Rich Man Mitt Romney Sticks up for Fellow Rich Man Donald Trump on Tax Returns

Mitt Romney’s attitude towards Donald Trump is ever-shifting, more aligned with whatever stance will best serve him in the moment than the “principled” Republican front he’s put up for years. Even his toothless January op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing the president felt like it was mainly used to show just how much more dignified he is than our commander-in-chief (a ridiculously easy task to accomplish).

Now, though, the Utah senator is playing a lovely little tune for the president because he doesn’t actually have the nerve to do anything other than join the Republican chorus. This time, it’s about Trump’s tax returns, which House Democrats have asked the commissioner of the IRS to provide them with. Despite the fact that the 1924 law invoked gives the IRS few options other than to cooperate, Romney said on Meet the Press, as per Esquire:

I’d like the president to follow through and show his tax returns … But I also have to tell you, I think the Democrats are just playing along his handbook, which is that going after his tax returns through a legislative action is moronic. That’s not going to happen. The courts are not going to say you can compel a person running for office to release their tax returns. So he’s going to win this victory. He wins them time after time.

Just a little background: The law House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) cited on April 3 in his letter to the IRS was instated following the Teapot Dome scandal, considered the greatest political disgrace in the U.S. before Watergate. The legislation allows for the investigation of tax returns to expose any financial wrongdoing in the executive branch.

Romney is just talking sh*t about the Dems here because he’s a party stooge, not because his claim that the action is “moronic” holds much water. Following the Mueller Report’s disappointing arrival in the form of William Barr’s summary, any loyal Republican is out to make Democrats look either powerless or like the party who cried wolf. That said, Romney himself acknowledged on Fox News in February 2016 that Trump’s hiding of his tax returns is surely masking something suspicious:

I think there’s something there. Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is or he hasn’t been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay, or perhaps he hasn’t been giving money to the vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s doing.

In other news, Romney has been reclassified as a new species of invertebrate.