How is making him meet requirements a smear campaign?
I didn't say in this particular instance the request for Trump's returns are a smear campaign in itself as it is quite clear there is a significant legal ground to request the same under the provisions clearly defined in the statue. Provided there is a constitutional need. Neal has expressed such a constitutional need. And I happen to agree that the treasury should surrender them.
However, the totality of the situation as it is playing out in the broader political landscape is concerning none-the-less. There are provisions in the statue which call for the appropriate response to the willful refusal to comply with a congressional request. And that is "contempt of congress". I have no doubt, at least not at this juncture, that Neal will invoke such provisions. As he should. And the matter should play out in a manner described by law. Consistently, with equal applicability and with strict adherence to constitutional law.
If the president has broken laws then by all means he should be held accountable. And punished in a manner prescribed by the same. And the persons and agencies responsible for auditing his returns should be held to account for failure to perform their duties as well. As should any finders of fact who fail to perform their duties. If that means impeachment then it is what is it is. If there is criminal behavior that calls for a response more severe than impeachment I am behind that as well. The President, like any of us, is bound to the law.
This side show however, is no such response provided by law. It is nothing more than a political hack job designed to test the waters and see how far a state can go to dismantle the basic freedoms of their local constituents. Ie the right of an AMerican citizen to vote for the candidate of their choice. Right or wrong & the political awareness and shrewdness of the constituent aside, State legislatures do not have the constitutional authority to strip American citizens innocent of a crime, from the basic right to vote for the candidate of their choosing. As this does more to strip the
citizen of a basic liberty than it does to the candidate the State legislatures are seeking to punish. . And it is that erosion of liberties under the cloak of justice that I am taking issue with here.
Today the reason is tax returns. 20 years from now a candidate will be denied entry into the ballot box based on some other reason which may turn out to be completely preposterous by our standards today, but happens to be the new social norm our grandchildren find acceptable. Of course, I am not in any way suggesting that a request for the tax return of a sitting president is in any way preposterous. I am not. Certainly not. And unfortunately I had to explicitly express that caveat with repetition due to the rampant illiteracy which seems to plague the communist regime and their online representation. I fear without doing so, in our day and age of mindless adherence to the twin sibling of communism we would spend the remainder of this conversation splitting ass hairs pointlessly, to the tune of "but look at what so and so did" as if it that were in any way a sustainable argument favoring a stark deviance from constitutional law.
I am not a full fledged supporter of Trump by any stretch of the imagination. I am simply keen to observing any game of 2 card monte being employed before an unfocused eye because some sleazy politician sees blind rage as an exploitable avenue to strip citizens of yet more freedoms, covertly, under the disguise of protecting their interests.