Today, September the 28th, 2020 the New York Times exclusive headline states that President Trump’s tax returns “Show chronic losses and years of tax avoidance”. It’s a lengthy article – carefully written to state bad sounding parts of the truth very loudly while minimizing some key background information. The Trump Organization has stated that much of the information within the New York Times exclusive is incorrect. The Freedom First Press has not seen the information that the New York Times claims to have – but we would like to offer some insights into how this story is being covered by conservative and leftist news organizations.
From The New York Times
- States how little President Trump owed after filing his 2015 and 2016 tax returns ($750/yr)
- Explain that financial pressures may be the reason his 2020 election campaign is doing so poorly.
- Discredits Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten by postulating that he has misinterpreted a rudimentary tax code.
- Discredits President Trump by opining that he merely projects an image of being a billionaire while the truth is that he may be broke.
- Further discredits President Trump by suggesting that his 2016 campaign was an effort to make money.
- The New York Times then takes the reader through a summary of several of President Trump’s business dealings – each interspersed with insults about his character and business acumen.
From the Trump Organization and The Daily Wire
- President Trump immediately calls The New York Times ‘fake news’.
- President Trump and Mr. Garten state that the figures are incorrect.
- The Daily Wire points out that there are NO indications of ILLEGAL financial actions.
- Furthermore, The Daily wire explains that some the seemingly frivolous (70k for hair stylists) of expenses were justifiable because he was a television personality during that time period. It’s not uncommon for television studios to have staff hair and makeup artists.
- The Daily Wire point out that there was no evidence of unknown ties to the Russian Government.
- The Trump Organization states that they requested the documents from the New York Times, however the request was denied.
The opinion of the Freedom First Press is as follows.
If any of this appears to be reminiscent of the 2016 election cycle, that’s because it is. During his 2016 campaign, leftist media groups repeatedly accused President Trump of various financial misdeeds. I’m actually surprised that they waited until almost October to bring this up again. This may be the cover-up story that media groups like the New York Times will use as an excuse to largely ignore the debates. Many expect Joe Biden’s performance to be lacking in enthusiasm to be generous.
One of my criticisms of the New York Times report is that although it does serve the purpose of taking the reader through seemingly endless accounts of financial irresponsibility, it fails to deliver on anything concrete. To be clear, there is no accusation of a crime. They could have been more convincing by delivering a concise summary of the numbers. They did offer a graphic summary of the financial story, but put it together in a clunky quasi computer program that has to be scrolled through. It is just as confusing as the written article, which could be part of the goal – to confuse the reader.
If the New York Times has any financial documents, they should release them to the Trump Organization and to the American people. I suspect that the information they have is as authentic as the Steele Dossier, which was found to be largely devoid of facts.
This stunning revelation by the New York Times fails to deliver on another key performance metric, IMPORTANCE. The authors would have you believe that 2020 will be remembered as the year that Trump’s taxes were shown to the world, and that his sham of financial mismanagement and wealth exaggeration were finally exposed. If that’s what we find in the history books then we’ve truly lost touch with reality.
