When I read the news yesterday that two pages of Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return were sent to reporter David Cay Johnston and shown on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC, I immediately wondered if this was a false flag operation. The whole thing was just too contrived. Especially when the White House immediately verified the authenticity of the leak, and bragged about how much Trump had paid in taxes. And why just two pages? If this was a real leak, where are the rest of the pages, which might show to whom Trump owes money (perhaps some Russians?).
Apparently, I was not the first person to think this.
Even Johnston suspected as much, saying to Maddow, “It’s entirely possible that Donald sent this to me. Donald Trump has over the years leaked all sorts of things. … Donald has a long history of leaking material about himself when he thinks it’s in his interest.” We all know that Trump frequently posed as his own publicist.
Trump’s comments about leaks have always been hypocritical. Just a few weeks ago, Trump called for a criminal investigation into all the leaks coming from his administration, blaming “political sabotage” by Democratic anti-Trump bureaucrats.
But during the campaign, Trump announced “I love WikiLeaks” because they were leaking internal emails from the Democratic party that helped him. But once he became president, he started attacking leakers again.
UPDATE: Trump condemns the leak of the tax return as “fake news” after the White House verified that the return is authentic. Maybe the “fake” part is the leak — because Trump knows that he leaked his own tax return?
11 Comments
IK, here is an update from the reporter who got the tax returns.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-source-leaked-tax-return-journalist-ho-received/story?id=46140409
IMO Maddox made a fool of herself, artificially building up anticipation to get ratings. The return was nothing, complete non news.
Also, another thing about this was when Johnston appeared with Maddox and O’Donnel and said that Melanie’s income source was from performing sleazy porn. To me that disqualifies anything else he says. Clearly he was trying to make himself into a liberal icon or something.
Can you imagine if anyone said Michelle’s income was from performing in sleazy porn. It would be all we heard about.
So much for honest journalism. Anyway here’s the link that contains a video clip so don’t accuse me of fake news.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/15/reporter-who-gave-maddow-trumps-tax-return-just-accused-melania-of-doing-sneaky-porn-video/
PSgt, I won’t accuse you of “fake news”, but I will accuse you of sloppy news. First of all, her name is Melania, not Melanie (and it is Maddow, not Maddox). Second, he said “sneaky porn” not “sleazy porn”. Third, he never actually said that her income source in 2005 was porn (whether sneaky or sleazy) as you say.
He did say that she had done “sneaky porn”. I’m not really sure what he meant by “sneaky porn”, but it might have been this — http://nypost.com/2016/08/01/melania-trumps-girl-on-girl-photos-from-racy-shoot-revealed/ — which is a pretty racy soft-porn photoshoot of Melania with another woman, both naked in bed and embracing. And there are plenty of other nude and racy photos of Melania that we know about, so your comparison to Michelle (I assume you mean Obama) is totally off base.
Should Johnston have mentioned this? I would say no, and Maddow, to her credit, did say “Hey!” and interrupt him on that.
But mainly he shouldn’t have said it because it is irrelevant. The year of the return was 2005, which is the year that the Trumps got married (she had their son in 2006, which is the year the return was filed). All of her “sneaky porn” was from before they even met. So it has nothing to do with this.
And finally, clearly this whole thing is not “nothing, complete non news”, or we wouldn’t be talking about it. Donald Trump’s failure to release his tax returns is definitely news. As for your comment about a TV journalist building up anticipation to get ratings, you sound shocked like Louis in Casablanca — https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME
Did you listen to the video? Lawrence was discussing the earned income which is unusual for someone like Trump. Then someone (Johnston) chimed in that it is likely Melania’s to which Johnston made the porn comment. And he did say sleazy.
I do apologize for my autocorrect and not proofreading, but I never professed to be a scholar. And yes, at least Maddow did shut it down.
Lastly, making derogatory, sexist, lewd comments about any presidents wife or family members is out of bounds. Say what you like about the politician Trump, it’s fair game, but leave the family out of it. Your attempt to justify his comment is also sexist as I’m pretty sure the art world would agree.
Just sayin.
Did you read your own link? Right above the video, the article quotes Johnston as saying “sneaky porn” (so does the headline). And that’s what it sounds like to me. Maybe the sound on your phone isn’t very clear.
