‘Emoluments’ Challenge To Donald Trump’s Ethics Conflicts Gets A Big Boost

So you don't know. Thanks for sharing.

 

Realistically, it is a hard topic for anyone to put up a common sense defence of Trump's conflicts of interests. They are numerous and will tie the courts up in the next year or so. However, by not divesting and appointing a blind trustee, he has chosen to expose himself to these situations. We shall see but it is going to make a lot of lawyers, a lot of money.

 

VANITY FAIR: Please, God, Stop Chelsea Clinton from Whatever She Is Doing.

The Clintons are the political equivalent of herpes. They keep coming back, whether people like it or not.

 

Is it ok for foreign governments to do business with Americans? Yeah, it is actually.

Due to his vast wealth, he's the least corruptable POTUS we've ever had. The man has been under IRS scrutiny for 30+ years, so no I'm not concerned that he's doing something illegal.

I'm more concerned with him being able to improve the lives of Americans.

Massively wealthy people incur massive debt in business, that's how business works to grow.

 

Not what I asked. What if a foreign government pays millions for a service worth far less than that? Or, as has already happened, suddenly grants Trump trademarks potentially worth millions? Or transfers all of its business to Trump, with an aggregate PROFIT of millions? You see no problem with that? Not even the least bit concerned or curious?

Really? The evidence shows he cares about very small sums indeed.

An investigation found that while Trump promised millions to charity, he actually only gave $10,000.

This is a man who had to be publicly shamed into making good on a $1 million pledge to a veterans charity.

So it appears Trump is greedy enough that he can be influenced for relatively little.

BZZZT! Fail.

The IRS only checks to see if you cheated on your taxes.

The reason our presidents release their tax returns is so we can judge their conflicts of interest -- where their money comes from, who they owe money to, etc.

With Trump, you will never know if he is doing something because it is good for the country, or because it is good for Trump. And you are fine with that.

Never said otherwise. But if he has massive debt, he may not actually be all that wealthy. Which would destroy your "he is too rich to be bribed" argument.

And depending upon whom he owes money to, he could also have massive conflicts of interest. What if he owes billions to Putin-controlled banks? Wouldn't that be something worth knowing?

There is no defensible reason to refuse to release his returns. He must have something really awful to hide in order to keep them secret.

 

You are going to be hard pressed to glean clear straight answers but likely deflections.

 

Your ridiculous claims are, quite frankly, pure tin foil.

Millions of dollars for hotel rooms......that takes the cake for ridiculous claim of the year.

The truth is that you, like everyone else frothing at the mouth over this, have nothing to base these beliefs on other than your imagination and the ridiculous leap of logic to equate "didn't show me his tax returns, ipso facto he's doing something illegal".

You have nothing other than this ridiculous leap in logic to fuel your TDS.

If there was anything like you're talking about Obama would have found it and leaked it, which is why they had to concoct the whole "da russians" meme to justify their spying on Trump.

How deranged is this argument?

You suggest that we can see that he "owes billions to Putin-controlled banks".

Do your debts show up on your tax returns? No, they don't. It shows income, where the income came from, and how much tax you pay on that income.

It would only show contributions if they were claimed. If he was "donating" money to foreign institutions, these donations in the vast majority of cases wouldn't even be something you could claim an exemption for.

You guys have gone full retard with this.

 

Really? You deny that Trump's hotels bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year? I thought he was a fabulously wealthy billionaire.

Demanding transparency is WAY more defensible then your "take it on faith" approach. Which is why every presidential candidate in the last 40 years has released their returns.

Oh, come on. Your defense of Trump is "if there was anything bad, Obama would have leaked it"? That is beyond lame.

Sure. My mortgage appears because I deduct the interest. For a business, debt service is an expense that reduces your taxable profits. There are many ways your debt can show up on your returns, directly or indirectly.

Where did I mention donations in relation to his tax returns?

You wish. The fact is, we expect transparency for very good reasons. I gave you examples of the sorts of things we would learn from his returns -- including ruling out the bad stuff. Trump has decided that the damage he suffers from flouting 40 years of good government practice is less painful than what his returns would show. That suggests he has something to hide.

Your hand-waving doesn't change that.

 

No, don't try backpedaling. You made the ridiculous claim that foreign governments are going to be paying millions for hotel rooms as some kind of money laundering/way of giving money to Trump as a gift.

As if that wouldn't immediately raise red flags with the IRS

Progressives aren't interested in transparency, they're hoping they can look at his returns (like they could understand them if they did), and do a Dave Chappelle "Gotcha *****!" It's pathetic.

