the washington post. steven mnuchin claimed he is not authorized to fulfill a request that lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. according to the irs memo, he has to regard lszless of the reason for the request. president trump refusing to release his returns, claiming he is under audit. it s not stopped past president s from releasing taxes. the former secretary of state, rex tillerson meeting with a top democrat. sources tell cnn it focused on the dealings with russia and jared kushner s role in foreign policy. tension between tillerson and kushner was well documented. tillerson was fired in march, 2018. in a later interview called president trump undisciplined. the internet and more than a few democrats losing their cookies over ben carson. the secretary of housing and
the president installed his chief fund-raiser from his campaign as head of the treasury. that itself is little unusual. but then beneath him as head of the irs the president installed a somewhat obscure california tax lawyer who just happened to have written an op-ed in forbes during the 2016 presidential campaign that argued that donald trump definitely shouldn t ever show anyone his tax returns. that was sort of a fringe view during the 2016 presidential campaign from either party. there s decades of precedent from every president and every presidential candidate in the post-watergate era that they release their taxes, and everybody knows the good reasons for it. all the other candidates in 2016 on both sides of the aisle all released their tax returns. trump even felt compelled to say during the campaign, even if he didn t mean it, he felt compelled to say at one point that of course he d release his tax returns. it would be crazy not to.
we haven t been able to get any word from the irs as to whether he actually did that or whether this person personally chosen by the president who has previous experience working for the president might himself have been involved with this decision-making process at the irs. is that something we should have a right to figure out, that you think we might be able to chase down somehow? absolutely. and recusal seems to have gone out of fashion in this administration with jeff sessions. but there certainly should have been a recusal of this individual here. we can t even find out whether trump is under audit, has ever been under audit, has any basis we ve tried not only to get the returns but to determine whether the audit actually ever occurred or is under audit now. that s other information that he could provide and has not provided. but it s consistent as you pointed out with what he s written in the past, the position he s taken of acting not on behalf of the public trust but on be
involved. he became personally insistent that his choice for the top lawyer at the irs should be advanced through the senate, should be prioritized as an administration personnel move and that that person should be confirmed as quickly as humanly possible. and this guy doesn t even want a defense secretary, right? but he wants to make sure the top lawyer at the irs who he chose personally is in the job and fast. when the new york times reported last month that president trump personally interceded with the top republican in the senate, with mitch mcconnell, to tell mcconnell that as far as he was concerned, as far as president trump was concerned, confirming this guy to be the top lawyer at the irs was a bigger priority to the president than confirming william barr to be the new attorney general. get on it. get the chief counsel into the irs. i ve picked the guy for you. his name is michael desmond. and after the president personally interceded with mitch mcconnell mr. desmond was in
response to subpoenas. trump s lawyers today filed an appeal in that first case they already lost. but those efforts look pretty hopeless for the white house and the courts are moving through these things quickly. and honestly we re expecting a big dose of drama on that front tomorrow. we ll get to that a little later on in the show tonight. but even with all of these conflicts in this 60-day universe we ve been in now, no you can t have any documents, no you can t have any witnesses, no it doesn t matter if you issue subpoenas, we ll defy the subpoenas, we ll fight them in court, we ll hire whole new fleets of lawyers to gum up this stuff any way we can. even in the context of all of these different fights which we ve just seen exploding day after day over the past 60 days, even with that whole universe sort of within our grasp, you have to know that the irs thing specifically is different. the irs thing is not just another one of those fights like all the others. because when the cha