An Editor's Note on the Trump Tax Investigation

[PatSeg]

Today we are publishing the results of an examination of decades of personal and corporate tax records for President Trump and his businesses in the United States and abroad. The records stretch from his days as a high-profile New York real estate investor through the beginning of his time in the White House.

A team of New York Times reporters has pored over this information to assemble the most comprehensive picture of the president’s finances and business dealings to date, and we will continue our reporting and publish additional articles about our findings in the weeks ahead. We are not making the records themselves public because we do not want to jeopardize our sources, who have taken enormous personal risks to help inform the public.

We are publishing this report because we believe citizens should understand as much as possible about their leaders and representatives — their priorities, their experiences and also their finances. Every president since the mid-1970s has made his tax information public. The tradition ensures that an official with the power to shake markets and change policy does not seek to benefit financially from his actions.

Mr. Trump, one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation’s history, has broken with that practice. As a candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has said he wanted to make his tax returns public, but he has never done so. In fact, he has fought relentlessly to hide them from public view and has falsely asserted that he could not release them because he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. More recently, Mr. Trump and the Justice Department have fought subpoenas from congressional and New York State investigators seeking his taxes and other financial records.

By Dean Baquet

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/27/us/trump-taxes-editors-note.html

There will be more to come! Hats off to the New York Times.

[elleng]

1. Thanks

[SharonClark]

2. The reporters at the New York Times

are doing the job they dreamed of in journalism school. Congratulations!

[PatSeg]

13. Just imagine how exciting it must be

to break a story like that. I smell a Pulitzer in the future.

[SergeStorms]

76. Maybe Trump will give them...

one of his "Noble" Prizes to shut them up? Hey, he's got two of them, right?

[PatSeg]

77. Or the Presidential Medal of Freedom!

[lindysalsagal]

36. It's like WAPO reporting the vietnam fiasco and lies.

This is historic. They might have just saved everyone.

[Sneederbunk]

3. As suspected, Trump is a LOSER.

[Thekaspervote]

4. "One of the wealthiest presidents in the nation's history??"

[soothsayer]

6. Ha! Yeah

[NYC Liberal]

53. I'm the richest person in the world...according to me.

[thenelm1]

54. I caught that as well...Mr. Trump, one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation's history

"Mr. Trump, one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation’s history".

According to whom? Other than Mr. Trump himself?? What self-respecting news org would actually say that??? The NYT is from his own hometown, and, of all people, should know better.....what the bloody hell.

Yeah, a known liar claims to be "one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation’s history".

And I, this Irish/German white guy whose never even been to the west coast of my own country, is the rightful "King of Siam". My throne awaits me. Peasants kiss my ring. (Hampden Academy, 1973 - does that work?)

Geez, how many lies is this nutcase allowed before any and all news media in this country call him out for the total fraud and actual living example of a true fool that he is? WT the everluvin' F.

[Bluepinky]

71. One of the wealthiest presidents who claims to lose more money than he makes?

Something doesn’t jive. If he loses more than he makes, he’s into negative numbers and either living off his savings, being subsidized by another person or country (Putin and Russia or Saudi Arabia, perhaps?), or lying about his gains/losses. In Trump’s case, it’s probably all three.

[PatSeg]

81. Well, definitely a whole lot of lying

but his entire career, he seemed to lose or spend more than he made. He was always borrowing more money or filing for bankruptcy. He does have a lot of "stuff" and property, but not much cash on hand.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has really hurt many of his businesses and his brand is no longer valuable, now that the world knows what a huge dick he is.

[spike jones]

78. The quotation marks are in the wrong place.

Mr. Trump, "one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation’s history," has broken with that practice.
fixed it.

[Hoyt]

5. trump will say they're fake, but he'll have to produce conflicting returns

to prove it.

[PatSeg]

15. Oh, he already did

He had a bullshit press conference late this afternoon and the story broke while he was talking. "Fake news" of course. Nice try Spanky. His heart really wasn't in it. He looked like he'd already lost the election.

[tclambert]

29. He will say they're fake, then whine that they were confidential and whoever leaked them should

be arrested. Plus he will threaten to sue the leaker for violating a non-disclosure agreement.

What he won't do is sue The New York Times for libel.

[MoonlitKnight]

49. Already trying that excuse

“Fake - but if true it just means he has great accountants.”

His 38% may fall for that crap but not many more.

[AZ8theist]

79. Oh, you should have seen the twitter thread earlier.....

One fucking knumbskull said "He's a billionaire and paid 0 taxes? I'd say that's BRILLIANT!!!"

These fucking Nazis are INSANE. They ALL HATE AMERICA. They want to revive NAZI GERMANY.

