House asks judge to toss Trump lawsuit to shield his N.Y. state tax returns from lawmakers
Source: Washington Post
The House of Representatives asked a U.S. judge Monday to dismiss a lawsuit by President Trump that seeks to prevent lawmakers from requesting his New York state tax returns, arguing that no U.S. court has ever barred Congress from even considering an action before it has decided to act. The filing came in Washington after Trump sued as a private citizen to stop the House Ways and Means Committee from using a recently enacted New York law to obtain his state tax records.
While Trump’s attorneys acknowledged the committee has not yet requested the records, they argue that without an emergency court order, if the president waited until lawmakers moved, his returns might be disclosed before his claim could be heard in court. New York state officials have also asked U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of Washington to dismiss or move the case to New York, saying Trump’s lawsuit involves a state law and actions by state officials, none of which occurred in Washington. The court has ordered New York not to respond to any request while that motion is pending.
In Monday’s 40-page filing, House General Counsel Douglas N. Letter said Trump’s case should be dismissed on legal and constitutional grounds, saying the president has no basis to sue because Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) has not made any request to New York under the law, and the committee has not decided whether to do so. “At present, Mr. Trump does not and cannot allege that he is suffering harm,” Letter wrote, and while New York is bound by the court’s orders, “By Mr. Trump’s own admission, any future Committee request by itself also would not injure him.”
At the same time, Letter argued, the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause absolutely bars the executive branch from interfering in Senate or House members’ deliberations, whatever their content or motivations, while lawmakers perform their official duties. “There is simply no precedent in our system of divided government for the Judicial Branch to intrude upon a Congressional committee’s deliberative affairs in this manner,” Letter argued, adding, “This Court should not be the first to issue such a plainly inappropriate order.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/house-asks-judge-to-toss-trump-lawsuit-to-shield-his-ny-state-tax-returns-from-lawmakers/2019/10/21/db89ca20-f452-11e9-a285-882a8e386a96_story.html
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and his enablers are 100% cool with that, since everything he does is the acme of integrity.
