A quick review of social media feeds belonging to Greg Raths, Young Kim, Michelle Steele, the OC GOP, Andrew Do, John Moorlach and a host of OC GOP city council/school board candidates and even the conservative Flash Report all have one thing in common this morning — not a single response regarding the blockbuster NY Times story on President Trump’s 15 years of Tax Returns — where he paid $750 in 2017 and nothing at all for 10 of 15 years.
It’s not just them.
Nothing from Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. Fox News has it as the second story on its website and its a complete defense of Trump’s use of depreciation and tax credits, but no reference to a $70,000 write off for hairstyling.
Here’s more from the NY Times.
Among the key findings of The Times’s investigation:
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Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750.
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He has reduced his tax bill with questionable measures, including a $72.9 million tax refund that is the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
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Many of his signature businesses, including his golf courses, report losing large amounts of money — losses that have helped him to lower his taxes.
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The financial pressure on him is increasing as hundreds of millions of dollars in loans he personally guaranteed are soon coming due.
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Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft and $70,000 in hairstyling for television.
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Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill.
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As president, he has received more money from foreign sources and U.S. interest groups than previously known. The records do not reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
NY Times editor in chief Dean Baquet (a former LA Times EIC) defended the publication of the story now:
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.
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Some will raise questions about publishing the president’s personal tax information. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment allows the press to publish newsworthy information that was legally obtained by reporters even when those in power fight to keep it hidden. That powerful principle of the First Amendment applies here.
Two additional notes after last night’s story broke. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and White House advisor, deleted every Tweet in his Twitter feed without purging the account itself. Is this a “but he emails” moment from the Trump administration?
And, former Trump 2016 and Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale was taken into custody after getting drunk, becoming agitated, and threatening suicide at his Florida home and was admitted to the hospital against his will. From the Sun-Sentinel:
Brad Parscale, former campaign manager to President Donald Trump, was in the middle of an armed standoff with police at his Fort Lauderdale home when unexpected help arrived: Officer Christopher Wilson, a personal friend.
Fort Lauderdale police on Monday released records detailing how Sunday’s standoff unfolded at Parscale’s home, starting with his wife’s call for help and ending with officers detaining Parscale for psychiatric evaluation. Officers recovered 10 firearms from his home, including several pistols, a shotgun and rifle, and saw that Parscale’s wife had bruises on her arm and face.
Brad Parscale’s standoff with police officers happened Sunday afternoon in the 2300 block of DeSoto Drive, where Parscale, 44, lives with his wife, Candice Parscale.
The confrontation with officers started after an argument between the couple. Candice Parscale says her husband chambered a round into a pistol during a heated exchange between the two.
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Records show officers recovered 10 guns from inside the household, “including three long guns.”
Brad Parscale then was involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act, a law that allows authorities to detain a person deemed mentally unstable and a danger to themselves or others at a mental health facility for up to 72 hours.
Twitter response from the Right Wing seem more interested in seeking “who leaked” the president’s records to the NY Times.
Could it have been Parscale? He’s been depressed for the past two weeks after being replaced as campaign manager. Some of my friends on the left actually think it was the First Lady — who won’t get a generous divorce settlement from a re-negotiated pre-nup if the President’s debt far outweighs his holdings. A Trump loss in November and a quickie divorce in early 2021 isn’t exactly fiction.
So come on OC Republicans. Show us your backbone! You have to look OC voters in the eye who paid more in taxes than our President has.