[thenelm1]

57. Never ceases to amaze me that all this BS from the last 4 years has him as the subject

Yet he's always as innocent as the driven snow.

Everyone is always picking on him. And yet, at every point, he's the one constant, the one subject of all the accusations and angst, and the one who is constantly "crying wolf". In the end, if justice prevails, also the one who's gonna get eaten.

And it couldn't happen to a more deserving fool.

Too bad that his own narcissism led him to leap into the focused lens of scrutiny of the presidency rather than sticking to his little insular slum lord persona in NYC where he'd skated on his insignificance (in spite of a fake TV show) since forever. He was an amusement for the press and no one took him seriously at all. He likely would have gone on with little legal scrutiny until he passed.

Never forget, until he got a TV show, though ever in the news, he was a small time operator in NYC real estate. His "company" employed like 20-30 people, tops. In that market he was a very small fish.

Hopefully, putting himself in the spotlight, simply because he couldn't help himself - and the legend in his own mind that he is, will ultimately be his undoing.

[Buckeyeblue]

7. Is the source Ivanka?

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

12. mary

she gave them the stuff they published previously.

[Buckeyeblue]

14. How would she get this?

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

16. i could be wrong.

but she coughed up the returns from the family biz.

[PatSeg]

19. Yes, she had boxes and boxes

of documents, but she wouldn't have had more recent ones though. Some of this is covering his finances since he became president. There could be several sources. What a great movie this will make some day.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

20. i wonder what she has in her lawsuit, tho.

she has cited figures. she must have some info. oh discovery is going to be fun.

[PatSeg]

24. Ah, that's true!

There's also an old lawyer who has worked for the Trumps since Fred was alive (can't remember his name now). I often wondered if he might not end up blowing the whistle on Donald.

[Arazi]

73. Allen Weisselberg. Cohen said he's the key

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Weisselberg

But as a mob lawyer/accountant there's ZERO chance its Weisselberg who gave up #Traitor's taxes

[PatSeg]

74. That's true

It just seemed that at times he was more forthcoming than a lot of Trump lackeys. I suppose there could be a lot of behind scenes people in Trump's world that we aren't even familiar with. He has stepped on so many people, the possibilities are endless.

[Buckeyeblue]

22. That's what I was thinking. We may never know. It took decades to find out who deep throat was.

[PatSeg]

25. That's so true

and I never lost interest in finding out who he was. I was really surprised when it was finally revealed.

Don't think we'll have to wait that long on this though.

[lunatica]

47. I hope I get to see it

[Tom Traubert]

23. She wouldn't have access to Personal Income Tax Returns.

The story says that the NYTimes did not have access to 2018 and 2019 returns, thus indicating that it does have the pre-2018 returns. My bet is that these were provided to the NYTimes by Trump’s accountants or attorneys. I’m sure we’ll find out eventually when a book has been written about the downfall and imprisonment of President Trump.

[PatSeg]

59. I think you're right

Trump has crossed a lot of people, I'm sure there are plenty who would turn on him.

[oldtime dfl_er]

39. Brad Parscale?

Who just got himself safely locked up in a mental health facility.

[Buckeyeblue]

41. Maybe but how does he get that kind of access?

[oldtime dfl_er]

43. Dunno

But he's had his finger in the Trump pie for a long time

[intrepidity]

72. Michael Cohen? nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. I expect the NYTimes to win many Pulitzer Prizes as a result of this reporting, and others. n/t

[Skraxx]

9. Since, my friend, you have revealed your deepest fear I sentence you to be exposed before your peers

"Since, my friend, you have revealed your deepest fear I sentence you to be exposed before your peers Tear down the wall!"

TEAR DOWN THE WALL!!!!

[Lucky Luciano]

28. I love that part! Very apropos!

[louis-t]

10. Drumpf lawsuit in 3...2...1...

[erronis]

31. Any lawyer will require up-front cash. Either from putin/saudis/mercers/murdochs but not trump ious.

[PatSeg]

35. And I think he is has overdrawn all his resources now

He'd have to go to another planet to find anyone who would take a chance on him.

[gibraltar72]

11. Just the tip.

[PatSeg]

17. Exactly

There's more to come and every week is going to be an "October Surprise". The house of cards is coming down.

[Cha]

18. How the Hell did the NYT Get Them Tax Returns?! lol

we do not want to jeopardize our sources, who have taken enormous personal risks to help inform the public.

Mahalo Pat.. Interesting Report!

[PatSeg]

21. Whoever they are, I absolutely LOVE them!

Hopefully, some day they can come forward and take credit for what they've done. Right now, it would probably be too dangerous.

What a perfect weekend Cha!

[Cha]

26. Oh Yes.. Appreciate them to Pieces!

True Patriots.. we can count on that.

