Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney Just Said You’ll “Never” See Trump’s Taxes

“That’s a issue that was already litigated during the election.”

Hayne Palmour Iv/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA

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White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Democrats will “never” see President Donald Trump’s tax returns, arguing that Trump’s election was proof that the American people didn’t care.

Last week, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, wrote a letter to the IRS asking for copies of Trump’s returns—and those of his affiliated companies—from 2013 through 2018. Trump was the first major-party presidential nominee since Gerald Ford not to release any tax returns during his campaign. He said then, and has said as recently as Friday, that he could not do so because he was under audit—but an audit would not prevent anyone from releasing their tax returns, and the IRS audits every presidential tax return.

If Trump were planning on keeping his word, then Democrats would, in fact, see those tax returns some day, when the earth is a little older and the oceans a little higher, and the interminable audit finally, mercifully, comes to an end. But Mulvaney did not say the Democrats will get the tax returns when everyone else does, when the audit is done. In asserting that Democrats will “never” see those tax returns, he argued that Trump actually had a mandate not to release them. “Keep in mind, that’s a issue that was already litigated during the election—voters knew the president could have given his tax returns, they knew that he didn’t, and they elected him anyway,” Mulvaney said.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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