quote:

Originally posted by zipriderson:

quote:

What is the probable cause (if the term applies) for wanting Trump's tax returns?

Because every President provides them, and he promised to reveal them from the start of his campaign. We're kidding ourselves if we think he is going through the court system on this just for fun. He has something to hide. Perhaps he's not as rich as he says. Perhaps he pays less tax than he's indicated.

Whatever it is, people want to know what he's hiding.

I do.

With that attitude, it's no surprise that Colorado is lost to the Leftists Commies.

"Everyone else does it" wasn't a good reason when I was a kid, and it isn't a good reason now.

There's no legal requirement for ANY candidate to disclose their taxes.

I could not care less about the President’s tax returns.

Hunter Biden’s Ukraine gas firm pressed Obama administration to end corruption allegations, memos show

Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016 election cycle, including one just a month before Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating his son’s company for corruption, newly released memos show.

During that February 2016 contact, a U.S. representative for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli to discuss ending the corruption allegations against the Ukrainian firm where Hunter Biden worked as a board member, according to memos obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. (I filed that suit this summer with the help of the public interest law firm the Southeastern Legal Foundation.)

Just three weeks before Burisma’s overture to State, Ukrainian authorities raided the home of the oligarch who owned the gas firm and employed Hunter Biden, a signal the long-running corruption probe was escalating in the middle of the U.S. presidential election.

Hunter Biden’s name, in fact, was specifically invoked by the Burisma representative as a reason the State Department should help, according to a series of email exchanges among U.S. officials trying to arrange the meeting. The subject line for the email exchanges read simply “Burisma.”

“Per our conversation, Karen Tramontano of Blue Star Strategies requested a meeting to discuss with U/S Novelli USG remarks alleging Burisma (Ukrainian energy company) of corruption,” a Feb. 24, 2016, email between State officials read. “She noted that two high profile U.S. citizens are affiliated with the company (including Hunter Biden as a board member).

“Tramontano would like to talk with U/S Novelli about getting a better understanding of how the U.S. came to the determination that the company is corrupt,” the email added. “According to Tramontano there is no evidence of corruption, has been no hearing or process, and evidence to the contrary has not been considered.”

At the time, Novelli was the most senior official overseeing international energy issues for State. The undersecretary position, of which there are several, is the third-highest-ranking job at State, behind the secretary and deputy secretary. And Tramontano was a lawyer working for Blue Star Strategies, a Washington firm that was hired by Burisma to help end a long-running corruption investigation against the gas firm in Ukraine.

Tramontano and another Blue Star official, Sally Painter, both alumni of Bill Clinton’s administration, worked with New York-based criminal defense attorney John Buretta to settle the Ukraine cases in late 2016 and 2017. I wrote about their efforts previously here.

Burisma Holdings records obtained by Ukrainian prosecutors state the gas firm made a $60,000 payment to Blue Star in November 2015.

The emails show Tramontano was scheduled to meet Novelli on March 1, 2016, and that State Department officials were scrambling to get answers ahead of time from the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

The records don’t show whether the meeting actually took place. The FOIA lawsuit is ongoing and State officials are slated to produce additional records in the months ahead.

But the records do indicate that Hunter Biden’s fellow American board member at Burisma, Devon Archer, secured a meeting on March 2, 2016 with Secretary of State John Kerry. In addition to serving on the Burisma board, Archer and Hunter Biden were partners at an American firm known as Rosemont Seneca.

“Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3pm – need someone to meet/greet him at C Street,” an email from Kerry’s office manager reads. “S” is a shorthand frequently used in State emails to describe the Secretary of State. The memos don’t state the reason for the meeting.

Tramontano, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, Archer and Joe Biden’s campaign did not return messages seeking comment on Monday.

In an interview with ABC News last month, Hunter Biden said he believed he had done “nothing wrong at all” while working with Burisma but “was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is…a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah.”

Whatever the subject of the Archer-Kerry meeting, its existence is certain to spark interest. That’s because Secretary Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, had been a business partner with both Archer and Hunter Biden at the Rosemont Seneca investment firm in the United States.

Heinz, however, chose not to participate in the Burisma dealings. In fact, he wrote an email to his stepfather’s top aides in May 2014, pointedly distancing himself from the decision by Hunter Biden and Devon Archer to join Burisma’s board.

