#ReleaseTrumpsTaxReturns

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Tiny little discrepancies like these could possibly be related to why New York DAs and House Democrats have been issuing subpoenas for Trump’s financial records. (And consistently prevailing against Trump’s court challenges.)

“Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017.”

“Insurance costs in 2017 were listed as $744,521 in tax documents and $457,414 in loan records.”

“He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers. ... The company told a lender that 40 Wall Street had been 58.9% leased on Dec. 31, 2012, and then rose to 95% a few years later. The company told tax officials the building was 81% rented as of Jan. 5, 2013.”

“Trump’s company told New York City tax officials it made about $822,000 renting space to commercial tenants there [Trump International Hotel and Tower] in 2017, records show. The company told loan officials it took in $1.67 million that year — more than twice as much.”

“Trump appeared to omit from tax documents income his company received from leasing space on the roof for television antennas, a ProPublica review found. The line on tax appeal forms for income from such communications equipment is blank on nine years of tax filings, even as loan documents listed the antennas as major sources of income.”

These documents corroborate Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress back in February: “It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.” And yes, Republicans, this is in fact a crime:

“New York City’s property tax forms state that the person signing them ‘affirms the truth of the statements made’ and that ‘false filings are subject to all applicable civil and criminal penalties.’ The punishments for lying to tax officials, or to lenders, can be significant, ranging from fines to criminal fraud charges. Two former Trump associates, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, are serving prison time for offenses that include falsifying tax and bank records, some of them related to real estate.”

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Any officer or employee of the United States acting in connection with any revenue law of the United States… who with intent to defeat the application of any provision of this title fails to perform any of the duties of his office or employment… shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.

26 U.S.C. § 7214(a)(3)

(The applicable “provision of this title” is 26 U.S.C. § 6103(f)(1), which according to the IRS itself “is mandatory, requiring the [Treasury] Secretary to disclose [tax] returns, and return information”)

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CALLED IT

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Don’t get too excited. Although the federal court did indeed dismiss Trump’s lawsuit to block the House Ways and Means Committee from requesting his New York state tax returns, it was a procedural decision, not a substantive one. The judge--a Trump appointee--did not rule on the substantive merits of any of Trump’s claims. He did not, for example, rule that the Committee is entitled to Trump’s tax returns, or whether it would be proper for the Committee to request them in the first place (which so far it has not done). He also did not decide whether New York’s TRUST Act is valid or invalid.

The court ruled only that Trump is not entitled to sue New York officials in a D.C. federal court:

“Based on the current allegations, Mr. Trump has not met his burden of establishing personal jurisdiction over either of the New York Defendants. The Court therefore need not reach the question of proper venue. Accordingly, the New York Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is granted, and Mr. Trump’s Amended Complaint is dismissed without prejudice as to them.”

Trump can still sue those New York officials in a New York federal court. Which he will presumably do, as soon as he thinks he can get it heard before some loyal judge that he appointed.

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A reminder that the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner, who is currently obeying Trump’s orders and defying a lawful Congressional subpoena for Trump’s tax returns, is making money from his ownership stake in Trump-branded properties worth millions of dollars.

Nothing to see here.

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CALLED. IT.

(Two and a half years ago, in fact.)

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CAVEAT #1: At least six other states have tried this so far: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York. and Rhode Island. None ever became law.

CAVEAT #2: In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 115 S.Ct. 1842, 131 L.Ed.2d 881 (1995), the U.S. Supreme Court held that states may not impose conditions on candidates for Congress beyond those expressly listed in the U.S. Constitution, Art. I, § 2: “Neither Congress nor the States should possess the power to supplement the exclusive qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution.” (Id. at 827.) Presumably a similar rule would apply to candidates for president and the qualifications listed in Art. II, § 1...

CAVEAT #3: ...but not necessarily, because the Electoral College makes presidential elections distinct from those for all other federal offices.

In the oft-criticized Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 121 S.Ct. 525, 148 L.Ed.2d 388 (2000), when the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overrule the Florida Supreme Court, halt all recounts, and in essence declare George W. Bush the winner of Florida’s electors--and thus of the 2000 presidential election--it based the ruling on recognition of every state’s absolute power to control the selection of its own electors:

“The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college. ... the state legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself. ... The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors.” (Id. at 104.)

By this reasoning, because individual citizens have no constitutional right to vote for electors, logically a state should have the power to preclude its citizens from selecting any electors who support a particular presidential candidate, by excluding that candidate from the ballot. Guess we’ll see whether the conservative majority still feels the same way now that the state wants to preclude electors who support their guy.

CAVEAT #4: And if they do, we could be in more trouble than we realize. Picture one of those heavily gerrymandered states in which both houses of the legislature are basically under the permanent  control of a single party. Now imagine that legislature passing a law excluding candidates from any other party from the presidential ballot. Or a law eliminating the popular vote for president entirely, and guaranteeing the automatic selection of electors who support their party’s candidate. All permissible, according to Bush v. Gore.

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This from the hypocrite who declared that not paying taxes “makes me smart.”

(And who still refuses to release any of his tax returns despite innumerable lies promises to do so.)

It is also, of course, yet another “alternative fact” from the Liar-in-Chief:

“Trump has repeatedly advanced this theory, even though officials have explained to him that Amazon’s contracts with the Postal Service are profitable for the agency. ... Asked why Trump thinks Amazon is hurting the Postal Service when experts say it ships so many packages it helps keep the Postal Service in business, [Deputy White House press secretary Lindsay] Walters offered no explanation.”

