Nov. 3, 2022 - Epoch Times
11:22
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| This right here is the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in America. | |
| And just yesterday, they ruled in favor of President Trump, blocking Congress from getting access to his tax returns, at least temporarily, but we'll get to that in a moment. | |
| In their official order, which was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, here's what they said in relevant part, quote, Now, although it was written largely in legalese, this was frankly a big and rather surprising victory for President Trump. | |
| And in order for me to explain to you what this actually means, let me back up for a moment and set the stage for you on what this case is about. | |
| You might remember how dating all the way back to when President Trump was on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, starting all the way back when he was just running for office, Democrats have been calling on him to release his tax returns. | |
| That call persisted largely in the media and on Twitter for several years up until the 2018 midterm elections. | |
| Because after the midterms, the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and using their new status as the party in power, they opened up an official investigation through the House Committee on Ways and Means. | |
| And so the chairman of that particular committee, Congressman Richard Neal, he's a Democrat from Massachusetts, and he's been trying to get these tax returns for the past three and a half years now. | |
| Starting back in 2019, while Trump was still in office, Congressman Neal tried in vain to get the IRS to hand over the documents. | |
| Specifically, back then, he requested that the Treasury Department, which is the agency that's in charge of the IRS, must hand over six years' worth of President Trump's tax returns. | |
| However, what happened back then was that Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who was at that time leading the Treasury Department, he denied the request. | |
| And Mr. | |
| Mnuchin justified his rejection by saying that after he took advice from the Justice Department, he concluded that, quote, Now, I am, of course, just kidding about that. | |
| However, if we do look at history, it is the case that 100% of the people who haven't smashed that like button also haven't gotten Trump's tax returns. | |
| Regardless, here is what the statement actually said. | |
| And indeed, there was truth in that statement. | |
| Because for the Democrat-led panel to legally request these documents, well, they needed a legitimate legislative purpose. | |
| However, this rejection did not deter Congressman Neal because soon afterwards, he released his own statement saying that the official purpose of his request was this, quote, The committee is looking into the effectiveness of IRS mandatory audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents. | |
| Essentially, Congressman Neal made the argument that he needs these tax returns in order to make sure that U.S. presidents are audited properly by the IRS. | |
| And so using that as the legal justification, the congressman immediately, after being rejected by the Treasury Department, issued official subpoenas for six years worth of President Trump's tax returns. | |
| So seeing these subpoenas, President Trump then went ahead and filed a lawsuit against both the IRS as well as the Treasury Department in order to stop the officials in those specific agencies from giving up the records. | |
| His claim was that regardless of the official reason that was given, the true purpose of these requests was to leak these tax returns to the public. | |
| And so that lawsuit was filed back in the year 2019. | |
| And so that lawsuit was filed back in the year 2019. | |
| Then for the next two years in 2020, up until 2021, the developments in this case slowed down to a snail's pace. | |
| Basically nothing was happening. | |
| It was just a bunch of legal back and forth over minutiae. | |
| That was, of course, until the year 2021. | |
| That was when, under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice changed their official legal position and they concluded that, unlike what was said earlier, the IRS was obligated to comply with the request, meaning that under the Biden administration, the Justice Department completely changed their tune and said that the IRS must comply by handing the Justice Department completely changed their tune and said that the IRS must comply | |
| And so with that new guidance from the Justice Department as the backdrop, what wound up happening was that in 2021, a federal judge named Trevor McFadden, who was ironically appointed to the bench by President Trump himself, he ruled against President Trump. | |
| In his court opinion, he wrote that quote... | |
| Federal law requires great deference to facially valid congressional inquiries, and that the presidential audit program could be subject to legislation. | |
| Meaning, in plain English, that we should generally accept the reasons given to us by Congress as to why they're investigating something, and we should generally comply with those reasons. | |
| Meaning that according to that ruling, the IRS should hand over the tax returns. | |
| But, seeing this unfavorable ruling, President Trump's lawyers filed an appeal, which then took another year to go through the system. | |
| And so, in August of this year, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, they ruled on the case, and they, once again, ruled against President Trump. | |
| Specifically, Federal Judge David Centiel, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, he wrote in his opinion statement that, quote,"...the court could not probe the motives of legislators, and that Congressman Neal has identified a legitimate legislative purpose that it requires information to accomplish. | |
| At this stage, it is not our place to delve deeper than this." Meaning, once again in plain English, that if Congress comes up with an official reason for what they're doing, generally both the courts as well as the other federal agencies must accept that reason at face value. | |
