb enough to believe me. Now get lost, sucker.https://t.co/EqbkhExLqj

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) April 8, 2019

Among other things, the letter from Trump's lawyers is aggressively rude. "Congress has no authority to act as a junior varsity IRS." Seriously? Article I, Section 8 vests all taxing power in Congress. It could abolish the IRS tomorrow. Of course it has authority over the IRS https://t.co/ng3BDq9LrA

— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 15, 2019

I didn't think it was possible but this is an even weaker formulation of the legal argument than the theory advanced in the first letter. Hard to come up with an explanation other than that there is something in those returns they are really desperate to hide from Congress. https://t.co/VmV5BUwl1d

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) April 15, 2019

Legal tweeps: is “shall” a tricky word? It doesn’t seem tricky to me. https://t.co/TinTgTMVxh

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 15, 2019

.@presssec Sarah Sanders tells Fox News’ Chris Wallace “frankly, Chris, I don’t think Congress — particularly not this group of congressmen and women — are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump’s taxes will be.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 14, 2019

When Sarah Sanders insults our elected representatives, she insults all of us who voted for them. https://t.co/lPctrsAAbz

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) April 14, 2019