January 10, 2020

President Grifty McHamberder strikes again, only this time it's Sidekick Steve-O doing his dirty work for him.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin would just love to have the Secret Service department back under his own control again, according to The Washington Post. It was like that for years, but was moved to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Stevie-Baby wants it back.

The problem is, he needs the Democrats to do it. Oops - he's been rebuffing and ignoring the Democrats' requests for required info about Secret Service costs for Trump's entire presidency. Oh, and also refusing to comply with Democratic requests for Trump's taxes. And information about how much money Trump is making off official business being conducted at his private properties.

Yes, Secretary of the Pursed Lips has been completely uncooperative with any Democratic attempt at Congressional oversight of Trump's conspicuous, contemptuous violations of the Constitutional prohibition of profiting off the presidency.

The author of The Washington Post story, David Fahrenthold, joined Nicolle Wallace to discuss the details of how Trump and his family has been making money illegally, using the Secret Service to do it, and
the very curious date at which Secretary Steve offered to disclose all this pertinent info.

WALLACE: Steve Mnuchin does not get as much scrutiny as people like Bill Barr, who are out living bold, the life as Donald Trump's Roy Cohn, loud and proud in all the political efforts to use his department to shield the president. But Steve Mnuchin is doing just as much by refusing to turn over his taxes, by refusing to cooperate with a coequal branch of government and disclose this money until after 2020. Is there any sense Democrats are losing their patience with Secretary Mnuchin?

FAHRENTHOLD: It seems like, yes. This story, I mean, this is something where Mnuchin actually needs something or wants something from the Democrats in Congress. He wants them to pass this law giving him back control of the Secret Service, which had been with Treasury for decades, and now is with Homeland Security. So, this is a case where he has rejected Congressional scrutiny and put off Congressional efforts to get a number of documents. And now he's coming to Democrats hat-in-hand, saying, "Help me." They're using the leverage they have over him now. Whether he wants that transfer of Secret Service bad enough to give in on this demand, I guess we have to wait and see.

WALLACE: David Fahrenthold, thank you for spending time with us. Heidi, Mnuchin, again, because it's all relative, right, you cover politics and compared to Attorney General Barr and others, but he is the guy who has been a human shield for Donald Trump's secret and shady business dealings as president.

HEIDI PRZYBYLA: And all through the Russia investigation as well when we were trying to get answers about his tax returns which may or may not be quite illuminating. He has fought that. He has total control over that unless we go through a very lengthy court process. Let's also highlight some of the amazing numbers David had in there. $1.3 million per visit to Mar-a-Lago?

WALLACE: Unbelievable.

PRZYBLA: Let's just put these numbers together. We're not mathematicians but this is a lot of money going into Trump's pocket from the U.S. Government. It's a circular -- and then look at the date. Is that an arbitrary date, December 2020, just happens to be four weeks, you know, a month after the next election. So what are we to make of why he would choose that arbitrary date? This is not controversial stuff. They're supposed to report this semi-annually to Congress, and they have failed to do that.

WALLACE: And there are no coincidences. I think we're right to assume what we will about the date.

Uh, yeah. You're right to assume what you will about that date.

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