After nearly half of a decade, Congressional Democrats finally released former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns and you won’t believe what happened next!
Of course, nothing happened. Like any article that says, “you won’t believe what happened next!” what occurs next is the most obvious sequence of events of all time.
The tax returns showed that the billionaire real-estate mogul turned reality TV star, turned president, turned Deep State public enemy number one, has done nothing illegal, but he does use the American tax code to his advantage.
On Friday, The Daily Wire reported that the records provide about 6,000 pages of information on how Trump handled his taxes; he often used various deductions and business losses to decrease the amount he owed to the federal government.
In reaction to the news, Hollywood celebrity Rob Reiner — the guy who played Meathead, the liberal bane of character Archie Bunker’s existence on “All in the Family” — tweeted, “We’re learning nothing that we didn’t already know about Trump’s taxes. It’s time to arrest this Lying Piece of Garbage.”
We’re learning nothing that we didn’t already know about Trump’s taxes. It’s time to arrest this Lying Piece of Garbage.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) December 30, 2022
You’ll note that’s sort of how leftists have operated since 2015. They will tout some new report, say “the walls are closing in!” or a similar phrase, and hype a pending arrest of Trump. When nothing materializes, they still push forth with calling for his prosecution anyway.
Why?
Well, they don’t quite say — other than the fact that Trump is mean or something.
But Reiner is correct. This gigantic report adds nothing new to the conversation.
In fact, as a candidate, Trump admitted that he used every legal avenue possible to avoid forking over money to Uncle Sam.
“As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly — I have brilliantly used those laws,” Trump said in 2016. “I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.”
Of course, if critics wanted to slam Trump over taxes, there is some ground there to land solid punches. For example, on the campaign trail, he promised to plug loopholes that he and other ultra-wealthy Americans took advantage of while taking on hedge funds.
He failed to do so in his 2017 tax reform law, and his administration blamed Washington, D.C.’s establishment for the broken campaign promise.
Yet that never gets discussed. Perhaps Democrats are silent on that failure because they benefit from it and other workarounds — just like Trump.
Rather than admit that Trump is simply very good at working the system — or at least his accountant is pretty darn good at filing taxes — they attack him baselessly.
On that note, does anybody know if Trump’s tax guy is taking new clients? Tax season is coming up, and this author would like to give him a call.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.