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Pulitzer prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston returns to discuss the Trump tax returns he found in his home mailbox, why they matter, and what they tell us.Johnston revealed the returns on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, and we open with discussion of the way she teased and hyped the “exclusive” and tried to tie the tax documents to her speculative narrative about Trump-Russia. His article, with links to the tax forms, is here.
Johnston has choice words for press secretary Sean Spicer, who breached standards by releasing Johnston’s documents to other media during Maddow’s show, and proceeds to say that Trump himself “has no moral scruples of any kind. Period. Stop.” He cites prior examples of Trump as a probable tax cheat, one of many reasons he has reneged on disclosure.
We go through the tax form’s entries, and Johnston comments on likely sources of income in the filing, the $103 million deduction that’s probably carried forward from his $900 million losses on Atlantic City casinos, and other details. He corrects sloppy and false statements about the filings that have been made by the White House.
We reference two of Johnston’s books: The Making of Donald Trump (2016) and Free Lunch (2008). Check out his new independent media site here.