If you’re going to trial, being able to name the judge and prosecutor would be darn handy. If you’re under audit from the IRS, then it’s peachy keen if you can name your own auditor,
President-elect Donald Trump will soon be able to appoint a new director of the agency auditing his taxes, a potential political minefield after his writeoffs and his refusal to release his returns were repeatedly questioned in the campaign.
The president is barred from directing how the IRS treats specific taxpayers, but lawyers say there’s nothing to stop Trump from appointing an IRS chief who will go easy on him while scrutinizing his political enemies.
And if there’s nothing to stop Trump, then he won't stop himself.
Trump: I was always doing bad things, using Chinese steel, like you said, but you never even stopped me. Why didn’t you stop me? Someone should have, I feel. I look at myself and I think, “Why didn’t anyone stop this sooner?”
Reminder: That’s an actual quote. From an actual presidential debate. Seen by actual voters.
Anyway ...
“For him to say, ‘I’m going to audit the Clinton Foundation,’ that theoretically could violate” the statute, Herzig said. “But if he said ‘I’m only going to hire an IRS commissioner that’s going to follow my rules of not auditing presidents and auditing certain foundations with donations from foreign donors,’ I’m not sure that does.”
There you go, Mr. Trump. Why it looks like the nation has to pay you! But then, we knew that already.
And in case you think that attitude might have changed.
Pressed to respond to criticism in other areas, he was defiant. He declared that “the law’s totally on my side” when it comes to questions about conflict of interest and ethics laws. “The president can’t have a conflict of interest,” he said.