Maggie Hassan Asks Nominees What They Would Do If Asked To Violate The Law By Trump

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During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) asked nominees if they would follow the law or the President if asked to violate the law.

Transcript

00:00It's expired. Senator Hassan's neck, but Senator Whitehouse would like just make a procedural

00:04request. Yes, I omitted to ask to put into the record the letter that Chairman Grassley and I

00:11wrote to Secretary Besant regarding the interim final rule, and if I may have that added to the

00:19record related to my questioning of Mr. Morrissey, I would appreciate it. Without objection, so

00:24Senator Hassan. Thank you much. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Wyden, and good morning

00:30to all three of you. Mr. Barloon, Ms. Dillon, and Mr. Morrissey, congratulations to you and

00:36your families on your nominations, and thank you for being here today to answer our questions.

00:40I'm going to start with a question to each of you, to Mr. Barloon, Ms. Dillon, and Mr. Morrissey.

00:48If you are directed by the President to take an action that would violate the law, would you

00:53follow the law or follow the President's directive? Mr. Barloon. Thank you, Senator. I do not anticipate

00:59that there would be such a situation, and certainly I will always follow the law. Ms. Dillon.

01:05I also do not expect to ever be faced with that situation, but I would follow the law.

01:11And Mr. Morrissey. Senator, my responsibility as general counsel is to follow the law,

01:16and that is what the President expected of the legal division when I served in his first

01:19administration, and that's what I'm committed to if I were confirmed this time. Well, thank you all

01:23for that commitment to follow the law. I will say, given events of the last several months,

01:28your expectations may be too high, but we'll leave it at that. Mr. Morrissey, I want to follow up

01:35on some of the questions that Senator Whitehouse was asking. Senator Whitehouse asked you whether

01:43you were clear on what 26 U.S.C. section 7217 says about taxpayer privacy, among other things.

01:53But I want to make it clear to the American people what that section requires. So would it be legal for

02:00the President to order IRS employees to audit a particular person or a particular small business,

02:06for example, a New Hampshire small business owner who said something that the President didn't like?

02:11Thank you, Senator. In any enforcement context, whether it's the IRS or otherwise, and whether

02:18it's an audit or otherwise, it's imperative that the only considerations that the IRS is considering

02:23are the facts and the evidence with respect to that taxpayer, and not any political considerations or...

02:30But I'm going to stop you right there. The federal law is clear. It's illegal for the

02:34President to order an audit, isn't it?

02:36Senator, on all of these enforcement questions, I'm committed to following the law.

02:43All right. If the President attempted to direct the IRS to illegally audit an individual or a small

02:50business, would you advise Secretary Besant not to comply and advise Treasury employees to report

02:57it to the Treasury Inspector General?

02:59Senator, if any time there's an enforcement question, and any time the Department is considering

03:05enforcing federal law against the taxpayer, my advice is going to be that the only considerations

03:11that matter...

03:12I understand that, but that's not my question. The law is very clear. I actually have a copy

03:17of 26 U.S.C. 7217, and I'd ask for unanimous consent that it be entered. The law is very clear.

03:25It says it's illegal for the President or Cabinet members to order an audit. There are exceptions

03:30if somebody, if they're just a pass-through, right? But the President can't do it. And if

03:36a Treasury employee is asked by the President or Cabinet Secretary to do it, they are required

03:42by the law to report it. So are you going to enforce those provisions of the law and advise

03:50the employees that that's their obligation?

03:52Senator, yes. I'm committed to enforcing the law and complying with the law, how it applies

03:56to a particular set of facts. I would need to know those facts. But the bedrock is impartiality

04:01in enforcing the law in all of these cases.

04:03I understand that, but the bedrock is also keeping political elected officials, the most

04:10powerful person in the world, the President, from wreaking havoc in an individual's life

04:17by ordering an audit because they don't like that person or they don't like that person's

04:23politics. So I want to know if you are willing to hold the President accountable to the law.

04:28Senator, I agree. And the President has spoken very forcefully about taking politics out of law

04:34enforcement. And if I'm advising anyone at the IRS or the Treasury Department, that is the principle

04:39I'm going to be focused on.

04:40Well, I'm glad it's a principle you're focusing on. I will disagree with you that it is a principle

04:45that this President follows. Because we are seeing one piece of evidence after the next,

04:50uh, that he is, uh, not following that principle and is in fact politicizing, um, law enforcement

04:56and the rule of law in this country. Um, now, uh, let me go on. I, I will say one other thing,

05:01which is I agree with Senator Whitehouse too about the importance of Treasury ramping up

05:06its sanction enforcement and working with us to make sure that as criminals and criminal entities

05:12get more and more creative, um, that, uh, we keep up with them in terms of our sanctioned tools

05:19and enforcement. Um, because, um, a lot of people are getting very, very wealthy, uh, from this

05:25illicit economy that Senator Whitehouse was talking about and it is a real danger to this country.

05:31Um, my third question I will ask for the record to Mr. Barloon. I'm sorry I didn't get to it.

05:35Uh, thank you, uh, Senator Whitehouse.

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