Tax Season: At long last, The HouseWays and Means Committee has sent the IRS a letter demanding to see the last six years of President Trump’s personal and business tax returns. They are leaning on a little-known provision in the federal tax code that says the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee may request tax information on any taxpayer.

  The law says simply that the secretary of the treasury “shall” hand over the tax returns. Expect a court fight anyway.

  Answering questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump suggested he would fight the request because, as he has said since the beginning of his political campaign, he is being audited. “I guess when you have a name, you are audited, but until such time as I’m not under audit I would not be inclined to do that,” he said.

  The House letter also asks whether Trump is under audit and for what reason. Trump has never explained why being under audit excuses him from revealing his taxes as other politicians do.

   The tradition of politicians disclosing their taxes began in the early 1970s after the revelation that President Nixon paid nearly nothing. He paidjust $792.81 in federal income taxes in 1970 and $878.03 in 1971 on a salary of $200,000.

  The secrecy of Trump’s tax returns causes suspicion about his business entanglements and how much taxes he pays, or whether he pays taxes at all. His taxes are tied up in a Gordian Knot of personal returns and 400 business entities.

  “President Trump is the first president in nearly a half century to break precedent and refuse to voluntarily release his tax returns,” said Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat and member of the Ways and Means Committee. “The president is the only person who can sign bills into law, and the public deserves to know whether the president’s personal financial interests affect his public decision making.”

Mueller Time:The House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena the Justice Department for an unredacted copy of the Special Counsel report on Russian election meddling. This is another one that’s likely to end up in court.

  Attorney Gen. William Barr has said he is preparing a version redacted according to law, but he already issued a four-page summary pretty-much dismissing any fault by the Trump campaign and barely delving into what the Russians actually did.

  Trump has claimed the report completely exonerated him on the question of collusion and obstructing justice with the Russians even though Barr’s memo said the report did no such thing. It merely gave no opinion on the obstruction matter.

  The New York Times reports that some members of Mueller’s team have told associates that Barr did not give an accurate picture of how damaging the report actually is. 

  New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said, “The Constitution charges Congress with holding the president accountable for alleged official misconduct. That job requires us to evaluate the evidence for ourselves — not the attorney general’s summary, not a substantially redacted synopsis, but the full report and the underlying evidence.”

Touchy Feely:Former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s still officially not officially running for president, says he’ll be more careful about touching and giving the creeps to women he encounters in his political travels. At least four women have come forward to say that Biden’s habit of touching, squeezing, hugging, and nuzzling have made them uncomfortable.

  The Washington Posthas identified three more women complaining about Biden, bringing the number to seven. No one says Biden’s actions are sexual.

  Biden said in a video he released, “The boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. I get it, I get it, I hear what they’re saying and I understand it.” 

  Aaron Blake in The Washington Postdescribes it as a “non-apology.” He says, “Biden never says he’s sorry, for his actions or for how they made the women feel. Indeed, Biden essentially suggests that he is a victim of the changing times.”

  Biden may or may not survive as a politician. What this means for now is that he has not given up unofficially running for president.

Hard Time:A Gruesome Justice department report says inmates of the Alabama prisons endure some of the highest rates of murder and rape in the country. The Justice Department found that officials showed a “flagrant disregard” for prisoners’ rights to be free from excessive and cruel punishment. The report says one inmate was tied up and tortured for two days. Another inmate was dead on the floor for so long his body was beginning to decompose.

Art News:The artist Christo, whose thing is to wrap and drape giant objects and geographical features, announced that he has an agreement with Paris to wrap the Arc de Triomphe in blue recyclable polypropylene fabric and 23,000 feet of red rope.

  He previously wrapped the Reichstag in Germany, part of the Australian coast, surrounded islands in Biscayne Bay with pink fabric, and draped a curtain across Colorado’s Rifle Gap in the Rockies.

  He makes his money selling reproductions of his plans, sketches, and prep models. Some people laugh, but he has a way of drawing attention to physical objects and having you see them in a different way. It’s not fine art, it’s massive art.

Someone Might be Listening:Tuesday night President Trump delivered a speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is dedicated to knocking off Democrats in elections.

  In his speech in he said Republicans need to be more paranoid about elections results when Democrats win and the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. He also said, “Someone’s gonna leak this whole damn speech to the media.”

  His speech was being covered live on C-Span. 

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