Trump ‘genius’ if he didn’t pay taxes: Giuliani

WASHINGTON• Dean Baquet wasn’t bluffing.

The New York Times executive editor said in September that he would risk jail to publish Donald Trump’s tax returns.

He made good on his word Sunday when the Times published tax documents from 1995, which show Trump claimed losses of US$916 million that year — enough to avoid paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years afterward.

Baquet was risking jail because it’s illegal to publish someone’s tax returns without authorization. But if legal authorities are miffed, Trump’s supporters aren’t, calling him a “genius” for taking advantage of a loophole-ridden law.

On “Fox News Sunday,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared the piece “a very, very good story for Donald Trump.”

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called him an “absolute genius” on ABC’s “This Week.” And Trump himself weighed in, saying he was singularly qualified to fix a system he may have exploited.

“I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, just five weeks ahead of the election.

Democrats said Trump’s nearly $916-million loss in one year pokes holes in his claim to be a champion for working, tax-paying Americans.

“He doesn’t care about those small businesses he didn’t pay. He doesn’t care about the people who lost millions of dollars in all of his bankruptcies,” Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said on Fox News Sunday. “Those losses represent real pain to many people who never got paid.”

Hillary Clinton made no mention of Trump’s taxes during her events in North Carolina Sunday and did not respond to a shouted question about it.

Even as the story was published, the candidate and his surrogates were engrossed in an effort to change the subject from his feud with 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado and his middle-ofthe-night tweet storm on the subject.

On Saturday night in Manheim, Pa., Trump questioned Clinton’s loyalty to her husband and imitated her near-faint on Sept. 11 after being diagnosed for pneumonia.

The New York Times report sheds light on some of the billionaire’s tax returns after Trump’s campaign refused to release any such documents, breaking with 40 years of presidential campaign tradition. Clinton has publicly released nearly 40 years’ worth, and Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has released 10 years of his tax returns.

Trump has said his lawyers are advising him to keep his tax returns private until a government audit is completed. IRS commissioner John Koskinen told a House committee Sept. 21 that people under IRS audit are free to release their returns or IRS letters informing a person they’re being audited.

The Times said it anonymously received the first pages of Trump’s 1995 state income tax filings in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The filings show a net loss of $915,729,293 in federal taxable income for the year. Jack Mitnick, listed as the preparer of Trump’s New Jersey return, verified that document’s authenticity.

A postmark indicated they had been sent from New York City and the return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower, the newspaper said.

That Trump was losing money during the early to mid-1990s — a period marked by bankruptcies and poor business decisions — was already well established. But the records obtained by the Times show losses of such a magnitude that they potentially allowed Trump to avoid paying taxes for years, possibly until the end of the last decade.

His campaign said that Trump had paid “hundreds of millions” of dollars in other kinds of taxes over the years.

Giuliani said Trump “had some failures and then he built an empire” and called the businessman “a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow.”

“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails,” Giuliani said.