| However, with this ruling against him, well, President Trump's legal team went ahead and they filed an emergency appeal that they sent over to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to immediately stop the IRS, the officials over at the IRS, from handing over the tax returns. | |
| And within this emergency appeal, which by the way, I have right here in my hands, President Trump's legal team, they laid out what they believe is the true reason for why this congressional panel is seeking the documents. | |
| Not for congressional oversight, but rather to immediately leave those documents to the public for political advantage. | |
| Here's specifically what it says in relevant part. | |
| Quote, Then-ranking member Neil sought to expose President Trump's tax returns to the public without offering any legislative purpose. | |
| To the contrary, he openly stated that he wanted to disclose the tax returns to enable, quote, the media to sift and sort them. | |
| In a published report, Neil wrote that the public needed to see President Trump's returns to get the clearest picture of how much he earns, how much tax he pays, his sources of income, whether he makes charitable contributions, and whether he uses tax shelters, loopholes, or other special interest provisions. | |
| After Democrats took control of the House in 2019, Chairman Neal did not disavow his state of purpose, but he warned his Democratic colleagues not to step on their tongues to avoid undermining their case. | |
| At the same time, Speaker Pelosi, who approved Chairman Neal's ultimate request, said, quote, I think, overwhelmingly, the public wants to see the president's tax returns. | |
| They want to know the truth. | |
| They want to know the facts and that he has nothing to hide. | |
| But the story actually gets much, much deeper than that, which I'll explain to you right after I show you this beautiful coin. | |
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| The link will also be down in the description box below. | |
| And then let's head on back to the studio. | |
| And so essentially the argument here is that the official stated goal of this inquiry, which is that they need the tax returns to make sure that U.S. presidents are audited properly by the IRS in general, is actually a front for the true goal, which is to release them to the public for political purposes. | |
| And indeed, as I mentioned at the very top of this episode, Chief Justice John Roberts, he went ahead and he placed an official stay on the decision of the appeals court. | |
| And he did it essentially at the very last moment, since that appeals court decision was supposed to go into effect on November the 3rd. | |
| Meaning that if you agree with the logic that President Trump's legal team laid out in their emergency appeal, then very likely his taxes would have been leaked to the public prior to Election Day. | |
| However, with the Supreme Court decision, that is no longer the case. | |
| But it's also not exactly the end of the road for this battle. | |
| That's because what the Supreme Court issued is a temporary stay pending further developments in this particular case. | |
| In fact, here is what the second part of that Supreme Court order stated. | |
| I started reading the Supreme Court order at the top of the episode. | |
| Here's the second part. | |
| It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Thursday, November 10, 2022, by noon. | |
| Meaning that Congressman Neal and the other respondents in the case, including the IRS, must respond to President Trump's application on or before November 10, which is after the midterm elections. | |
| And that appears to be the true limiting factor in this case, which is time. | |
| Because whether or not President Trump ultimately wins this particular case is based on one of two things. | |
| Whether he actually wins this case at the U.S. Supreme Court level and or if this case can be dragged out until January of next year. | |
| At which point, very likely, the Republicans will take back the House and therefore, very likely, they will disband this investigation into his taxes. | |
| And so we'll just have to wait and see what ultimately happens in this particular case. | |
| But for now, all we know is that because of the Supreme Court victory, the documents will for sure not be released before the midterm elections. | |
| If you'd like to go deeper into this story, I'll throw all the legal documents into the description box below this video so you can peruse them for yourself. | |
| Furthermore, I'd love to know your thoughts. | |
| Do you think that the congressional panel is really only looking into this case to see whether the IRS is properly auditing U.S. presidents? | |
| Or do you agree with President Trump's legal team here and think that the real purpose is to leak these documents to the public as soon as they get them? | |
| I'd love to know your thoughts. | |
| Please leave them in the comments. | |
| I'll be reading them later tonight as well as tomorrow and, well, into the week. | |
| And then lastly, on a separate topic, I'd like to mention that a few days ago, one of our reporters here at the Epoch Times obtained this leaked email from a Fresno, California-based hospital. | |
| This email right here, it was sent from the managing nurse to the different staff members within the department, and according to this email, they are seeing an astronomical increase in the number of stillborn children, meaning a 500% increase in the number of babies who sadly come out of the womb already dead. | |
| And according to this email, not only is there a huge uptick in the number of these cases, but also it's a trend that for some reason they think will continue well into the future. | |
| Now, for obvious reasons, I cannot publish this content here on YouTube. | |
| And so if you want to check out the episode where I dissect this email and actually go deeper into this case, well, the link will be right there at the top of the description box. | |
| It's the link to Epic TV, our awesome no-censorship video platform, where just earlier today I published exactly this episode detailing what this email said and the rise in stillborn cases within this hospital today. | |
| In Fresno, California. | |
| The link will be right there at the top of the description box. | |
| I certainly hope you check it out. | |
| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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