Rick Klein and Shushannah Walshe: “If this slice of an old tax return wasn’t leaked by someone in the close Trump orbit, it may as well have been, or someone wishes they had the idea, at least. What exactly do we know about President Trump – his finances, his business connections, his potential conflicts of interest – that we didn’t know before Tuesday night? He paid a pile of money to the government after making a really big pile of money in one particular year. He would have paid less to the government if not for the Alternative Minimum Tax. And, well, that’s about all that can be gleaned based on two pages of a 1040 from a dozen years ago.”
“Yes, what we don’t know is a reminder of why tax returns – the full documents – matter. Yes, the White House confirmation of authenticity explodes the myth that active audits have kept details of the president’s taxes from public scrutiny. But the cable hype and confirmation that the president did pay federal taxes, at least during one year in the middle of last decade, will only make it easier for Trump allies to argue that he is under unfair attack. ‘CLIENT COPY’ may be part of an elaborate scheme, or a huge clue, but the impact of this return is essentially the same.”
First Read: “But to us, the biggest news is: Who leaked these taxes to David Cay Johnston. And why? As NBC’s Ari Melber pointed out on “Today” this morning, only these people would have access to the tax return — Trump, his family, his accountant, or the IRS. Melber also noted that it is NOT illegal for an individual to release his or her own taxes to the public.”
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