Heinz’s spokesman recently told The Washington Post that Heinz ended his relationship with Archer and Hunter Biden partly over the Burisma matter. “The lack of judgment in this matter was a major catalyst for Mr. Heinz ending his business relationships with Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden,” Heinz spokesman Chris Bastardi told the newspaper

A person who assisted Blue Star and Buretta in settling the Burisma matters in Ukraine told me in an interview that the late February 2016 overture to State was prompted by a dramatic series of events in Ukraine that included when that country’s top prosecutor escalated a two-year probe into Burisma and its founder, the oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.

Zlochevsky’s gas firm hired Hunter Biden and Archer as board members for Burisma Holdings in spring 2014, around the time that British officials opened corruption investigations into Zlochevsky’s gas firm for actions dating to 2010 before Hunter Biden and Archer joined the firm. Ukraine officials opened their own corruption probe in August 2014.

A firm called Rosemont Seneca Bohai began receiving monthly payments totaling more than $166,000 from Burisma Holdings in May 2014, bank records show. The records show Devon Archer was listed as a custodian for the Rosemont Seneca Bohai firm and that Hunter Biden received payments from it. You can read those bank records here.

In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt gave a speech imploring Ukrainian prosecutors to do more to bring Zlochevsky to justice, according to published reports at the time.

By early 2016 the Ukrainian investigation had advanced enough that then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin authorized a court-ordered seizure of Zlochevsky’s home and other valuables, including a luxury car. That seizure occurred on Feb. 2, 2016, according to published reports in Ukraine.

The same day that the Zlochevsky seizure was announced in Ukraine, Hunter Biden used his Twitter account to start following Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a longtime national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden who was promoted to the No. 2 job at State under Secretary John Kerry.

The Feb. 4, 2016 Twitter notification from Hunter Biden to Blinken was captured by State email servers and turned over to me as part of the FOIA release.

Within a few weeks of Tramontano’s overture to Novelli and of Archer’s overture to Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden took a stunning action, one that has enveloped his 2020 campaign for president in controversy.

By his own admission in a 2018 speech, Joe Biden used the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid to strong-arm Ukraine into firing Shokin, a prosecutor that he and his office knew was investigating Burisma.

Biden has said he forced Shokin’s firing because he and Western allies believed the prosecutor wasn’t aggressive enough in fighting corruption.

Shokin disputes that account, telling both me and ABC News that he was fired specifically because he would not stand down from investigating Burisma. In fact, Shokin alleges, he was making plans to interview Hunter Biden about his Burisma work and payments when he got the axe.

Ukraine prosecutors have said they do not believe the Bidens did anything wrong under Ukraine law. But some of the country’s prosecutors made an effort in 2018 to get information about Burisma to the U.S. Justice Department because they believed American prosecutors might be interested in some activities under U.S. law. You can read about that effort here.

Some experts and officials have been quoted in reports saying Joe Biden’s actions created the appearance of a conflict of interest, something all U.S. government officials are supposed to avoid. The questions about conflicts were previously raised in a 2015 article by the New York Times and the 2018 book Secret Empires by author Peter Schweizer.

The new evidence of contacts between Burisma, Hunter Biden and Archer at State are certain to add a new layer of intrigue to the debate. Those contacts span back to at least spring 2015, the new memos show.

On May 22, 2015, Hunter Biden emailed his father’s longtime trusted aide, Blinken, with the following message: “Have a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee? I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things, Best, Hunter.”

Blinken responded the same day with an “absolutely” and added, “Look forward to seeing you.”

The records indicate the two men were scheduled to meet the afternoon of May 27, 2015.

The State Department records also indicate Hunter Biden met Blinken in person for lunch on July 22, 2015, when State officials gave the name of a person to meet to help him enter the building. “He has the VIP pin and can escort you upstairs for your lunch with Tony,” the email said.

The emails don’t indicate whether the meeting had to do with Burisma or one of Hunter Biden’s other interests.

But they clearly show that Hunter Biden, his business partner and Burisma’s legal team were able to secure contacts inside the State Department, including to one of his father’s most trusted aides, to Secretary Kerry and to the agency’s top energy official.

