Posted on 10/14/2018 3:45:46 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
The first hint came about a month and a half ago.
A well-connected Democrat laid out a new scenario to me. It went something like this:
“Democrats will take over the House and possibly the Senate after the midterms. We’ll demand that Trump release his tax returns. He won’t do it. The fight will become a legal battle. It’ll go to the Supreme Court. We’ll impeach him over it. That’s how we’ll finally get Trump.”
I had a few reactions to this stated strategy. First, I can’t imagine that such an effort would reach fruition before 2020, when President Trump’s first term ends. Second, I can’t help but be reminded of how none of the best-laid plans for Trump’s political demise have gone according to plan. (In case you haven’t noticed, he has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into this sort of thing.)
But more significantly than any of that, I told my friend: “What I’m hearing you say is, you’re giving up on Trump-Russia collusion.”
“What do you mean?” he replied.
“All I’ve heard you talk about for almost two years is how Democrats were going to impeach Trump over his Russia ties,” I explained. “You haven’t even mentioned that in this conversation. Sounds like you’re changing strategies. That’s a pretty big development.”
I’m not sure he entirely got my point.
“But taxes is how they got Al Capone,” he retorted. “It’s always the taxes, in the end.”
It’s like I was seeing the future. Shortly after that conversation with my friend, many in the media began refocusing on — you guessed it — Trump's elusive tax returns. Prior to that point, little had been said on the topic for many months. If taxes had been raised at all in recent press reports, more often than not it was a criticism of Trump’s tax-cut plan, not a demand for his tax returns.
Then, in late September, it was front and center again. Newsweek reported: “Democrats plan, using an obscure law, to get Donald Trump’s tax returns if the party retakes the House.”
Suddenly dozens — hundreds — of news articles began discussing Trump’s tax returns:
“Pelosi on Trump’s tax returns: ‘One of the first things we’d do’”
“Leading Democrat on House Ways and Means would ask for Trump’s tax returns”
And the New York Times: “Donald Trump tax records show he could have avoided taxes for nearly two decades,” followed by a special investigation: “Trump engaged in suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father.”
What does this tell us — and what’s the point?
It’s not as if there aren’t legitimate questions to be asked. After all, Trump is the one who began promising as early as 2014 that he’d hand over his tax returns. “If I decide to run for office,” he stated in May of that year, “I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely.”
Further, I’m not arguing that the press should dismiss or ignore Democrats’ efforts to hit Trump on the tax-return issue.
What I am saying is that there’s a difference between reporting on these developments — and letting political interests drive the news narrative in such a way that they’re calling the shots.
As I wrote in “The Smear,” all sides do it, some more successfully than others. But I think we should be paying more attention to the idea that any group — whether the state, a political party or corporate interest — can devise a plan about how and when to make headlines, execute their strategy, deploy their emissaries and talking points and, like magic, determine what we report and when.
They’ve figured out how to use us. How to pull our strings. All while making us believe it’s our idea. We’re too easily manipulated.
I can see the future.
Politicians increasingly will raise the issue of Trump’s tax returns on Capitol Hill, in news programs and on talk shows. Selected reporters will be leaked carefully timed and chosen documents. Anonymous tips will be received and reported. The ever-present pundits on cable news will begin shaping the conversation to encompass the desired talking points.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
I think journalists should take great care to look behind the efforts to shape our stories. When any narrative is pushed, we should remain mindful that there’s always a reason. Sometimes that’s the more interesting and important story.
Yes, look at the tax return issue. Fairly, from various views.
But also ask who and what are behind the media campaign to put that front and center. What’s behind the timing? What does it say about the Trump-Russia collusion question? Is Trump’s refusal to give over his tax returns an important disqualifier? Or might it be a means to set up an argument to reach a goal?
If we fail to understand when we’re being used, we risk becoming little more than a propaganda arm for political and corporate interests. That’s a bad place for our media to go.
Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program, “Full Measure.”
The Rats will fail on that ploy also. They’re losers.
