Let’s not forget the most important thing… The same types of illegal activities that the NY TImes uncovered the Fred Trump started, Donald Trump continues today.
I suspect that the 3 NY Times reporters probably spent more time looking at his tax returns than anyone at the IRS has spent.
Making these basically an open-source document, and letting thousands of citizen. Check that amount reported on line 23 of Shell Corp ABC matches the amount of reported on line 52 on Shell Corp CDE must be terrifying to Trump.
Bingo. The tax returns would show nothing without each return being carefully audited. Even then the way the tax laws are written who knows if that would find anything.
According to the talking heads last night the Dems would request the returns from the IRS, not from Trump. Trump could put pressure on the IRS, or sue, to try to prevent their release. But his “They are being audited” argument is pretty stupid after 2 years.
Even if the returns were released to a House committee doesn’t guarantee they would become public.
I think they would be leaked almost instantly once they get to a house committee. In fact I’m amazed the IRS hasn’t done so already. Proof of their dedication to public service, I suppose.
The tax returns are useful because not because they will show criminal action, but because they will reveal things like income and (indirectly) debt which Trump obviously prefers not to disclose.
Oh, no doubt someone on capital hill would leak it. But re-read his answer, it sure reads like he was talking someone in the IRS doing it. The returns of “famous or powerful” people are basically sequestered by the IRS.
Oh I see the part where he says “I’m amazed the IRS hasn’t done so already. Proof of their dedication to public service, I suppose”. Gotcha. I didn’t realize you were addressing that part.
I didn’t subject myself to that either. I literally start raging within 30 seconds of listening to his stupid voice, made worse by the fact that his dentures seem perennially loose.
It doesn’t help that they’re horribly underfunded (by design, apparently) if the goal is to catch a non-trivial number of tax evaders, especially the big ones.
Interesting take on Trump describing himself as a nationalist.
Re-reading Orwell’s essay, I’m convinced that Donald Trump is, in fact, not a nationalist. I say this for the same reason that Orwell italicized that same word — not — in the quote above. A “nationalist,” in Orwell’s taxonomy, is a person who has subsumed their self and their identity into that of “the nation or other unit.” Trump doesn’t do that. He’s trying, rather, to the opposite of that — to subsume the nation into his self and his identity.
Trump shares the nationalist’s overriding obsession with pursuing power and prestige, but he seeks these for himself, not for any larger nation or cause. He is certainly preaching nationalism and promoting a political message that appeals to nationalists, but he is not himself one of them. He is, rather, a demagogue who views actual nationalists as easy marks for his own personal pursuit of personal power and prestige.
Usual total shit show, even without the whole Melania bit. I don’t know how anyone can listen to him just ramble and fight with reporters and think, Wow, glad he’s our President!
And not the first or last time he’s forgotten about his wife for sure. Is there video of him walking back at all? Maybe not quite as fun as watching walk up the stairs with toilet paper on his shoe but close.
My favorites are the ones when he’s departing Air Force One and gets lost on his way to the limo picking him up… that’s literally parked at the foot of the stairs.
