Rachel Maddow said on Thursday night that she isn’t completely convinced that the subpoena over Donald Trump’s tax returns will have to wait until after the election to be resolved, as many legal and political experts have concluded.
According to the MSNBC host, it’s possible for investigators to fast-track the process, which opens up the possibility of resolving the fight over the president’s financial documents before the November election.
“They might try to go faster, if they want to,” Maddow said. “They could file a motion to accelerate the entry of this Supreme Court opinion into the docket to try to get that trip to the lower courts fast-tracked to start the fight over the subpoena, which shouldn’t take forever to resolve.”
“That will be the first thing to watch here,” she added.
Video:
Rachel Maddow explains how New York prosecutors could speed up the process of resolving the subpoena for Donald Trump’s tax returns. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/dZc234VSDD
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) July 10, 2020
Maddow said:
The Supreme Court, in the normal course of events, would leave this ruling effectively sort of simmering until it’s cleared off its docket now. They’d leave it sort of simmering for 25 days before anybody could act on it, before those New York prosecutors, for example, could get this thing going again in the lower New York courts to fight the president over the terms of the subpoena once and for all. The prosecutors hoping to prevail, whereupon they’d get the documents. Under the normal course of events, they are supposed to wait 25 days before they start moving – but they might try to go faster, if they want to. For example, they could file a motion to accelerate the entry of this Supreme Court opinion into the docket to try to get that trip to the lower courts fast-tracked to start the fight over the subpoena, which shouldn’t take forever to resolve. That will be the first thing to watch here. Watch to see if they do that.
The American people deserve to see Trump’s tax returns
While it’s still unlikely that the American people will see the president’s tax returns before Election Day – even if New York investigators do happen to get their hands on them – that doesn’t mean voters shouldn’t demand it every day between now and Nov. 3.
After all, Trump has spent his entire term raising more and more questions about where his loyalties lie, particularly as it pertains to Russia. Disclosing his finances would go a long way in explaining why, for example, this president looked the other way even after knowing Putin meddled in U.S. elections or paid to have American soldiers killed.
There is a reason Donald Trump has spent the past five years hiding his tax returns, and the American people deserve to know why – especially before they decide whether to give him four more years in the White House.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.