Wordplay often employed as camouflage
Even the truth can be twisted into self-serving disingenuousness through lawyerly language usage
Humpty Dumpty said “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Humpty would have made a fine lawyer as a skilled lawyer must learn how to use words.
Bill Clinton is mocked for uttering “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Humpty Dumpty would have praised him. After all, it was Humpty who said, “When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.”
Clinton’s meaning was — if one says there is no improper relationship, it means present tense. “What may have been” fits the meaning of “what was,” so that a finding of an improper relationship “that was” does not contradict a statement that there is no improper relationship.
John Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion finding that the “shared responsibility payment” under Obamacare was not unconstitutional. He did so by finding that Congress had the power to regulate taxes.
But Roberts did not say the SRP was a tax. He cited a prior Supreme Court decision finding “every reasonable construction must be resorted to in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.”
This deference to protecting legislative powers, and not legislating from the bench, led Roberts to state: “The shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax.” Maybe a tax is not is a tax, and Roberts also introduced the qualifier “for constitutional purposes.”
In interpreting language, all words matter. So a father faced with a 7-year-old daughter who asks “Daddy, am I a princess?” can quite fairly answer “Honey, in my eyes you are a princess.” Any technicalities associated with the definition of a princess have been resolved by the antecedent “in my eyes.”
I have twice written columns, dating back to 2012, arguing that all candidates for president should release tax returns. At bottom my reasoning is simple: The American people deserve a chance to see if their future leader follows the basic structure of our tax laws.
Ample evidence exists that if the common man believes that others cheat on their taxes, they will feel more justified in fudging a bit, or even more than a bit, on their taxes.
We need to know that the most powerful elected official in the country complies with its laws. There is only one way to be able to judge this when it comes to the task of filing returns, a burden that falls on each of us. Releasing tax returns is a burden of running for the highest elected office.
Donald Trump says he cannot release his returns because they are under audit. He also says that there is nothing to be learned from tax returns (this argument is just silly).
Trump asked his tax attorneys to prepare a letter supporting the audit claim. The lawyers are very skilled and even famous within tax circles. I am absolutely convinced that every statement in their letter is true.
The letter says (1) audits for 2002-2008 are closed, (2) audits for 2009 forward are “ongoing,” and (3) because there are “items ... attributable to continuing transactions or activities reported ... for 2008 and earlier (then) ... in this sense (my emphasis), the pending examinations are continuations of prior, closed examinations.”
The lawyers’ letter links pre-2009 years to post-2008 in an interesting way. Most people have continuing activities from 2008 that still exist. That makes the statement true, but says nothing about whether a release of a 2008 return affects a 2009 audit.
The “continuation of prior examinations” statement is preceded by “in this sense.” This makes the statement conditional on the preceding sentence. Closed means closed. Hence a 2009 audit cannot raise 2008 closed issues.
“In this sense” leaves a lawyerly way out of the charge that 2009 audits are not continuations of prior closed audits. It’s like Dad saying “in my eyes” you’re a princess.
So the language used in that letter is very interesting to me, as it would be to Humpty Dumpty. I assure you the authors are quite skilled in the use of words, and I would not guess any of the words used were used by accident.