Catherine Rampell: “As for the Cohen crimes that did directly implicate Trump — the campaign finance violations — the president and his people have argued that these are not actually crimes. After all, they’re so rarely prosecuted!”
“What about tax crimes, though? There’s plenty of precedent for prosecuting those. And the Cohen filings this week raise serious new questions about whether Trump has criminal tax-fraud exposure.”
“There’s an easy way for Trump to clear up these concerns: He could release his tax returns. Or maybe Congress could help a brother out and release his returns for him — which it could do by majority vote in any of three committees. That would, of course, require a Republican or two to ‘flip’ — which I know could pose a problem. As Trump and Capone could both tell you, the family doesn’t care for rats.”
