After four years of legal wrangling, Donald Trump’s tax returns for the last several years have finally been released to the public. The self-professed billionaire only paid a million dollars in federal taxes during his presidency. And in two of those years, he paid nothing! How’s that for a great American?
Most of his coalminers, who earn 5 figures yearly, pay almost 5 figures in federal income tax unless they have a lot of dependents. But their darling billionaire? He skates. I wonder how they feel about him now. But not really. Remember, by Donald’s own admission, he could shoot somebody in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and his constituency would still vote for him.
I’m not a forensic accountant or a legal expert. But I don’t have to be to know in my heart (even if I can’t prove it) that Donald Trump is worthy of criminal prosecution. He’s cheated at everything in his life. Rumor has it he hired a smart guy to take his SATs. A golf journalist wrote an entire book about how he cheats on the golf course. He conned a bunch of people into paying thousands of dollars to learn about real estate investing from hired teachers who’d allegedly never flipped a property in their lives. On what planet would this guy be honest about his taxes?
There’s something else Trump’s tax filings reveal. If they’re to be believed, Donald Trump is a failure as a businessman. All Trump does is lose money! Even though he profits handsomely from his inheritance via both capital gains and dividends, he still nets out below zero most years owing to all the money his businesses lose.
Think of it this way metaphorically: Trump’s father left Donald a huge mansion. And each year it falls further into decay. But it’s so big and stately, the house will remain until the day he dies. Fred Trump, that pedestrian outer boro builder, provided for his son so well that Donald can continue to run his businesses into the ground and still have a helicopter, airplane, and a trophy wife (if you like mannequins or blow-up dolls).
With all that said, there is one thing that Donald Trump is good at (beyond conning people and not paying his bills): He’s an expert at delaying the inevitable. Look how long it took Congress to convince the system to release his tax information.
Donald Trump is 76 years old — and a morbidly obese man who eats fast food. He could drop dead tomorrow from a heart attack. But even if he doesn’t, how long do you think it will take to finally convict Trump given his history for delaying the results of legal actions — and his extremely deep though apparently ever-shrinking pockets?
The race is on. Will Donald end up in prison or die first? My money’s on the latter. He will successfully ward off sentencing until his final day on this earth. Roy Cohn, himself an abhorrent figure, taught him well. Deny, deny deny. And delay, delay, delay. All these legal initiatives that would put Trump in his rightful place are a waste of time — unless the tsunami of bad publicity finally awakens the Republican party to the reality that it can’t back this con man for the next presidential election.
I myself was a tax cheat — and one who not only paid double when I was caught — but served a year in federal prison for my crime. I have little doubt that Trump passes the smell test on that front. And of course, I think he should be given a vacation at MCC federal prison the way I was. But if the American public and the Republican party can just finally run him off, I’ll be satisfied.
I’m in the middle of reading Maggie Haberman’s incredibly deep dive into the essence of a very shallow man. I’ve read several volumes on Trump and have found only one salient tidbit I didn’t know about before.
At one point in time, Trump (who is a notorious non-reader) had but one book in his entire house. And what was that book? An anthology of Adolph Hitler’s speeches. What would that tell you?
Comments / 291