What's Hiding In Trump's Tax Returns That Makes The GOP So Nervous?

When journalists start a report with "Trump said..." it should only be the introduction of a sentence about lying or flip-flopping. It doesn't matter what Trump says. What Trump says is a moment in time without relevance to anything past or future and just another example of how he lies and cheats. And, as Greg Sargent pointed out yesterday in the Washington Post, all he'd have to do-- if he wasn't so grand and pig-headed-- is learn how to talk like a Republican political automaton and his party establishment would be instantly united behind him. For instance, posits Sargent, Trump can stop calling for mass deportations and instead say, "I’ll enforce the law" and he can claim we need to "strengthen" entitlements, preferred bipartisan conservatalk for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits to "save" the programs.

Early today, asked what tax rate he paid, he told Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos that his tax rate is "none of your business" and admitted "I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible." Talking his way out of his refusal to submit his tax returns might be a little tricky for Trump. Romney, in fact, has called the refusal disqualifying. His Facebook entry:

It is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service. Tax returns provide the public with its sole confirmation of the veracity of a candidate's representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest. Further, while not a likely circumstance, the potential for hidden inappropriate associations with foreign entities, criminal organizations, or other unsavory groups is simply too great a risk to ignore for someone who is seeking to become commander-in-chief.

Mr. Trump says he is being audited. So? There is nothing that prevents releasing tax returns that are being audited. Further, he could release returns for the years immediately prior to the years under audit. There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump's refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them. Given Mr. Trump's equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it's a bombshell of unusual size.

(Anticipating inquiries regarding my own tax release history, I released my 2010 tax returns in January of 2012 and I released my 2011 tax returns as soon as they were completed, in September of 2012.)

You didn't ever really think a crooked businessman and tax cheat like Trump would release his tax returns, did you? Instead, he flip-flopping and playing media games about it leaving voters confused-- as usual-- about what he's actually doing. He announced he would release the returns when the irrelevant IRS audit was over and then rescinded and said he won't release them and then backtracked and said, just wait and he'll release them, all in a 24 hour period. "There's nothing to learn from them," he told an Associated Press reporter. He says he's apprehensive his critics will analyze the returns and make an issue of them. You think? That's already started and his flip-flopping isn't helping. I wonder if he thinks stoking the fight with Ryan for his base will help get their minds off the tax returns.

Timothy O'Brien is a big-time, distinguished journalist who has tangled with Trump before and who did see Trump's tax returns-- and wrote about it for Bloomberg yesterday, pointing out that "as someone who saw Trump’s federal tax returns about a decade ago as part of a legal action in which he sued me for libel (the suit was later dismissed), I think there probably are some things to be learned from them."

The tax returns my lawyers and I reviewed were sealed, and a court order prevents me from speaking or writing about the specifics of what I saw. I can say that Trump routinely delayed-- for months on end-- producing those documents, and when they finally arrived they were so heavily redacted that they looked like crossword puzzles. The litigation ran on for five years, and during that time we had to petition the court to compel Trump to hand over unredacted versions of the tax returns-- which he ultimately did.

So despite Trump’s statements to the contrary, here are some general questions that a full release of at least several years of his tax returns might usefully answer:

1) Income: Trump has made the size of his fortune a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, implying that it’s a measure of his success as a businessman. He has also correctly noted that the income shown on his tax returns isn’t a reflection of his total wealth. Even so, income is a basis for assessing some of the foundations of any individual’s wealth-- and would certainly reflect the financial wherewithal of the businesses in which Trump is involved.

After Fortune’s Shawn Tully dug into Trump’s financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission and an accompanying personal balance sheet his campaign released, he noted in March that Trump “appears to have overstated his income, by a lot, which could be the reason he has so far tried to avoid releasing his returns.” Tully said that Trump apparently boosted his income in the documents by conflating his various businesses’ revenue with his personal income. Trump didn’t respond to Tully’s assessment, but he could clear up all of that by releasing his tax returns.

2) Business Activities: Trump has long claimed that his company, the Trump Organization, employs thousands of people. He has also criticized Fortune 500 companies for operating businesses overseas at the expense of jobs for U.S. workers. Trump’s returns would show how active he and his businesses are globally-- and would help substantiate the actual size and scope of his operation.

3) Charitable Giving: Trump has said that he’s a generous benefactor to a variety of causes-- especially war veterans-- even though it’s been hard to find concrete evidence to support the assertion. Other examples of major philanthropic largess from Trump have also been elusive. Trump could release his tax returns and put the matter to rest.

4) Tax Planning: There’s been global attention focused on the issue of how politicians and the wealthy use tax havens and shell companies to possibly hide parts of their fortunes from authorities. If released, Trump’s returns would make clear whether or not he used such vehicles.