The question now is: Did any of those contacts prompt further action or have anything to do with Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in March 2016 when he forced Shokin’s firing?

Link

Before we start digging into a Presidents tax returns, should we not first examine the tax return of those which control the Government Purse Strings?

Let’s look at tax returns, by first starting with those that have grown rich while in office.
I am not all that interested in tax returns for those which have made money outside of government service.

“Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the “power of the purse,” the ability to tax and spend public money for the national government. ”

Everything is part of a negotiation to Trump. It's a poker game. His tax returns are chips in the game. He's sure not going to give them away. Why not offer to release them if the House(Dems) will release an audit of the slush fund used to channel $millions of taxpayer money to pay off sexual harassment charges for its members. It's a safe bet - the Dems would NEVER consent to making that public.

https://saraacarter.com/jim-jo...or-orchestrating-it/

a lawyer for the anonymous whistleblower said Sunday his client is willing to answer written questions submitted by House Republicans.

But for Jim Jordan, (R-OH) a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, this is unacceptable. In a statement Jordan said:

“Written answers will not provide a sufficient opportunity to probe all the relevant facts and cross examine the so-called Whistleblower. You don’t get to ignite an impeachment effort and never account for your actions and role in orchestrating it. We have serious questions about this individual’s political bias and partisan motivations and it seems Mark Zaid and Adam Schiff are attempting to hide these facts from public scrutiny. Last week’s testimony raised even more concerns about the anonymous whistleblower and our need to hear from them, in person.”

Yeah, go, Jim.

And he ain't so "anonymous" anymore, is he? And less anonymous with each passing day.

Trump rally in Kentucky right now

Lovin the KY rally now.

Re: President Trump’s tax returns...
First off, I don’t give a flyin’ popcorn fart about his returns. Secondly, I’m sure the IRS is up President Trump’s anus with an electron microscope YEARLY with a comprehensive audit. It would be interesting to know just how many times he HAS been audited. And I’m SURE he has a Legal and CPA division the size of a small corporation maintaining oversight of all things financial.

Re: Rally...
Didn’t see it, but watching Tucker and Mark Steyn...both AWESOME guys!!

quote:

Originally posted by Bigboreshooter:
Everything is part of a negotiation to Trump. It's a poker game. His tax returns are chips in the game. He's sure not going to give them away. Why not offer to release them if the House(Dems) will release an audit of the slush fund used to channel $millions of taxpayer money to pay off sexual harassment charges for its members. It's a safe bet - the Dems would NEVER consent to making that public.

If Americans could see how HUGE that slush fund is. I vote for transparency.

First of all Trump does not sit down at the kitchen table and does his own taxes every year like most of us.
He has a large team of accountants and lawyers who do this for him and they are collecting information for filing on a daily basis.

I'd be shocked if they were playing games outside of what can legally be done. Not to mention I'm sure Trump's business competitors would love to see his taxes as well.

They want his taxes for one reason only: to make a mountain out of a mole hill from the slightest perceived discrepancy.

Former Czech ambassador says that the CIA, FBI and Democrats are trying to remove President Trump. "It's a thing of dictatorships."

https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...ng-of-dictatorships/

Happy to see Kurt Suzuki of Baldwin High School, Wailuku, Maui donning a MAGA hat at the WH ceremony with the President! A very pleasant surprise!

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
They want his taxes for one reason only: to make a mountain out of a mole hill from the slightest perceived discrepancy.

They want his tax returns because he is not providing them. At this point I think he is refusing because they want them.

quote:

Originally posted by TSE:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
They want his taxes for one reason only: to make a mountain out of a mole hill from the slightest perceived discrepancy.

They want his tax returns because he is not providing them. At this point I think he is refusing because they want them.

This plus - he does not have to give them up. This is a very recent, non required practice/ tactic which one candidate tries to use against the other.

If the head of the executive branch is expected to then the heads of the House (the Speaker) and Senate (Vice President) should also be required.

Trump should adopt the dog from the raid as the first family pet and take it on the campaign trail just to make heads explode.

The Trump rally in Lexington was excellent. I had to watch on youtube and enjoyed every minute. I am very pleased for his support of Matt Bevin. People have been turning out very early this morning to Vote.