I didn't read the whole thing, because it's very long, and I'd already read an article about this in a Norwegian newspaper. Are anyone surprised though? From the moment he first refused to release his tax returns, we knew something shady was up. Even his cultists must have realised it, they just didn't care any more about his financial crimes than they cared about his sex crimes. Let's just hope he gets some sort of comeuppance. From what I understand it's too late for criminal charges, but it would be amazing if a sitting president were ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines. The article I read says the Times spent a year and a half on this investigation, which I find interesting. First of all I'm surprised they didn't start sooner, why not already during the Republican primaries, or at the very least immediately after the election? They (like all of us) knew he had been up to shady things, and they knew if they could prove it this would make for a series of explosive articles. Secondly a year and a half is an awful long time for newspaper research, even for such a big case as this one. I don't think it's accidental; I think the Times are honouring the US tradition of the October Surprise in national elections. Save the most explosive stuff for the month before the election, when everyone's eyes are on the people they're covering. Someone on Tildes predicted that Trump would do something moronic and/or evil to create headlines to distract from his tax fraud. Right on cue the president went on stage and publicly mocked professor Ford. Sometimes I wonder if he's a PR idiot savant, or just a very lucky idiot.
I mean a year and a half does put this somewhat close to starting right after the election. I doubt they thought there was much of a need to dedicate those assets before the election. Most everyone assumed he was going to lose, and any work done wouldn’t matter by the time it finished. As for the time? I don’t know, I feel like a year and a half is a reasonable time for three reporters to gather, sift, and interpret this much information. No doubt the timing is quite beneficial, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this report took about that much time to compile. Part of the article talks about Trumps ability to talk himself up at the right times, and to maintain silence at others. The majority of his businesses are brand name centric. He built his visual empire on self image, he’s definitely not just lucky with PR
Yeah I wish NYT would have waited another week or two for the Kavanaugh headlines to blow over before publishing this.
A quote from the companion piece: Not-so-subtle subtext: "Yeah, so we here at the New York Times have absolutely zero doubt that Donald Trump and his father engaged in illegal tax practices". Now, are there any prosecutors at the IRS that have the guts to even think about filing charges? Apparently the statute of limitations is three years for criminal filings, but civil tax fraud violations have no limitations. Guess we'll see what happens. Probably nothing.Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, disputed The Times’s reporting: “Should The Times state or imply that President Trump participated in fraud, tax evasion or any other crime, it will be exposing itself to substantial liability and damages for defamation.”
"To shift focus off of my tax avoidance revelations, I'll go on stage at a rally tonight and mock a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual assault!" - POTUS
The podcast version is a pretty good listen. Nothing particularly surprising, but the forensic accounting is pretty neat, IMO.