Trump isn’t even bothering to hide his motivation for spreading damaging falsehoods about Amazon: because he thinks it’s a great way to punish the Washington Post for publishing anything negative:

“The president also incorrectly conflated Amazon with The Post and made clear that his attacks on the retailer were inspired by his disdain for the newspaper’s coverage. ... Trump is typically motivated to lash out at Amazon because of The Post’s coverage of him, officials have said. One person who has discussed the matter repeatedly with the president explained that a negative story in The Post is almost always the catalyst for one of his Amazon rants.”

And he does it because, unfortunately, it works:

“After Axios reported Wednesday that Trump was ‘obsessed’ with Amazon, the company’s shares fell more than 4 percent. They continued their decline Thursday, when Trump tweeted, falling more than 3.8 percent in morning trading.”

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Donald Trump constantly boasts about how wealthy he is. In fact, his supposed success as a businessman was one of his primary talking points during his presidential campaign. When he began running back in 2015, he declared that his “massive” net worth was “in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS.” Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Trump was lying his ass off about that, just like virtually everything else he says.

In 2016, the Trump Organization claimed it made nearly $9.5 billion in sales, earning it the #3 spot on the list of largest privately held New York City companies that Crain’s New York Business compiles. Donald Trump’s recent public filings, however, indicate that the company’s actual revenue that year was “less than a tenth that amount,” $600-$700 million. According to Crain’s, Trump has been reporting inflated revenue since at least 2010: “The numbers that he presented are just flagrantly untrue.”

Trump is losing money elsewhere as well. The Wall Street Journal reports that, while prices at most midtown developments in New York City have remained steady, the average price per square foot for condominiums at Trump Tower has fallen 23% since 2015, and at Trump’s International Hotel and Tower on Central Park the average price per square foot is down 24%. And Crain’s reports that revenue on the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx has fallen by more than $1.1 million in the past two years.

Trump’s eagerness to overstate his own value is hardly new. In 2006, he sued an author who published a book suggesting his net worth was inflated. Unfortunately for him, that landed him in a deposition under oath, where he was forced to admit repeatedly that he had lied over and over again about his financial status, transactions, and pretty much every aspect of his finances.

Trump’s famous attempt to justify his false statements about his net worth:

“My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”

So if one day Trump feels he’s worth $10 billion, he will say he’s worth $10 billion--and insist that is the truth--even with absolutely nothing to back it up besides his “own feelings.”

Gosh, I wonder whether this could possibly have anything to do with Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, like every other presidential candidate in modern history?

By the way, the court threw out Trump’s 2006 lawsuit. He appealed, and lost on appeal too. Trump then declared that it had been a “great success.”

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“I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again? Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!”

In addition to yet again attacking First Amendment rights, Delusional Donald yet again falsely accuses others of doing what he actually did--in this case, paying people to show up to support his own public events.

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Trump admitted lying to the IRS about charitable contributions he never made (also known as “tax fraud”). The IRS fined him for making an illegal political contribution. (You remember, the $25,000 with which he bribed Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who then decided not to investigate claims of fraud against Trump University.) He boasted about successfully evading taxes year after year, bragging “That makes me smart.” The IRS regularly audits him and his businesses (possibly because he somehow always avoids paying any taxes despite his supposed enormous wealth). And, as we all know, he still refuses to release his tax returns.

Naturally, Trump is putting the welfare of the U.S. government and citizens above his own ongoing feud with the IRS.

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A Democrat is asking the Republican committee chairman to demand to see Trump’s tax returns. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

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From one of the most conservative commentators in the country, a staunch neocon who was a counselor in President Bush’s State Department:

“Many conservative foreign-policy and national-security experts saw the dangers last spring and summer, which is why we signed letters denouncing not Trump’s policies but his temperament; not his program but his character.We were right. And friends who urged us to tone it down, to make our peace with him, to stop saying as loudly as we could ‘this is abnormal,’ to accommodate him, to show loyalty to the Republican Party, to think that he and his advisers could be tamed, were wrong. ... Trump, in one spectacular week, has already shown himself one of the worst of our presidents, who has no regard for the truth (indeed a contempt for it), whose patriotism is a belligerent nationalism, whose prior public service lay in avoiding both the draft and taxes, who does not know the Constitution, does not read and therefore does not understand our history, and who, at his moment of greatest success, obsesses about approval ratings, how many people listened to him on the Mall, and enemies.”

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Mr. Trump decided last August to renege on his numerous promises to release his tax returns. As he has done consistently since then, Trump still maintains--falsely--that no one is really interested in seeing his tax returns except the “corrupt” press (despite polls both before and after the election showing 74% of the country wants to see them). Trump also still maintains--falsely--that no one would learn anything from his tax returns.

This is a formal petition on the official White House site. Whenever such a petition garners 100,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House must formally respond with “an official update ... within 60 days.”

This petition hit that target within the first 24 hours.

The total is now around 350,000 and climbing. Feel free to join us!

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This might seem like a typical puff piece... until you read a little more closely and find this gem:

“Mr. Trump held a fundraiser down in New York City a few weeks back and did raise some money, but they have – I would use the word – ‘struggled’ to raise the private funds needed to pay these individuals who are working on behalf of the taxpayers but not being paid by the government.”

Reminder: Throughout the campaign Donald Trump repeatedly boasted of his incredible wealth, touting it as one of the best reasons to vote for him. Despite this, Trump isn’t paying his own people. (And he’s apparently surprised and offended that the U.S. government won’t be paying for them.)