MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump's Tax Returns—Long Deliberately and Deceitfully Hidden From Voters by the President, His Family, His Business, His Campaign, and His White House—Are Now in the Hands of New York Times Journalists https://twitter.com/susannecraig/status/1310325440020713472

1/ "The returns reveal the hollowness behind the self-made-billionaire image that helped propel him to the White House, and that still undergirds the loyalty of many in his base. Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life."

2/ "Trump's financial condition when he announced his run for president in 2015 [as revealed by his tax returns] lends some credence to the notion that his long-shot campaign was at least in part a gambit to reanimate the marketability of his name."

3/ "Trump's public filings offer a distorted picture of his finances. In 2018, for example, he announced in his [annual financial] disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses."

4/ "Tax records do not have the specificity to evaluate the legitimacy of every business expense Trump claims to reduce his taxable income—for instance, without any explanation, the general/administrative expenses at his Bedminster golf club increased fivefold from 2016 to 2017."

5/ "Most of Mr. Trump's core enterprises—from his constellation of golf courses to his conservative-magnet hotel in Washington—report losing millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars year after year."

(Note: this pattern is highly indicative of decades of federal tax fraud.)

6/ "The records reveal the actual and potential conflicts of interest created by Trump's refusal to divest himself of his business interests. His properties have become bazaars for collecting money from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor."

7/ "When he took office, Trump said he would pursue no new foreign deals as president. Even so, in his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. Some of that money came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders."