The Trump Tax Return/Russia Letter Is Full of Holes
by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-trump-tax-returnrussia-letter-is-full-of-holes
"SNIP...............
First, some minor points.
1: The upshot of the second paragraph is that since Trump runs all his operations as a private company, with the various entities working as pass-throughs, his personal taxes serve as an effective proxy for what his businesses are doing. That isn’t quite as tight as they’re suggesting.
2: The lawyers say they’re basing their analysis on the last 10 years of income taxes. That should cover a lot of ground. But why just 10 years? That leaves quite a number of years unaccounted for.
3: Here’s one point that is unclear to me. The text of the letter appears to assert these facts on the basis of Trump’s tax returns alone. The third paragraph reads “With few exceptions – as detailed below – your tax returns do not reflect …” and then lists three categories of financial dealings which are not shown. But lots of information of this sort would never appear in a tax return. Indeed, Trump and his surrogates have frequently made the same point. Seeing the tax returns wouldn’t even settle a lot of these questions. If I’m reading the letter correctly, the lawyers may know of information that is not reflected in Trump’s personal tax returns for the last decade and simply not mention those facts. Again, the letter specifically says “your tax returns do not reflect” not “you do not have.” This is, needless to say, a massive loophole in the assertions in the letter.
4: Why just Russia? Many of the questions people are looking at are tied to Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states. Not just Russia.
...............SNIP"
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