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Under a new statute passed by New York state lawmakers, the sole congressional Democrat who currently has the authority to request Donald Trump's state tax returns is the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. And guess what? That chair, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, just doesn't think that's a good idea.
According to Bloomberg News, Neal is concerned that actually utilizing a duly enacted state law to obtain at least part of the information the Trump administration is denying Congress by ignoring a duly enacted federal law would somehow undermine Democrats' claim to legitimate oversight. Got that? If Democrats follow the law and the Trump administration unlawfully evades the law, Democrats come out on the losing end.
C'mon, are you effing kidding me, Chairman Neal? Fellow Bay Stater Tip O'Neill is calling from beyond the grave to remind you that he actually showed leadership in the face of President Richard Nixon's cover-up in the early 1970s. If Neal is waiting for a Saturday Night Massacre, it's already happened, only this time the pr*sident has successfully installed his chief henchman atop the Justice Department to both suppress and sully the findings of the special counsel. During Watergate, O’Neill, then serving as House Majority leader, had reined in the more liberal members of the Democratic caucus until the so-called Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon fired special counsel Archibald Cox and effectively forced the resignations of both his attorney general and deputy attorney general to interfere in the investigations into criminal acts in the Nixon White House. As John Farrell, who wrote biographies of both Nixon and O’Neill, recalled about the massacre’s aftermath in The New Yorker:
That pretty much solidified mainstream liberal Democrats behind impeachment. You had Tip O’Neill going on the House floor and introducing a resolution for impeachment. You had Peter Rodino heading up the Judiciary Committee. There had always been some liberal crazies like Father [Robert] Drinan and Bella Abzug who were pushing for impeachment before this. But now you had mainstream liberal Democrats like O’Neill saying, “O.K., there is something here. We have a constitutional obligation, and the people back home are screaming for it.”
That “something” for which people were clamoring was the now-infamous smoking gun tapes, which the public knew existed but hadn’t yet heard the contents of. If there is a Trump equivalent of the Nixon smoking gun tapes that ultimately brought about the downfall of his presidency, it surely is to be found in Trump's taxes. That’s why Trump and his attorney general are now going to the mat to block Congress from securing access to that material. Time to pull the trigger, Richie Neal: It’s not your job to lead the caucus; it’s your job to get the facts. The 1970s are long gone, and it's not at all clear the courts will save us today by ordering that the smoking gun be released. Getting the American public the critical information it needs and deserves as soon as humanly possible is the best insurance plan this country has. If Democrats aren't going to impeach until they get the facts, then they damn well better get the facts. That’s on you, Chairman Neal.