Yep. All this will do is yet again steal the front page for a few days so he can do more evil shit unnoticed, while in the long run letting him deflect calls to release more recent returns by saying we’ve already seen them – while bashing the media for publishing the return he very likely released.
His goons will also straw man the entire “release your returns” argument by pointing to this return and saying it’s all about liberals being against making money and paying as little tax as possible – instead of the legit concerns of Russian ties and illegal tax dodges that releasing the ones from the last few years may well show.
I fear this is just enough of a pressure release to make him able to ignore the whole issue as “old news” so we NEVER see his recent returns. Once again, we’ve been played. Depressing is right.
And yet we got none of that. We got two pages of the most benign tax information possible, and which largely shows favorable information about Trump; he made a good deal of money, and he paid a chunk of taxes that he can claim is both “fair” because it’s a lot of money, but also “unfair” because it’s mostly alternative minimum tax.
Trump leaked this himself, as a PR ploy, distraction, and honeypot so he can accuse his enemies of illegal leaks.
I had a feeling this was going to be dissapointing when I saw her first tweet. If it wasn’t tax documents (all the forms, not just the 1040) for the past few years, it shouldn’t have been hyped up the way it was. All it did was bolster Trump and weaken Maddow, who is doing some of the best journalism right now with the way she’s digging into Trump’s Russian connections. It wasn’t quite Capone’s vault, but it wasn’t too far off.
Journalists right now have to be completely on target at all times in all ways. One slip and they control the story. There are 60 million folks willing to listen to lying bullshit instead of actual journalism, and they will take any shot they can to discredit journalists who are digging too deep and asking the right questions. An unremarkable tax return from 2005 wasn’t any sort of smoking gun, and they should have questioned immediately where it came from instead of rushing to get it on air and hyping it up. Other than the fact of the AMT being the only reason he had to pay tax and his wanting to do away with that, this has to be rated a fail.
Maddow’s good enough to keep things going, but this wasn’t helpful at a time her visibility was rising and she was getting serious traction on this stuff.
I don’t know US law, but if it’s anything like Canadian privacy law, the government still isn’t allow to reveal personal information even if it has already been revealed by another source. The statute that provides the government the right to collect your personal information will specify how they are allowed to use it, unless it states that it can be released under certain circumstances it can’t.
If Trump himself wanted to prove that was his real 2005 tax return and wrote to the IRS himself asking for a letter to confirm it, I imagine they could send a letter to him that he would then be free to share. Anything beyond that would be a crazy minefield at absolute best, but more likely obviously illegal.
[Edited for clarity because of @waetherman’s response - the government can’t share private information it collected by a journalist can certainly share Trump’s tax return that was dropped off in their mail (though obviously they should be careful in doing so {it appears Maddow was appropriate careful})]
I don’t know who the “you” is that you’re referring to, but in the US there is no law against what Maddow did. First, there is no criminal statute about revealing personal information. Second, while there is a tort (cause of action) for public disclosure of private facts, those facts would have to be “offensive” and there is an exception for information that is newsworthy, and that is exception is particularly broad for public figures.
Follow that thought through. You already know that won’t work. So the fact that it worked for the 2005 taxes is strongly indicative of the source of the leak.
I thought she did a pretty good job of balancing it all out. It was important and she spelled out why. She also had a big caveat that this was probably leaked by Trump. I think she gave it the attention it deserved but also explained what other questions were not answered and really put it out there that we need his current and complete tax filings to truly understand what business entanglements he has.
I felt the hype was a disappointment. Most trumpers are going to look at this and say “See…he made $150mil and paid $38mil which is like 25%…see he paid his fair share!”
And yes, those numbers are misleading; and the trumpers will be ignoring the huge question marks and missing information here. BUT…facts never bothered them before so why would they now?
There isn’t enough here to do more than cast even more skepticism for those already skeptical, and it further cements support from those who already are supporting him. A deeper divide is not good.
Sorry, the “you” I meant was the IRS, and that was indeed confusing. I meant that the government that has collected personal information from the public can’t release that information even if the information is available through another source.
