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NICE TRY: Trump can run, but he can’t hide his taxes, says DC Court of Appeals

NICE TRY: Trump can run, but he can’t hide his taxes, says DC Court of Appeals

BLEEDING CASH: Trump campaign fundraising off to a dismal start

Trump loses again. He’s losing so much, he must be tired of losing.

It’s been a rough month for Dirty Donald. First, he lost a motion to postpone his deposition in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit. Then his favorite special prosecutor, John Durham, lost yet again.

Then he lost a motion to have Letitia James’s fraud suit against the Trump Organization reassigned to another judge.

Then there was the Congressional subpoena. And now the DC Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier three-panel judge ruling denying that Trump can keep his tax returns from the House Ways and Means Committee.

The lawsuit goes back to 2019, when Democratic Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal requested that the IRS furnish six years of Trump’s returns for oversight purposes. Though the IRS was legally bound by law to comply, it did not, sparking the legal battle.

The one term, twice impeached ex prez now has a week to furnish the returns, during which time he’ll almost assuredly ask the Supreme Court to intervene, but it has no obligation to do so.

Trump likely has more to fear from a review of his taxes than pure criminal liability – though there’s plenty of reason to fear that, too, considering that there’s a vast amount of evidence already indicating that Trump is a tax cheat and that the Trump Organization is at least complicit in money-laundering operations.

More than anything, Dirty Donald fears being exposed. Trump once sued author Timothy L. O’Brien for his 2005 book TrumpNation because in it he stated that Trump was not a billionaire, but likely worth $150-$250 million. The lawsuit was later dismissed since Trump could not prove that O’Brien’s assertion was incorrect.

Trump has a history of inflating his wealth, from when he used to lie to the editors of Forbes starting in the 1980s, to his lies about property evaluations, to his claims during the 2016 campaign that he was worth $10 billion.

While he’s made some clearly good deals in his lifetime – Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, Mar-a-Lago – he’s also made some truly terrible ones – Trump Airlines, his ill-fated football league venture, overpaying for the Plaza Hotel in New York, getting in over his head with the Taj Mahal, etc.,etc., etc.

Even his golf courses – often promoted as Trump Organization jewels – are not necessarily winners, as they can be very expensive to run and we can’t really be sure if they make any money.

Yes, Trump may not have a heart to strike at, but he does have an Achilles heel: he’s terrified that someone will pull the curtain back and reveal what a fraud he is.

The decision as to whether or not to make the returns public (should Ways and Means actually obtain them) is still being determined, with some, like N.J. Rep Bill Pascrell Jr, adamantly insisting that the committee do so.

 

Let’s hope the Dems do so: I want to see if Trump is not only a political bum, but a financial one too.

Dirty Donald almost certainly hates Ross. And that’s why you should follow Ross on Twitter! @RossRosenfeld

Ross Rosenfeld

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