Can you imagine how Seething trump is right now & his posse of Maggots?!

[PatSeg]

27. I would love to be a fly on the wall

but that might ruin my upbeat mood right now. I'll wait for the tell-all book later! Now we'll see how many rats abandon ship in the coming week.

[tclambert]

30. Mr. President! There's an iceberg right ahead!

Mr. President, we need leadership! (Sploosh!) That's him leaving in a lifeboat already, isn't it?

[GenX_Dem]

32. one can only hope

[PatSeg]

34. And pushing old ladies and children out of the way!

[tclambert]

37. Probably Melania, Ivanka, Jared, TweedleDee and TweedleDum will get knocked down in his rush.

[PatSeg]

58. Oh yeah

He's not loyal to anyone.

[MustLoveBeagles]

61. I'm waiting for him to use a baby as a human sheild.

Skip to 1:20:

[kairos12]

33. Mary Trump must be laughing till she falls down.

[Illumination]

38. Yep! She supplied 19 boxes to the N.Y. Times! Mary is a saint!...

[avebury]

40. NYT has a digital deal for 1 year for $1 charged for each 4 week period.

I don't know if their subscription services has crashed or what. I will try again in the morning.

[PatSeg]

60. I signed up for it earlier

The price is good for a whole year. Its possible they got so many new subscribers that it did crash. There must be some happy people at the New York Times tonight!

[Hekate]

42. KnR

[Tommymac]

44. Someone Saved My Life Tonight ... NY TIMES!

I guess it's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, too.

[gademocrat7]

45. The unrepentant criminal

Can scream fake news, but we know he is a fraud.

[thesquanderer]

46. If the returns are authentic then Trump has only two options...

... admit he's a financial fraud

OR

... admit to a felony of filing fraudulent returns

Even if they ARE fraudulent, he'd have to say they are the truth so as not to risk prison. Unless he's angling on some kind of pardon.

[LaMouffette]

48. Thank you, New York Times!

Thank you, Mary Trump! Thank you, Olivia Troye! Thank you, Melania and Me author Stephanie Winston Wolkoff!

I hope this is just the beginning of people coming forward to spill the beans on the felon-in-chief.

[JHB]

50. Let's not pass up pointing out how Republicans were fine with this.

Trump's success despite refusing to release his tax returns can be laid at the example provided by the Republican candidate in the previous presidential election (2012), one Willard Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and now the junior senator from Utah.

Despite his father cementing the practice of publicly disclosing tax forms, including releasing twelve years' worth because "One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show, and what mattered in personal finance was how a man conducted himself over the long haul", Mitt produced one year and a partial return for a second. It should be noted that the one complete year was well within the time frame in which the IRS allows returns to be amended, leaving open the question of whether that return had been "done for show" and would be amended after the election spotlight was off it, and him.

The Republican establishment didn't balk at this in the slightest, since they were staving off a "clown car" of "anybody but Mitt" Republican candidates that year, each successively gaining favor with the Republican electorate they had forged (the one which in 2016 gave Trump the most Republican primary votes ion history) only to lose favor later, leaving Romney the long-term victor.

Without the Romney precedent, an issue could have been made to Republican voters about Trump's refusal to release his forms. But any argument proffered in 2016 could be countered by quoting the same people in 2012. They didn't care about Mitt's tax returns, so nobody cared about Donald's.

[PatSeg]

66. Thank you

It often seems like everyone has forgotten Romney and his tax returns. Yes, I think he did pave the way for other candidates to avoid being transparent with their finances. I remember his wife chastising a reporter, saying "And this is all you people are going to get" in a really condescending nasty tone, tapping her index finger on the table. I was furious.

Romney knew he was going to run for president for quite some time, yet he couldn't come up with several years of tax returns. Unlike Trump, Romney had been in politics and knew he would need to release his financial history if he became the party's nominee. And unlike Trump, Romney really wanted to become president. We'll never know what he was hiding, but I've never forgotten.

[llmart]

51. My question is...

who in the IRS has been looking the other way when they audited the returns? No legitimate IRS person would look at a billionaire's (so-called) returns and think it was just hunky dory that he only owed $750.

[Aussie105]

55. This needs following up

IRS: 'We are still looking into that!' ??

or

People were told not to follow it up, to ignore it, because it would cause too many embarrassing questions to be asked of the IRS?

We need to know WTF goes on inside the IRS!

[CrispyQ]

75. They were quite prompt in billing me an extra $200

due to an error I'd made on my tax filling last year.

[PatSeg]

82. Well

They do have to make up their losses somewhere! Someone has to compensate for Donald Trump's creative accounting practices.

Seriously though, that really sucks.