The reason, quite simply, is because we've never been here before with a POTUS worth this much money, or with this many existing assets.

Yeah, you claim your home because it's an asset which has specific provisions in tax law to encourage home ownership. Do you deduct the interest on your cars? No.

We have US companies now sheltering hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign assets where US tax codes can't touch them. I'm sure you realize that if Trump wanted to he could do the same thing.

You brought up donations when you mentioned the emoluments clause.

You have not a SHRED of proof to base your beliefs on. None. Zero. It's all in your imagination just HOPING you can find something in the tax returns.

Saying that he must be hiding something because he hasn't emailed us all his tax returns is a very large logical fallacy based on your hope of digging up dirt.

You're suffering from TDS. Don't worry, you're not alone.

 

I'm not back pedaling. I gave you several possible scenarios that would amount to bribery. One was overpaying for services. The other was transferring so much business to Trump that it would amount to several million dollars in additional profit for him. That is entirely feasible.

Again, the IRS only cares about evading taxes. As long as Trump paid the proper taxes on the profits, he'd be fine with the IRS. They mostly care about people UNDERreporting income.

Trying to imply motive here doesn't work, and is irrelevant besides. The point of releasing tax returns is TRANSPARENCY. I expect all candidates to release their returns. Obama, Hillary, Romney, Sanders, Bush ... Everyone. This is not a Trump-specific expectation.

How is that relevant? If anything that makes it even MORE important to relapse the returns, because he has previously unimaginable opportunities for corruption and conflicts of interest.

Just because his returns might not show absolutely everything doesn't mean they are useless. You are really grasping at straws.

And quite a lot of sheltered income has to be reported, even if it doesn't result in tax owed.

Not in relation to his returns, I didn't. Unless you don't mean Trump's charitable donations, and are instead referring to improper payments to Trump as "donations."

You are distorting again. I'm not claiming there is anything specific in his returns. I'm pointing out the sorts of things that his returns COULD show, by way of illustrating why we have expected every candidate for the last 40 years to release their returns. It's about the transparency, and Trump's complete lack of it.

Again, since I demand transparency from ALL my leaders, trying to impugn my motive won't work. You will not find a thread on here where Iattacked Romney, for instance, over his returns. My interest is not digging up dirt.

As far as the "logical fallacy", here is what we know.
-- Trump is flouting a 40-year tradition of transparency.
-- He is being criticized heavily for it, by people all over the ideological spectrum.
-- His claimed reason -- that he is under audit by the IRS -- has been shown to be complete bullshit: being under audit does not prevent him from releasing his returns, and he ALSO refuses to release older returns that have already cleared audit.

The only way the above makes sense is if he has decided that releasing the returns would be more damaging than refusing to. Which suggests there is something damaging there.

But I don't actually care. I want the transparency, period, even if it shows he donated billions to charity and is worth more than Bill Gates.

Demanding transparency of ALL our leaders is responsible citizenship. You, by contrast, are making it easier for Trump and future candidates to hide corruption and conflicts of interest. Bravo!

 

That's stretching it a bit....don't hurt yourself in the process.

I find this in the Complaint to be amusing:

118. After 12:01 pm on January 20, 2017, Defendant has received and will continue to receive payments from foreign states via their payments for “The Apprentice” or its spinoffs and international versions.

The Constitution doesn't state that a President cannot run a business, it simply states that Presidents cannot accept gifts.

 

Well, they didn't envision a president with foreign business interests. This is uncharted territory.

In a lawsuit, you initially file the kitchen sink. The judge will decide what claims, if any, survive to trial.

 

And there will be a ton of kitchen sinks.

 

So, basically, you got nothing to refute what I said.

From Johnson v. MBNA in a dispute involving the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

The key term at issue here, “investigation,” is defined as “[a] detailed inquiry or systematic examination.”   Am. Heritage Dictionary 920 (4th ed.2000);  see Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1189 (1981) (defining “investigation” as “a searching inquiry”).   Thus, the plain meaning of “investigation” clearly requires some degree of careful inquiry by creditors.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-4th-circuit/1253642.html

As anyone can plainly see, judges rely on dictionaries to deduce the meaning of words.

For the record, I do have legal training and did work as a paralegal for Arthur Andersen and also for what was at the time the 3rd largest law-firm in Florida, Fowler, White, Boggs, Villareal & Banker.

 

Sorry, I'm not buying the "transparency" argument. Progressives are anything but transparent.

This is a dumpster dive, nothing more, nothing less.

