Stevenson’s army, May 12

– The Supreme Court today takes up cases regarding the president’s financial records. Most of the focus has been on the 1927 law requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to turn over tax returns to Congress when requested. But a clever writer at Politico notes that a 1789 law, never questioned before the Court before, set the precedent for Congress to ask and receive reports from the Secretary. When looking at the legal authorities for different government departments, I long ago noticed that when Congress created Treasury, it demanded and got regular reports from Alexander Hamilton on fiscal matters. That’s the way oversight is supposed to work.
– The Peterson Institute has a new report reviewing recent changes in US export control policies.
– Irony alert: Reuters reports that Trump’s anti-China policy doesn’t extend to pork.

The disruptions mean consumers could see 30% less meat in supermarkets by the end of May, at prices 20% higher than last year, according to Will Sawyer, lead economist at agricultural lender CoBank.

While pork supplies tightened as the number of pigs slaughtered each day plunged by about 40% since mid-March, shipments of American pork to China more than quadrupled over the same period, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. tmsnrt.rs/2YLF1XN

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).