Brian Stelter warned us, ” Trump will call this ‘fake news.’ Here’s the truth. Stelter reported that the Times had legal access to Trump’s taxes and was able to verify the documents.
Stelter wrote: The New York Times is reporting that it has obtained tax-return data going back over two decades for President Donald Trump, and alleges that in 2016 the President paid only $750 in income tax.”
Laurence Tribe @tribelaw, Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, reminded us: “One thing not to overlook in the blockbuster NYT report on Trump’s taxes is his $410M in personal debt. That represents some pretty massive leverage by people or governments with interests that aren’t necessarily ours as Americans. Kompromat, anyone?”
Will Trump lie about this and call it “fake news”? Yes, indeed.
Mary L. Trump, Ph.D., who admitted to providing the Times with documents on an earlier Trump finances story, Tweeted today: “The extraordinary and brilliant @susannecraig and @russbuettner strike again. We owe them a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.”
A trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, she had this to say about Trump’s lies:
“The lies may become true in his mind as soon as he utters them, but they’re still lies. It’s just another way for him to see what he can get away with. And so far, he’s gotten away with everything.” [From page 205 of Too Much and Never Enough]
Creating the fake news angle: Lesley Stahl said in an interview with PBS News’ Judy Woodruff that Trump told her he keeps hammering the press so that when they write negative stories no one will believe them. She said:
After the election in 2016 she asked, “. . .why do you keep hammering at this?'”
His answer: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’ (Lesley Stahl interview/ Real Clear Politics.)
CNN reported: “In his first 869 days as President, Donald Trump said 10,796 things that were either misleading or outright false, according to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker. Do the math and you get this: The President of the United States is saying 12 untrue things a day. This was on June 10, 2019.
NB: Photo from New York Daily News: August 6, 2018
Copyright 2020 Rita Watson