That Sound You Year Is Donald Trump Screaming at the Mar-a-Lago Pool …

It was a rough Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago this year, and Christmas is not looking much betterunless Donald Trump accusing Santa of being a mole for radical left Democrats and throwing a plate of cookies and milk against the wall is considered standard holiday cheer in Palm Beach.

On Tuesday, one day after the January 6 committee recommended the Department of Justice charge the ex-president with four major crimes, Punchbowl News reported that the House panel has begun extensively cooperating with the Justice Departments special counsel charged with overseeing investigations into former presidentDonald Trump. That special counsel, Jack Smith, reportedly sent the committee a letter on December 5, requesting all of the panels materials from the 18-month probe, and beginning last week, the panel started sending Smiths team documents and transcripts, with plans to share more documents and transcripts in the coming days, according to Punchbowl News source.

The reported cooperation marks a new front in the DOJs criminal investigation of Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and the insurrection that followed; previously, the January 6 committee had chosen not to share its findings with the department. Now, the committees year-plus of legwork, including interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses, could prove extremely valuable to Smiths investigation. Earlier this month, CNN reported that, while some in Trumps inner circle viewed Smiths appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland as a positive development for the ex-presidents freedom, others were worried he was brought in as a hit man and is likely to indict the guy.

In other less-than-positive developments for the 2024 presidential candidate, the House Ways and Means Committee voted on Tuesday to publicly release six years of Trumps tax returns, which it obtained earlier this month to the former guys extreme chagrin. Trump, of course, has spent years going to extreme lengths to keep his tax documents under lock and key: He invented a rule that he couldnt release them because they were under audit; he begged the Supreme Court to save him; and he installed a Treasury secretary who effectively took a vow to hide every copy of the returns in his anal cavitybefore the Treasury ultimately let Congress get its hands on them. So this turn of events will obviously be deeply upsetting to him.

Prior to the vote, Republicans insisted that releasing the returns could lead to horrible, horrible acts of transparency.

While it could be sometime before the documents are released to the public, The New York Times previously noted that they may not contain major new revelations, as weve already learned a tremendous amount about Trumps finances over the last several years. In 2019, for instance, Michael Cohen,the then presidents former attorney,toldCongress that Trump regularly inflated and deflated the value of his assets when it benefited him. And earlier this year, the New York attorney generals office sued Trump and his three eldest children on accusations of lying to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities about said assets. (At the time the suit was filed, an attorney for Trumpinsistedthat absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place.)

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Trumps family business was found guilty of multiple counts of tax fraud (among other things). And then, of course, theres the 2018 story from the Timeswhich won a Pulitzerrevealingthat Trump amassed much of his fortune through dubious tax schemes, some of which included instances of outright fraud. (At the time of publication, a lawyer for Trump insisted that TheNew York Times allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false and highly defamatory. There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. He added that if therewasfraud or tax evasion, Trump had nothing to do with it, saying: President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters.) Two years later, the same news organizationrevealedthat Trump had paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, another $750 in 2017, and bupkis in 10 of the previous 15 years.

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That Sound You Year Is Donald Trump Screaming at the Mar-a-Lago Pool ...