James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and who is leading the specious charge on impeaching President Biden, has little in common with California Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter, who just lost a Senate primary and was one of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign chairs.
But the political odd couple has now come together to jointly sponsor a new bill, the Presidential Ethics Reform Act, with each side seeking something partisan and the public winning in the end.
Comer (and others in the GOP) claim that Biden and his family, (son Hunter, brother Jim) have used Joe’s high government positions to enrich themselves. We’ve only seen allegations. Porter (and many Democrats) say that Donald Trump and his children got richer from iffy foreign business interests while he was president. Lawsuits against Trump accepting such emoluments were mooted by the Supreme Court when he left office. Comer wants to see what the Biden family is up to and Porter wants to do the same for the Trump clan.
The Comer/Porter bill would make all presidents and vice presidents disclose payments and receipts from foreign sources to themselves and immediate family members for the two years before taking office, while in office, and for two years following. Also president and VPs would have to disclose gifts or loans of more than $10,000 involving themselves and family during the same time period. Furthermore, family trips on Air Force One and Air Force Two would have to be disclosed.
But what we like the best in this — and are thrilled that Comer is onboard — is that the proposed law would mandate that the IRS publish the personal tax returns for president and VPs for the same time period, meaning the two years before taking the oath, all four or eight years while in office and for two years after the end of a term. We wish it also applied to White House candidates as well.
Trump broke with the bipartisan tradition going back a half century for Oval Office candidates and White House occupants to release their 1040s. In 2016, someone anonymously mailed us and the New York Times a few pages from Trump’s 1995 state returns, giving the public a peak of his finances. After Trump won, an IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn, stole Trump’s federal returns and sent them to the Times. The Times was right to print them in 2020, but Littlejohn still committed a felony and began his deserved five year prison sentence on May 1.
On a legal track, starting in 2019, House Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee tried to get Trump’s federal returns, as is the committee’s right to get anyone’s returns. They finally succeeded and published them in December 2022, right before the Republicans took over the House.
As for Littlejohn, he’s now in the Marion federal prison in Illinois. Marion used to be America’s most notorious lockup, replacing Alcatraz in 1963 and John Gotti was sent there. But when a new supermax for the worst offenders opened in Colorado, Marion became a place for minimum and medium security prisoners. Littlejohn, Prisoner #96530-510, won’t be out until Aug. 2, 2028 (85% of his five years), in time to vote in that year’s presidential election.