5) Transparency and Accountability: Trump is seeking the most powerful office in the world. Some of the potential conflicts of interest or financial pressures that may arise if he reaches the White House would get an early airing in a release of his tax returns.

For the last 40 years, presidential candidates have released their returns. Trump, of course, has portrayed himself as the un-candidate, the guy who bucks convention. But disclosing tax returns is a valuable political tradition that’s well worth preserving.

And goats on his New Jersey golf course so he can get a tax break due to farmers and ranchers. Republican voters love... a cheat, huh?

Trump’s golf clubs in Bedminster and Colts Neck both receive the break and pay reduced property taxes on the part of the land devoted to agriculture. The Bedminster course includes 113 acres of hay production and eight goats, while the Colts Neck course has 40 acres of hay plus stands of trees, according to tax-break applications filed with local governments.

...“This is a good example of Donald Trump farming the government,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the state’s Sierra Club chapter, who accuses the developer of “not paying his fair share” by using the incentive for a golf course instead of a legitimate farm.

The Real Donald Trumpf Has Indeed Stood Up-- And It's President Gas!

In the music business there were people just as inherently dishonest, narcissistic and predatory Trumpf. I managed to avoid them. Because of the damn media's lust for ratings, Trump is impossible to avoid. I'm glad when he exposes and attacks them I remember how much they deserve it for imposing him on the rest of us. Yesterday, writing for the Daily Beast, Michael D'Antonio examined the origins of the exaggerations and the unverifiable boasts. In fact, he pins it on a NY Times reporter, long-forgotten Iowan Judy Klemesrud, who died, prematurely, 30 years and one month ago. She wrote in her Trumpf fawning puff piece in 1976 that "he looks ever so much like Robert Redford" and quoted his spurious claim that he was "worth $200 million" and possessed, more importantly, the mysterious quality he called "flair." A man with flair, said Trump, is "bound to be successful in New York." Thus began, writes D'Antonio, what might be called the longest-running publicity con of our time, highlighted by "his lifelong effort to exploit reporters who were happy to collude in promoting him as an exciting and important person on the flimsiest of evidence." D'Antonio wasn't impressed with Klemesrud's approach. I guess he would have liked to have had her say "hey everybody, the emperor has no clothes."

What wasn’t gold in Donald’s life she presented as glittery and glamorous. He had “dazzling white teeth.” He dated “slinky fashion models,” frequented the fanciest clubs, and dashed around the city in a Cadillac driven by a “gun-toting, laid-off New York City policeman who doubles as a body guard.” Why would a 30-year-old real estate promoter need an armed chauffer? Why would the driver reveal he was carrying a gun? Klemesrud never said, but the detail added a frisson of exciting danger to the portrait.

  Reporting on a day in the life of Donald Trump, Klemesrud noted that he spent time on his car phone-- a true rarity of the day-- and earned commission of $140,000 (equivalent to $585,000 today) by helping a friend sell some property. The job required all of 20 minutes of his time. Donald claimed to be shy about publicity and personally conservative. But he dressed in a mod burgundy suit and a white shirt with his initials-- DJT-- sewn into his cuff in matching colored thread. He wore patent leather shoes, also dyed burgundy, and invited the reporter and a photographer to tour his posh apartment. [Today his creepy, smarmy son Eric is exactly like him.]

As a foundational document, the first newspaper account of Donald Trump’s life is a classic example of the showmanship and hype that would keep him in the public eye for decades to come. Most of the grand projects trumpeted in the article never came to pass. The $200 million fortune Trump claimed was actually built by his father. The slinky fashion models were never named. Klemesrud let Trump say he was of Swedish descent, when his family actually came from Germany and Scotland. And Trump’s connections to powerful politicians, observed as he dined at the swanky restaurant 21, were in fact the product of his father’s efforts.

A masterpiece of shading, atmospherics, and unverified suggestions of greatness, the article gave Trump the Times’ imprimatur. He was, by virtue of gracing the paper’s pages, important. It led to a TV appearance where the host declared the unaccomplished Trump a rising young “mogul.” A torrent of articles and broadcast reports followed and became, as they accumulated, proof that Donald was a very important person. Along the way Trump began to achieve some real successes, including the renovation of the old Commodore Hotel and the construction of his garish Trump Tower. However most of his grandiose proposals including plans for the world’s tallest building, a huge convention center, and a football stadium, never got off the drawing board.

Remarkably, Trump got away with some obvious whoppers. He presented his first wife Ivana as an athlete who had competed in the Sapporo Olympics as a member of the Czech ski team. Apparently no one in the press discovered that Czechoslovakia hadn’t sent a team to the games. The deception remains on the public record to this day. Next came Trump’s use of fake personas—John Baron and John Miller—who told reporters things he couldn’t say himself. It was Baron who defended Trump against complaints over the destruction of artwork when he demolished an old department store. It was Miller who shared the news that a great many famous and beautiful women were interested in dating him.

