Whistleblower 2: But His Taxes
by Tom Sullivan
“Iceberg! Right ahead!” Still image from “Titanic” (1997)
There is at least one other whistleblower complaint regarding Donald Trump. This one involves the president’s annual Internal Revenue Service tax audit.
Donald Trump’s July 25 Ukraine call forced Democrats into announcing a formal impeachment inquiry after months of pressure. Since then, there has been worry on the left that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suggestion impeachment would narrow-focus on the Ukraine matter would leave the Trump administration unaccountable for other perfidies: the Muslim ban, caging children, etc. That may happen. But it is far from clear House Democrats will be able to limit their inquiry to Trump’s alleged extorting Ukraine to help his reelection campaign. Ukraine could end up being one of the more minor crimes that spill out once current and former officials start spilling beans.
What is in Trump’s taxes may not supplant the Ukraine affair, but he acts plenty guilty in concealing them. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal is considering making public a whistleblower complaint alleging “inappropriate efforts to influence” the IRS audit required annually of the president and vice president since the Watergate era. Neal is waiting for advice from House lawyers. The administration has stonewalled Neal’s efforts to obtain six years of Trump’s tax returns to review whether or not the IRS is properly following policy on the executive audits.
Bloomberg reports (Sept. 27):
The release of such a complaint could bolster Neal’s lawsuit seeking to obtain six years of Trump’s tax returns, which he filed in July after the Treasury Department rejected the committee’s request. Neal has said he needs the returns to ensure the IRS is following its policy of annually examining the president’s returns.
Neal sent a letter on Aug. 8 to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin requesting any communications between IRS and Treasury employees involved in the Trump audit by Aug. 13. Bloomberg could not confirm whether Mnuchin complied.
Catherine Rampell observes that if the allegations in this second complaint are true, they “might set in motion the release of lots of other secret documents showing that President Trump has abused his authority for his personal benefit.”
Rampell writes:
Still, from an optics standpoint, this IRS-audit-oversight rationale seemed a strange one for Neal to cite. Especially because it was the primary rationale offered, and there was no reason at the time to believe the IRS was actually being bullied. So, for the first time in history, the administration refused a Ways and Means tax request, on the grounds that Neal’s stated legislative purpose was “pretextual.”
But now, in retrospect, Neal’s stated purpose looks either extremely ingenious — or extremely lucky.
That’s because this summer an anonymous whistleblower approached the House committee to say its concerns had been justified. The whistleblower offered credible allegations of “evidence of possible misconduct,” specifically “inappropriate efforts to influence” the audit of the president, according to a letter Neal sent to the treasury secretary.
The allegations give weight to Democrats’ arguments that this administration merits the oversight it is desperately trying to avoid, Rampell concludes:
As is so often true with allegations of Trumpian wrongdoing, we’ve learned once again that there’s a there there — and there, and there, and all sorts of other places you mightn’t have thought to look.
That was my point Saturday about not knowing what will tumble out once Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats turn the Trump White House House upside down and shake it.