February 10, 2017

The president of Judicial Watch, a conservative 'watchdog group' made a ridiculous claim when he told CNN that if our nation's first president George Washington had to release his tax returns, he wouldn't have been president because, "he had similar interest interests, about as wealthy as Trump is relatively speaking."

CNN's Chris Cuomo replied, "That's not even close to an analogy."

This is were we are, folks. Trump supporters make moronic and false statements every day to justify Trump's actions.

By the way, Washington, being a land surveyor, drew his wealth from land deals in America while Trump is tied up into many international endeavors that could impact his role as a president and his interests as a private business owner.

The segment started with CREW's Noah Bookend explaining the Kellyanne Conway ethics fiasco and then the segment morphed into Trump's conflict of interests.

Judicial Watch was formed to investigate every inch of Bill Clinton's underwear when he was president, then switched to Hillary's email witch hunt during this past election.

If you need a refresher course, Digby writes about Judicial Watch in Salon: "The conservative group has a long history of spreading Clinton lies."

Check out how Fitton twists into a pretzel trying to defend Trump's lack of ethics, while making believe he's a man concerned about government ethics.

While admitting that Conway broke a government rule, he felt she didn't do anything wrong "in the moral sense of the word."

See what I mean?

The segment took off when Fitton stated that "the conflict of interest laws don't apply to the president."

And for some weird reason claimed that if Trump did disclose any information, he'd be destroying his business.

"He's not required to destroy his business to become president of the United States," Fitton argued. "There's no way he could engage in a billion dollar fire sale that wouldn't raise additional ethics questions."

Not one person has asked that Trump destroy his business, but instead have said he should have divested from it entirely or placed it into a blind trust before entering the Oval Office.

Cuomo shot back, "But you are pretending, because while you are right that there is no law, you are pretending there is no other standard. We both know that's absurd on its face. There are ethical considerations."

The debate turned to Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, where Fitton's arguments were just as ridiculous.

Fitton said, "Because the taxes are a road map to his entire company, and it's not just like someone's normal tax return. It's a massive document, and it would essentially, in many ways, upend the ability of the company to function, in theory."

In theory? So in reality he doesn't know.

If we were talking about a Democratic politician not releasing tax information, Fitton would be screaming that America was being swindled.

Fitton then makes believe he cares about transparency. "There's nothing like the situation we have with the president coming into the oval office," he argued. " Under the standards that are being thrown around here, George Washington wouldn't be president. He had similar business interests, he was about as wealthy as Trump is, relatively speaking.

Cuomo mocked that contention, saying, "That's not even close to an analogy."

Fitton asked if he Cuomo had ever asked a tax attorney about this and Cuomo said he had asked many tax lawyers about this already.

Chris replied, "I've asked half a dozen why can't he show them under audit. I said, why can't he show me the taxes that would be in there that would be so destructive to him."

"They say...In general I would be worried about you learning too little from taxes," he continued. "I don't get why the president won't show them because they're not as elucidating as you people are assuming they are. That's what tax experts say to your answer."

They kept yelling at each other about the law, but finally Noah was able to speak and said Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause which is in our Constitution.

"He's the president," Noah interrupted. "We need to know what his interests are and what may be motivating him. His taxes are going to shed some light on that. There's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have them."

He continued, "Richard Nixon gave up his tax returns when he was under audit. If that standard isn't one that this president could meet, that's a little troubling. I also want to say the law is actually a factor here because the constitution says he can't be taking payments from foreign governments."

Cuomo replied, "The Emoluments clause you're talking about."

Judicial Watch are partisan hacks and should never be taken in any other light, especially after their president made these lame arguments.

Maybe Fitton will try to get the Emoluments Clause removed from the Constitution next?

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