Justice Department defends Trump financial disclosure
Source: Politico
By JOSH GERSTEIN 06/03/2017 07:37 AM EDT
The Justice Department is defending President Donald Trump's personal financial disclosure by arguing that the rules for such forms are so ambiguous that a lawsuit challenging the disclosure must be thrown out.
The unusual argument came in response to a suit filed in March arguing that the financial disclosure Trump filed as a candidate last year was incomplete because it failed to indicate which of hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of outstanding loans Trump is actually personally liable for. Instead, Trump's form appears to blend his personal debts with those of businesses he has interests in, effectively obscuring which creditors may have the greatest leverage over him.
All Trump's debts are covered on a single page of his 104-page disclosure. According to the report, the listed loans exceed $300 million in total. The total amount of the loans is known to be much larger based on other data, but the disclosure form does not require details above $50 million for each loan that exceeds that amount.
In a filing this week in federal court in Washington, Justice Department lawyers argue that Trump had no legal duty to be more specific about which debts are his and which are his companies'.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/06/03/trump-financial-disclosure-justice-department-defends-239091
bucolic_frolic
(43,286 posts)Why are they defending this rather than his personal lawyer?
gademocrat7
(10,669 posts)cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)in a number of cases.
bitterross
(4,066 posts)Why the fuck are they acting as his personal attorney? It should, at the least, be White House Counsel - not the Justice Department.
Of course the answer IS obvious - Jeff Sessions.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)the government which legally Trump is.
bucolic_frolic
(43,286 posts)Taxpayers are paying JD employees to defend his actions as a private citizen
and against the notion of disclosing tax returns which most citizens support
I'm no lawyer, but we are defending a private citizen's actions here.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)represent him in almost all matters.
Crash2Parties
(6,017 posts)I thought that was just his own narcissistic interpretation, equating himself with 'America'.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)by or before 2020.
Crash2Parties
(6,017 posts)And no, I'm not kidding. They're talking about holding The Convention. If they do, pretty much anything could happen. Especially if they game the next two elections the way they did 2016 and gain enough to ratify.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)than Donald waking up in the whitehouse tomorrow as a decent human being.
turbinetree
(24,720 posts)And besides this "money" that he wants to blend could come from the mafia here in this country and Russia, whats a little dirty illegally gotten money among friends ................
DK504
(3,847 posts)bitterross
(4,066 posts)Yates was an AG with morals and ethics. We all knew Sessions had none and now he's proving it.
BumRushDaShow
(129,447 posts)For the Treasury Department (IRS) he does.
We need tax returns!
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)before he was even elected. Up is down, down is up, were all on the merry-go-round.