- In a conversation there, Mr. Mitnick not only said that the records appeared to be authentic, he also solved the mystery of the digits that did not line up. It turned out that the tax preparation software he had used did not allow him to enter a loss of nine figures. So, he recalled, he had to manually enter the first two digits, using an IBM Selectric typewriter.
So the return address on the return is from Trump tower. What do you suppose the odds are that Trump himself is the source? He was so eager to tell the debate audience about what a genius he is for avoiding taxes for lo these many years. Maybe he couldn't help himself, and said, "Fuck you, NYT, you think you know how smart I am? Here's how smart I am!" This reporter is the person who wrote about Trump's $650MM debt, which he also bragged about at the debate as being super smart, and all his buddies are jealous about how little money that is, and how it's actually not even that big, but if it were that's still such a small amount of money, yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm very smart and have a very good brain.
I mean, he is "extremely under-leveraged." I think if it were The Man Himself he would have sent something more recently that shows "previous losses" in the write-off column, rather than the one-time "we don't have enough digits in the software for your genius" real estate loss in the midst of the go-go 90s.
I wanted to comment. As I was writing it out though, I realized I don't really have any idea what's going on. So.I can't say much. I don't know if this is the bombshell people are making it out to be or if this is something like Hillary fainting, where it's gonna be a story for a minute and then people forget about it. This election season has been stupid.
As even-handed as I can: Hillary fainting illustrated that Hillary was sick and didn't tell anybody. This emphasizes her penchant for secrecy and calls into question her health. It also demonstrates the reason she has a penchant for secrecy and, having released her health records, faded away because "I have the flu" pales in comparison to "I ran a private email server" (I mean...) Trump showing a 916 million dollar loss in 1995 basically illustrates that Trump had a really shitty 1995, which is common knowledge. The speculative part - and there has been speculation - is that a loss that heavy would be used by any semi-savvy businessperson to claim that loss until it was all used up. There's nothing illegal about this. Nobody is claiming there is. Just like there's nothing illegal about having pneumonia. The scandal - should there be one - will be related to what the Trump campaign makes of it. Hillary succumbing to pneumonia at the 15th anniversary of September 11 hurt her because it emphasized her penchant for secrecy. She got it out of the news cycle by being open, by being apologetic and by being explanatory. Donald Trump potentially writing off nearly a billion dollars of losses could hurt him because it cuts to his business acumen and damages his man-of-the-people appeal. He could get it out of the news cycle by releasing his tax returns if they show that he used those losses to turn over a giant amount of awesomeness to become the business titan he is today and woo hoo TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP. But. 1995-2004 was pretty shitty for Donald Trump. He'd just filed for bankruptcy. He bought the Miss Universe pageant which hasn't exactly been a money-maker. And then we get to the point where mostly, he's making money from The Apprentice. Which pretty much reveals Trump to be much more of a hustler than a business icon. And then the Clinton campaign reminds everybody that hey - fuck '95, Trump lost $800m last year. So really, it's basically a hand grenade lobbed into the Trump camp which they need to either disarm or throw back. And since it was thrown by the NYT rather than directly by the Clinton campaign, there's nowhere they can throw it that actually damages their opponents. There's a likelihood that Trump's tax returns demonstrate that he makes the bulk of his money by licensing his name... and that he has a complicated and politically-questionable tax structure that will be painted as "tax cheat" by anybody who sticks to the 1040. It could go either way. But it'll take a lot more than bed rest and a press release to make it go away.