If much of what Trump offered to reporters and TV presenters was manipulative and deceptive, they were often willing participants in the dance. His claims of stupendous wealth were impossible to verify but they gave Robin Leach something to offer viewers of his program, which was called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. When Trump claimed that members of the British family were inquiring about buying property from him, it didn’t matter that Buckingham Palace would never address such a statement. What mattered was the excitement tabloid readers might feel as they imagined seeing Princes Diana coming and going in Manhattan.

...Besides fake personas and gutter-brawling, Trump’s tricks include making brash assertions that cannot be fact checked, and brazen claims larded with so many caveats that their dissolve under examination. His claim that the Mexican government is “sending” rapists and murders to cross the border into the United States was not offered as a statement that can be supported by fact. It was a play for attention and it worked. The same dynamic applied when he brayed about President Obama’s birth certificate, implying that the president might not have a legitimate claim to the office. The president’s birth status was never in doubt, but birtherism won Trump lots of publicity. Trump said he had backed an investigator who turned up important information. Was this true? Who knows? But it was a good story.

...In the end, Donald Trump has always been about the stories he tells and that the press repeats with limited fact checking. He is a self promoter devoted to the long game. At many moments reporters and the public at large have seemed to enjoy being fooled by the showman, appreciating his con artist gifts, especially when they cause no apparent harm. People loved P.T. Barnum for the same reason. The process seems less entertaining when Trump seeks to delegitimize a president or appeals to the fears people harbor about immigrants. But the polls suggest that Trump may yet talk his way into the GOP nomination for president. It all depends on how long the voters remain amused.

After eating New York City real estate, media and society for lunch, the Republican Party was as formidable as... an olive in a Martini. He's danced circles around them with his eyes closed. The Establishment never believed an easy-to-see through buffoon like Trumpf could ever capture their party. And now they suddenly realize he has-- thanks in great part to their own role in carefully creating a base built on anger, frustration and sheer stupidity. They claim, via magic-thinking, that Cruz is beating him in Iowa but that he's got South Carolina and New Hampshire in the bag. And by even more bizarre magic-thinking they are convincing themselves that Marco Rubio, who used to be a Mormon, can beat him in Nevada.

Roughly three-in-four GOP insiders in New Hampshire and South Carolina, many of whom have been repeatedly and consistently skeptical of Trump’s chances, now say he would win their states if their primaries were held today.

“For the first time, I think the Trump phenomenon is becoming real,” a South Carolina Republican said.

“I do not think the media or the party establishment have a real grasp on how deep the anger and frustration is around the country,” that insider said when most recently surveyed last week. “After what have been ‘missteps’ by Trump in comparison of previous elections, he seems to have only strengthened. I still do not know if he can sustain it into the New Year-- but after the Paris attacks, his stance on illegal immigration and unverified people coming into our nation has real impact.”

The Wall Street Journal, in accessing the state of Hate Talk Radio's role in the Republican Party talks about how the tables have turned on the party's establishment. 98% of Hate Talk Radio listeners (i.e., everyone but the people who listen for the comedy value) "think the country is headed in the wrong direction, a view regularly reinforced on the airwaves by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and other talk-radio hosts who don’t have much nice to say about GOP leaders in Washington" and who are professional malcontents, who have become multimillionaires through a business model bemoaning the state of the world.

Those views are informing the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

The most avid conservative talk-radio listeners ranked retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as their top pick, followed by celebrity businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Just 3% gave the nod to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the heir to the party’s longest-standing political dynasty, and only a third of these voters said they were even open to voting for Mr. Bush, down from half in September.

Republican presidential contenders would be unwise to write off this bloc; roughly a third of Republican primary voters strongly identify with conservative talk radio, about 10 percentage points higher than the share of GOP primary voters who consider themselves moderate or liberal, according to the survey conducted by the Democrats at Hart Research Associates and the Republicans at Public Opinion Research.

It’s hardly a surprise that these anti-establishment views have upended the GOP-- and made compromise in Washington that much harder-- but the extent of shift will continue to reverberate for years to come in how Republicans deal with issues including foreign policy, taxes and regulation.

A narrow 52% majority of Republican primary voters disagreed with the statement that “the economic and political systems in the country are stacked against people like” them, compared with the 45% who agreed. But the numbers flipped for the 52% of GOP primary voters who named Messrs. Carson or Trump as their top pick for the nomination.

That deep distrust of big institutions could present major headwinds for the next commander in chief, even if he or she is a Republican.

If that last documentary left you for more information about how as truly a disgusting human being as Trumpf is, could be riding so high in the race for the presidency... well, take a look at a documentary that Trumpf has worked very hard it keep people from seeing: