Fishin'

I'm operating under the assumption that Donald Trump is going to tell Congress to piss up a rope when it comes to turning over his tax returns. I also assume the matter is going to be adjudicated, probably all the way to the Supreme Court. And I imagine that, in the end, Trump would win that battle.

Congress has an oversight role and it's crucial, which is why the Founders established it. Unfortunately, for most of my life, Congress has been terrible at it. Watergate was a glamorous time for the Left and those events, now nearly 50 years ago, have permanently deformed our politics. Everyone wants to be Sam Ervin, but there was an important difference then -- an actual, observable crime, the burglary of the Democratic National Committee. This crime was a matter of public record. There's nothing of the sort that has happened while Trump has been in office. That's why the Mueller investigation is likely to be a dry hole, and why the Democrats have now moved on to their Holy Grail of tax returns. I don't know how what Trump's tax returns from ten years ago have to do with his conduct in office, but surely there must be something juicy to give to the Post.

Please understand -- Trump's conduct in office deserves a full measure of scrutiny, as did the behavior of his predecessors. We didn't get much scrutiny of his immediate predecessor, but that's now left to the historians. I don't care what Trump did in 2009. What he does in 2019 matters, but Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff don't care about that.