They know the russian bull**** is a dead end so they're hoping they can spin his tax returns in some manner.

There is no basis to believe president Trump has done anything wrong.

That you have to suggest "maybe they'll pay a million dollars for a hotel room" is proof of the pure desperation coming from the left.

Yes, immense wealth makes it less likely you can be bribed. You have much more to lose and much less to gain.

How do I know it's not a transparency issue? The left bent over backwards to defend Obama selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, demanding Obamacare be passed to the tune of "we have to pass it before we can see what's in it", the lies about keeping your doctor, the Snowden reveals, spying on foreign targets for political reasons, spying on our own news agencies, weaponizing the IRS, blaming Benghazi on a video, Cankles server....the list goes on and on.

There are far too many examples out there for any American with two brain cells to buy the bull**** argument that this is about transparency.

 

And every recent president has put all their business interests into a blind trust to avoid even the appearance of conflict.

Yes - choosing a Trump hotel might be a "gift". The courts will have to decide on the case. I can certainly believe that a country that made a policy decision to put all its visitors to the US into Trump hotels could be seen as a gift to Trump.

 

I'd suggest you look up the definition of gift.

I'll be a good guy and do it for you.

gift
ɡift/
noun
noun: gift; plural noun: gifts
1.
a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present.

 

Yes - and the thing given willingly would be the choice to stay in a Trump hotel; and Trump would not directly pay anything for that choice, but might be influenced by a country that makes such a choice (which could benefit Trump to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of $ per year, just for one country).

He is driven by money and ego. Any sensible foreign government WILL choose to stay in Trump hotels, precisely so as to ingratiate themselves with him. Given his personality that is the logical thing to do - to line his pockets.

The fact that it is logical doesn't make it wrong. The right thing for him to do, in order to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest, would be to ban foreign governments from booking his hotels.

 

More lame deflection and strawman.

Your opinion of progressives is compleltely irrelevant. Demanding that Trump be as transparent as EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS cannot be spun as a partisan demand.

Again, your opinion about motive is completely irrelevant. Demanding that Trump be as transparent as EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS cannot be spun as a presidential demand.

#1, that is not the point of transparency. The point of transparency is TRANSPARENCY.

#2, since Trump is not being transparent, not all the evidence is available, He may have done something wrong and be hiding it. In which case you are rewarding him for a successful cover-up. Bravo!

Either you do not understand what a "hypothetical example" is, or you are deliberately deflecting. Again.

That is a charmingly naive belief. And also irrelevant. I've already given you an example of how Trump may not be as wealthy as you think, and thus not as immune to bribery as you think. You, of course, are trying to ignore that example. Proving once again that you are interested in deflection, not honesty or transparency in government.

All of that is completely irrelevant. Again. Your repeated attempts at deflection are getting tiresome.

We are talking about a bipartisan tradition of transparency over a candidate's financials, so that we can be assured they have no serious corruption or conflicts of interest -- or at least that we know what those conflicts are.

Obama released his tax returns. He complied with those expectations. He was transparent in this context.

Trump has refused to comply. He is NOT being transparent in this context.

THAT is what you are defending: a huge step backward in terms of transparency from our presidents. You are making it easier for Trump and all future presidents to engage in corruption and conflicts of interest.

It's disgusting and unAmerican.

 

No, I don't believe that you or any progressive believes in the concept of transparency.

You can wall of text all day, I'm not buying it.

That he has not released his tax returns to the drooling masses is not evidence that he has done anything wrong in any way. No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make that logical fallacy any more true.

You can call me disgusting, unamerican, deplorable, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, or anything else in your copy of things-to-call-Trump-supporters. I don't care.

The more liberals squeal about Trump's tax returns the more amusing it is.

 

Good luck with that, because even if that's true it's still not a gift.

 

It isn't up to you or me. The courts will decide. Until then, your definitive statement is just speculation or hope.

 

And nothing I have said requires you to believe it. You are setting up a strawman I have already knocked down. FAIL.

Again, repeating a strawman claim that I have not made, and which I have specifically knocked down. Disingenuous FAIL.

You stand in opposition to transparency and in favor of making it easier for Presidents to engage in corruption, and are willing to lie and distort to do so. It's disgusting.

 

Oh more TDS.

You equated his not releasing the tax returns to mean there is something nefarious going on.

Moreover, you have nothing to base these claims on.

Your examples are ridiculous.

I don't stand in opposition to transparency, I just recognize the left for what it is.

 

No, the courts won't decide.

You don't even understand how the process works.