The way it went down was that O’Donnell said it was unusual for Trump to have that much earned income. Johnston then notes that the income could have been for Melania, who was a model. So far so good, so bringing Melania into the conversation is appropriate, as I’m sure even you would agree.
O’Donnell then argues that Melania was never a big enough model to be paid that much money. And Johnston notes that she had done some (soft?) porn. Which is true. Should he have said that? I say no, but mostly because it was irrelevant (and so yes, a bit sleazy). But they were talking about her income, and it is true that she was paid for photos that many people would consider pornographic. And he did not say that in a “derogatory, sexist, lewd” way.
As for your last point, I honestly don’t care one bit if Melania posed for pornographic photos. I have never thought less or her or her husband because of that, let alone said anything. I’m not sure what the “art world” (whatever that is) has to do with that. Although if there were an “art world” I would probably have a good idea of what they might think about something like this (I have worked both as staff and faculty at a prestigious art school) and I’m confident they wouldn’t care either.
Sorry, but just mentioning the fact that as a model she made money from racy photos, especially in the context of a conversation about her income, is hardly sexist. And it barely registers compared to the crap that we know was said about Michelle Obama.
And I also want to point out that I specifically didn’t justify his comment, I said it was NOT justified.
Maybe we will have to agree to disagree.
This is only news because the president hasn’t released any tax returns. And I wonder, what is the basis for trust in this guy? There are no official tax filings to go over to trust he is worth what he says he is worth, and the majority of his voters don’t trust the medias reporting of him. So where they get their trust for him i wonder!!! Most liberals were steadfast in their support for Obama but his past was an open book. In Trump’s case I just don’t see it.
It has to be personality. My guess is the future US presidents will be television personalities. Oprah from the left maybe Sean Hannitty from the right. Because it seems a critical percentage of voters mainly make their decision on gut feeling and the more they see a personality in the media the more they like/dislike that person. It doesn’t matter if the candidate is intelligent or stupid or incendiary or pragmatic as long as he/she hits the right chords with a certain segment of voters. The presidency is now a popularity contest which is as trump says “SAD” since that means even Obama was elected because he was simply the more popular candidate. Not the smartest and the most rational.
Jonah, good points.
I think it based on emotional appeal. Barack Obama’s appeal was “HOPE”. Bernie Sanders appealed to liberal anger against our corporate-controlled government. Trump’s appeal was to racism and nativism. Hillary Clinton never really established an emotional bond with voters.
I don’t think being a TV personality is the defining factor, although it probably helps.
Note how Trump attacked Johnston — calling him a reporter “who nobody ever heard of“, which is hilarious because Trump has even met him (Johnston has also won a Pulitzer prize, written a best-selling book about Trump, and frequently appears on TV). But Trump has to attack, and the truth doesn’t matter. Trump bellows “I am important”, which is how his base want to feel.
Well enough IK.
It seems with this president, the media can’t quite keep up and is like a dog chasing its own tail. Does anyone remember what was news 2-3 weeks ago?
On a related note, Senate and House Intelligence Committees today have reported finding no evidence whatsoever supporting Trump’s wiretapping allegations; meanwhile, he continues to obfuscate and dissemble in recent interviews with Faux News, promising important new information to be submitted in the coming weeks to vindicate him, which he can’t yet reveal because…well, because it doesn’t exist of course. Even staunch Republicans have to be wondering how and why they got themselves into this Faustian bargain that is all going to hell and fast.
I keep asking the same question. How long can even the most gullible and loyal continue to tolerate, let alone support, this unprecedented level of duplicity?
Trump will never ever admit he lied, or was wrong. Sad.
He reads something, like from (OMG) InfoWars, and then goes off on it and broadcasts it. That really scares me.
PSgt, good point. There is so much bizarre news coming out daily (hourly?) about Trump that one becomes numb to it. If I thought he had any control at all over himself, I might think he was doing it on purpose. But he constantly hurts himself with all this crap. Even Republicans are starting to push back. At this point, I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t make it to the end of his first term. And even as much as I don’t like Mike Pence, I’m thinking that I’d rather have him than Trump with the nuclear codes.
p.s. I think you will like my latest post (video from Colbert). I think he agrees with you on this one!
Regarding Mike Pence, the only reason the world is still standing and the stock market is still chugging along along is because everyone knows the ones next in line are pence and ryan. If it was VP Bannon I doubt things would be this normal