New York Times violates law to publish partial Trump tax return from 90s and speculate

American Thinker ^ | October 2, 2016 | Thomas Lifson

[Black Agnes]

They’re going to push the ‘he lost massive amounts of money, he’s a loser’ meme.

I hope he sues them into the ground.

Ditto that NY has laws that enable fines for each copy of the return published. What’s their print copy number these days?

[Alberta's Child]

If he doesn’t pursue legal action against them, I think it’s safe to assume that he’s perfectly fine with them running the story — and he may even be a complicit party to it.

[Trump Girl Kit Cat]

Bernie’s people are so stupid as to not realize Trump used the 1995 tax code of BILL CLINTON to get these deductions!!!

[Black Agnes]

Not a valid assumption at all.

[Black Agnes]

Moreover, IF this publication violated NY law, the matter is NOT up to Trump. It’s a LEGAL LAW ENFORCEMENT matter. Whether or not it gets prosecuted is NOT up to Trump at all.

It will be telling if it’s indeed a violation of law and what the relevant LE agencies do with this matter.

This wasn’t simple slander or libel. Those are legal matters for the slandered/libeled person.

[Little Pig]

No, you’re thinking of “lied”.

[COBOL2Java]

Yeah, I shouldn’t post with only one coffee in me. :-)

[detective]

“So you’re telling me that if I mail my tax returns to the New York Times, then they are prohibited by law from publishing it?”

From the NYT article:

Trump representative threatened “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action” against the Times if they published the records because Trump did not give permission for the records to be disclosed.”

The NYT themselves admitted they did not have permission and therefore broke the law.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Not only what you said, but the reason the tax code does this is to encourage us to invest and take risks. Thus Trump is doing what the Congress wants.

BTW, on a much smaller scale my family did the same thing, it helps cover development and is part of the mix for anyone in real estate development.

[AdmSmith]

The key issue is this:


The federal tax code is 187 times longer than it was a century ago, according to Wolters Kluwer, CCH, which has analyzed it since 1913. Amazingly, in the first 26 years of the federal income tax, the tax code only grew from 400 to 504 pages. Even through President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the tax code was well under 1,000 pages. Changes during World War II made the length of the tax code balloon to 8,200 pages. Most of the growth in the tax code came in the past 30 years, growing from 26,300 pages in 1984 to nearly three times that length today.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/look-at-how-many-pages-are-in-the-federal-tax-code/article/2563032

Over the decades, lawmakers have increasingly asked the tax code to direct all manner of social and economic objectives, such as encouraging people to buy hybrid vehicles, turn corn into gasoline, purchase health insurance, buy a home, replace that home's windows, adopt children, put them in daycare, purchase school supplies, go to college, invest in historic buildings, spend more on research, and the list goes on, according to the Tax Foundation's chart book http://taxfoundation.org/slideshow/putting-face-americas-tax-returns

It has to be simplified.

[eXe]

No, they wont go to jail, not until we adopt the tactics of the left, get out in the streets and shut them down.

[FenwickBabbitt]

“They’re going to push the ‘he lost massive amounts of money, he’s a loser’ meme.”

I’m sure they will, but it would be a pretty ridiculous tack to take, as his financial problems in the early to mid-1990s have already been very well documented. Crowing over something we’ve known for well over two decades only smacks of desperation or ignorance.

[AdmSmith]

Trump’s tax docs have been illegally obtained. The correct method is for them to be hacked by Russian intel & then given to @wikileaks.

https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/782617108710653952

[wildbill]

The Times ‘reporters’ responsible for the story said on a Sunday show interview that the newspaper’s attorneys approved the publication, saying that “obtaining the information was illegal for whoever did it, but publishing it is not.” It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Frankly, I doubt the Times is worried about breaking a Federal law since it would have to be prosecuted by the same DOJ team of Comey and Lynch.