Liberal Reporter Zeroes In On Why The NYT Tax Story Is Actually Good for Trump

Leah and Julio wrote about the ‘bombshell’ tax story The New York Times published over the weekend. Also, it’s nothing we haven’t read before the paper did similar stories in 2016 and 2018, which no one read or cared about. Tax avoidance is not illegal, clowns. Thanks for playing and in the process—the Times actually helped Trump by exposing another aspect of the Russian collusion myth, which is that he did not have an unreported connection to Russia. I mean, it’s there in black and white, which liberal reporter Michael Tracey pointed out (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.
The returns are some of the most sought-after, and speculated-about, records in recent memory. In Mr. Trump’s nearly four years in office — and across his endlessly hyped decades in the public eye — journalists, prosecutors, opposition politicians and conspiracists have, with limited success, sought to excavate the enigmas of his finances. By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.

The big reveal, if you can call it that, is that President Trump only paid $750 in income taxes back in 2016. That’s it. I think Brett Kavanaugh throwing ice at a bar might be more of a ‘bombshell’ and that’s not saying much.

2 Reporters on this latest NY Times tax story essentially wrote the same story as well in 2018https://t.co/P0T2yszu9q pic.twitter.com/oH8yKxH5RD
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 28, 2020

I think we can rest assured that if there were even the vaguest *hint* of a Russian "connection" in the tax records the NYT obtained, their headlines would be blaring about it five-alarm-fire style. Opposite finding, however, and it's consigned to a throwaway footnote
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 27, 2020

For years it was an article of faith among conspiracists that Trump withheld taxes in order to conceal sinister financial dealings with Russia. That's now debunked per NYT. But don't expect any acknowledgment: the conspiracies were always faith-based and therefore unfalsifiable
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 27, 2020

1) Pundits and politicians claim for years that Trump had withheld his tax records to conceal compromising financial ties to Russia

2) A comprehensive review of the records by the NYT reveals no such ties

3) ????????

4) The one guilty of making false statements is me, actually pic.twitter.com/XLO7FJ2FPp
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 28, 2020

If you always believed Trump's alleged financial malfeasance had nothing to do with Russia, you should be furious at those (like @ProjectLincoln) who spent several years frantically peddling wild theories of Russia-related financial malfeasancehttps://t.co/G2p5gQz17H
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 28, 2020

The theory that Trump was keeping his tax returns hidden to conceal compromising financial ties to Russia was a 100% mainstream belief which the NYT just debunked: sorry if you're so dumb that you lack the reading comprehension required to understand this https://t.co/jxT3EmIdIf
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 28, 2020

The details of Trump's finances are notable enough and clearly it's in the public interest to publish them, but c'mon: the NYT essentially just exonerated him on the question of hidden debts to Russia. Imagine if the situation was reversed, and tell me what the headlines would be
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 27, 2020

Tracey, a Russia collusion skeptic, pointed that out, much to the irritation of liberal reporters. I know there’s a lot of…crap to sift through with the media-manufactured tale of Russian collusion, but the withholding of tax records to hid Russia ties was the liberal media’s explanation for Trump’s refusal to do so.

“For years it was an article of faith among conspiracists that Trump withheld taxes in order to conceal sinister financial dealings with Russia. That's now-debunked per New York Times,” wrote Tracey. “But don't expect any acknowledgment: the conspiracies were always faith-based and therefore unfalsifiable.”

Now, are the taxes of the president newsworthy? Yes, but Tracey added that’s not the reason for the Left’s inquiry and it ended up boomeranging on them.

“It's in the public interest to publish them, but c'mon: The New York Times essentially just exonerated him on the question of hidden debts to Russia.”

And those who keep peddling this Trump-Russia nonsense go unpunished. This story isn’t going to alter the election. We’ve all made up our minds over who we’re going to vote for months ago. It’s just a recycling of old stories, but with the added notion that the collusion delusion was never part of the equation here.

One inarguable lesson of the past several years: there will never be any kind of accountability for the hysteria-peddlers. You just have to accept non-accountability as a central feature of political/media discourse, and try to maintain some levity in spite of it
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 28, 2020