We’ve all operated for some time now with the idea that candidates may, should they so choose but are not obligated to, release their tax returns. Now the Dims claim to have found some obscure law that requires same. It never stops!
Spygate will take the wind out of those sails. The hopes for a blue wave, too.
Sharyl Ping :)
How does not love this woman?
She is intelligent and most importantly....uses clear, linear thinking. One of the few who actually takes a line of thinking to its logical conclusion and then asks questions based on that conclusion.
Her questions about the democRATS dumping the Russia Hoax is demonstrative of this linear process. She was not distracted by the next phase of the “narrative”, she remained on point and finished her train of thought
Sharyl Attkisson is a brilliant reporter. Dems have run out of gas on Russia after 2 years of throwing the kitchen sink at Trump. If not for dim bulb Jeff Sessions Russia would have stalled out last year.So now the NY Times is publishing articles on Trumps Fathers taxes, the new effort is because nothing sticks and vague taxes from decades ago are all they got. Trump always hits the ejector seat as the media attack crashes and burns. Just another pipe dream for Dems to weave into their talking points ..Trumps Taxes...Eyes are glazing over already...
Sharyl Attkisson Ping!
Now available: Sharyl's latest book Smear. Five stars!
Watch Sharyl host "Full Measure," a Sunday morning talk show on the Sinclair network. More info.
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Sheryl is doing yeoman work
“She is intelligent and most importantly....uses clear, linear thinking. One of the few who actually takes a line of thinking to its logical conclusion and then asks questions based on that conclusion.”
Excellent summary. If even 10% of reporters were like her, the world would be a better place.
White House Dossier’s team of investigative reporters has uncovered ten other things nobody knew Trump had caused, until now:
1. Hurricane Michael. I mean, obviously.
2. The breakup of the Beatles (in cooperation with Yoko Ono).
3. The final episode of The Sopranos everyone hated.
4. The low quality of Chinese food in Los Angeles compared to New York.
5. The sudden increase in the number of white sharks off of Cape Cod.
6. The Spanish-American War.
7. The Zodiac murders.
8. The final episode of Seinfeld everyone hated.
9. The Dred Scott decision.
10. It’s not well known, but Trump wrote, produced and actually sang “I Write the Songs,” which is usually attributed to Barry Manilow and is widely regarded as the worst song of the 1970s. In doing this, he inflicted countless hours of pain on the ears of AM radio listeners from that era.
That, by golly, is what needs investigating.
Hmmm. Doesn't this imply that someone at the IRS has been looking at and illegally leaking this information?
Doesn't that mean this information is necessarily fruit of a poisoned tree, just like the fraudulently generated and obtained Steele dossier and FISA warrants?
Manafort and anyone else convicted on the basis of fraudulently-obtained evidence should simply go free and be completely exonerated.
We certainly learned that fraudulently obtained evidence is as good as non-existent, have we not?
I suspect that the president’s tax returns are perfectly clean and legal. I also think that he’s held them back so that the left takes up the issue. After doing their usual screaming and ranting and frothing-at-the-mouth smear routine, I can see the president releasing his tax returns and we find that they’re in order. Not unlike the big scoop Madcow got - taxes paid, deductions legal, nothing to see.
I can’t help but think that if there’s anything untoward about his tax returns, he would have been in trouble already. Plus something would have been leaked.
Trump is running rings around the fake newsette. 
Insane. Nobody has to publicly release their tax returns. (And expecially not from 20 or 30 years ago. ). These commies can’t be that crazy. I think it’s just more of their harassment and obstructionist bullsheit bullsheit
Do these morons understand that if Trump had broken tax law the IRS would have already figured that out? He has to be one of the most scrutinized tax payers in the country. And what about his business in other countries?
There are not even any straws to grasp at this point.
He’s held them back because there are hundreds of pages of details the press can use to distort. They are trying the same thing on Jarred right now. Everybody who invests in real estate uses the same techniques to minimize taxes. It is no scandal.
I simply do not understand the fixation on Trump’s taxes. Is someone trying to shame Trump because he is wealthy? Good grief, people. Get a life!
p
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