Trump's tax records, media falls for it

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson) · Thursday, February 23, 2017, 6:46 pm

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins gets credit she doesn’t deserve for being a moderate who stands up to her party. The latest: would Collins, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, vote to subpoena Donald Trump’s tax returns as part of the investigation into his Russia ties?

"I don’t know whether we will need to do that. If it’s necessary to get to the answers, then I suspect that we would," Collins said on Maine Public Radio when asked if she would subpoena Trump's tax records for the investigation.

She added that such a decision would be up to the chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Predictably, the headlines are all “Republican would subpoena Trump.” But come on. “I don’t know … if it’s necessary … I suspect.” That’s way past standard hedging—if she’d said “never say never, but ...” it would have communicated the same thing. She isn’t willing to say a flat no (because it would look bad and the headlines wouldn’t be half so flattering), but she doesn’t expect it to happen and she is definitely, definitely not standing up to her party to make it happen.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/23/1636856/-Susan-Collins-pretends-to-be-willing-to-subpoena-Trump-s-tax-records-media-falls-for-it