[PatSeg]

65. That dawned on me as well

Or that ten out of fifteen years, he didn't pay anything at all or the $72 million tax refund he received. There must have been red flags everywhere. Its not like Donald Trump was some obscure taxpayer. I would think he would been under audit all the time for years.

[AllyCat]

52. Wow, y'all. Twitter is blowing up over this.

[Aussie105]

56. The truth is out, and I'm comfortable with that.

Trump is a bad businessman, always has been.

Overcommitted on investment properties, overcommitted on loans, overestimating the returns on investments and his net worth, cheating greatly on his tax returns.(Cheating or 'creative accounting'?)

So, bad person, bad President, bad businessman. (Consistent, I must say.)

The gravy train was running on empty. Time to jump off, donors and followers.

I'm comfortable with all those revelations.

[PatSeg]

63. He made the same mistakes over and over again

throughout his entire career. It was almost as if he was programmed to fail. Whenever he had money, he just had to blow it. He is truly a failure at pretty much everything, personal and professional.

[Aussie105]

67. Biggest failure?

Not being able to delegate to people smarter and more clued up than he is.

They threaten him, they challenge his decisions, they think they know better, and actually do.

Donald has to be the smartest person in the room. Result? He fills the room with people dumber than he is, don't argue with him, know less than he does, just worship him.

Sickening thought.

But, quoting Trump . . . It Is What it Is.

[PatSeg]

69. Yes, good point

And even if he agrees with a person who is smarter than him, he'll often do the opposite, in some vain attempt to look authoritative and knowledgeable. And if possible, he will shut them out or fire them.

"Donald has to be the smartest person in the room", which of course is a total nightmare. Incompetence breeding more incompetence.

[chriscan64]

62. Remember that question to Kevin McCarthy that was never answered?

McCarthy: "they want to use the president's tax returns to embarrass him"
Reporter: "Why would his tax returns be embarrassing?"

[PatSeg]

64. I'd forgotten that

McCarthy is almost comic relief, inadvertently blurting out the truth.

[MagickMuffin]

68. Trump and the Justice Department have fought subpoenas

Let that sink in: The DOJ is fighting for team trump.

Of course billy barr doesn't hide his intentions. He's very public about it. But this should do him in as well.

[PatSeg]

70. We are fast reaching the point

in the movie where they start rounding up all the corrupt players and marching them out of their offices. Time to watch "All the President's Men" and "Z" again!

[gus1985]

80. You Rock New York Times!

New York Times


Thank You!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

83. To sue the New York Times and his niece, Trump turned to a low profile attorney from New Jersey

WOW, Marc E. Kasowitz is no longer representing TFG. Kasowitz is a major league asshole who has been represent TFG for a very long time. My son was involved in a dispute with Kasowitz in a commercial loan type transaction and was not impressed. For Kasowitz to leave TFG is a big deal

Link to tweet

Earlier this month, one of former president Donald Trump’s best-known attorneys — veteran litigator Marc E. Kasowitz — withdrew from a case where Trump had been sued for defamation.....

It’s unclear why Kasowitz stopped representing Trump in the defamation case, which was brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, or how Trump chose Habba to represent him in that suit and the one against the Times. Neither Trump nor Habba responded to requests for comment Wednesday.....

In the past, Trump turned to a different attorney, Charles Harder, for lawsuits against media outlets. Harder was known for representing wrestler Hulk Hogan in a lawsuit against the website Gawker, which resulted in a $140 million judgment and the bankruptcy of the site. Harder told The Post on Wednesday that he was no longer working for Trump, but otherwise declined to comment.

In recent weeks, three of Trump’s high-profile attorneys have withdrawn from cases where they represented him or his family. None offered a public explanation.

In addition to Kasowitz, Marc Mukasey — who had previously represented Trump’s foundation and business — withdrew from a case where he was defending Eric Trump against inquiries from the New York attorney general. Mukasey declined to comment.

Joanna Hendon, of the firm Alston and Bird, had defended Trump against a lawsuit that alleged he defrauded customers by endorsing a scheme to market video phones. But Hendon — who had represented Trump since 2018 — withdrew in August, saying in a court filing that the change had been Trump’s decision.

Trump replaced her firm with a much smaller one, Robert & Robert, located in the Long Island town of Uniondale, N.Y. Robert & Robert lists five attorneys on its website. In that case, neither Trump’s old attorneys nor his new ones responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

TFG is losing his few competent attorneys and replacing them with small law firm types. The new attorney in the NYT/Mary Trump case is with a 4 person firm who does not list which law schools their attorneys attended in part because the lead partner is from a tier 4 law school.

TFG is hurting

[PatSeg]

84. Yes, that is pretty pathetic

I really can't imagine any lawyer wanting to represent him. How could it possibly benefit anyone? Shoot, he doesn't even pay his bills.