Trump is making clear that whatever is really in his tax returns would be devastating to his campaign.
All the Times has is three pages of Trump’s records from 1995. Everything else is informed speculation, extrapolation, and the word “could,” which appears again and again through the article.
Think about how dangerous that was for the paper. Trump could have released his tax returns and proven them wrong. Trump could have shown their speculation to be mere speculation, and used it as a cudgel to discredit their reporting on his campaign. The Times was far, far out on a limb.But the Times bet correctly. Trump still isn’t releasing his returns. And here’s what that means: whatever is in his returns is worse than what the New York Times is telling the world is in his returns. The Trump campaign has decided it prefers the picture the Times is painting — a picture where Trump didn’t pay taxes for 18 years — to the picture Trump’s real records would paint.
Trump Withheld Alimony From Marla Maples When She Threatened His Presidential Ambitions
When Donald Trump publicly floated the idea of running for president in 1999, his ex-wife Marla Maples made it clear she would spill the beans on her ex-husband if he were to make it to the general election.
.. The reaction from Trump and his attorney was swift and brutal. They launched a full-court effort in the press to discredit Maples and withheld an alimony payment to “send a message.” The episode illustrates how Trump uses character assassination and threats to quash any opposition. Maples has largely remained silent on Trump’s 2016 candidacy.
“I mean you have a confidentiality agreement; you’re not allowed to talk,” continued Trump. “And she goes out and says, ‘I wouldn’t this, I wouldn’t that.’ So I say, ‘Why am I paying money to somebody that’s violated an agreement?’ But we’ll see what happens in the future and if in the future she continues I guess I`ll have to take very strong measures.”
.. ‘Why now are Mr. Trump’s representatives maligning Ms. Maples?’ and the truth is clear,” Beslow stated. “They’re hoping to discredit Ms. Maples, so that if she chooses to say anything in the future, Mr. Trump can shrug it off as the words of an angry person whose intelligence should be questioned.”
.. Trump’s lawyer then claimed Trump had no intention of withholding alimony, but wanted to send a message.
“It was never our intention to withhold the $1.5 million check,” Goldberg said to theNew York Post. “Our purpose was to send a message that she was playing close to the fire. That should slow her down.”
.. “It’s the sign of real insecurity that Donald Trump feels the need to authorize his mouthpiece to strike out against an ex-wife who he has basically been holding financially hostage. ”
.. Meanwhile, Maples’ lawyer, Beslow, took a last shot at Trump.
“Ms. Maples left Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump did not leave Ms. Maples,” Beslow said.
The New York Times risked legal trouble to publish Donald Trump’s tax return
Baquet said during a panel discussion at Harvard that if the Times’ lawyers advised him not to publish Trump tax returns, he would argue that such information is vital to the public interest because the real estate mogul’s “whole campaign is built on his success as a businessman and his wealth.”
.. “The courts could say, if the public thinks the tax returns are so important, let it demand that the candidate authorize the IRS to release them on pain of losing votes,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a privacy expert and professor at Harvard Law School.
Trump’s Debate Flameout
It takes a tremendous ego and a healthy dose of hubris to believe that you can simply bluster your way through a presidential debate, but if anyone thinks that way, it’s no surprise it’s the uniquely underqualified and overblown king of bragging and whining: Donald J. Trump.
.. “Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans, and he made sure that the people who worked for him understood that was the policy.”
Trump’s response was not that they hadn’t discriminated, but rather that “many, many other companies throughout the country” were also sued, that the suit was settled “with no admission of guilt” and that “it’s just one of those things.”
No, Donald, racial discrimination isn’t “just one of those things.”
.. He invoked his euphemistic lament that the country needs more “law and order,” which is simply code for flooding poor and minority communities with more officers and giving them a nod of approval to crack down on these communities more harshly.
.. three undercover New York City police officers approached Patrick M. Dorismond, an unarmed, 26-year-old black father of two and asked to buy drugs. This made Dorismond angry, just as it would have made me angry. The incident escalated into a scuffle and one of the officers shot and killed Dorismond.
.. The maleficent Giuliani took the extraordinary step of releasing Dorismond’s sealed juvenile records to show that the dead man who became upset over being propositioned for drugs was “no altar boy.” In truth it was just another attempt to blame and defame the victim.
.. “More than 70 percent think he has flubbed race relations. And most blacks and Hispanics frown on his anti-crime policies.”
.. Trump’s response was not to deny the charge or to decry the language, but to resurrect his old hostility with Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie O’Donnell? That’s when you know the man is grasping at straws.