Canadian Politics Today

Weird that he would bring the special prosecutor's wife and family into it.

AG Garland appointed Jack Smith, to serve as Special Counsel to oversee two ongoing criminal investigations:
=> the first is the investigation, as described in court filings in the District of Columbia, into whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.
=> the second is the ongoing investigation involving classified documents and other presidential records, as well as the possible obstruction of that investigation, referenced and described in court filings submitted in a pending matter in the Southern District of Florida.

in any case, it's a tried & true Trump formula to attempt to publicly vilify, belittle and ostracize prosecutors; the most immediate past target being, of course, special prosecutor Robert Mueller and the 'Russia Investigation'. As I just read, Jack Smith's wife is a most accomplished 'progressive' documentarian... I don't read that she's overtly political but certainly some of her documentary's speak for themselves in that regard.

It's Trump.

Exactly.  There should be no real surprises anymore.

I don't think that the decline of Trumpism will be any more predictable than its ascent.

If DOnald Trump is not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, it's going to pave the way for a younger, more prepared autocratic leader (DeSantis?) to orchestrate a successful coup. There is a reason Trump has "Mein Kampt" on his bedside table.

If America does not act now, we will see the 4th Reich as our neighbours by the end of the decade.

So we have had access to Trump's taxes for a few days now.

So far, nothing earth-shattering. We already knew he was a tax cheat (thanks to the recent conviction of the Trump organization for tax fraud). We already knew he is a failed businessman (based on his multiple bankruptcies). And his taxes seem to re-enforce those notions.

Lets take a look at what we have learned:

- A mandatory audit (that all presidential tax returns are subject to) was not initially done, until the returns were actually requested by the committee (and even then they didn't give the required resources to do a proper audit.)

- He had a bank account in China (as another poster pointed out). Yet he had claimed that he had closed that account down before he was elected. Which brings up the question... what was it used for? Did he have some sort of business there that might have influenced his actions?

- Trump paid very little in taxes for the 6 years. Some years had zero taxes, others had $750. About the only 'successful' year that he had was when he sold one of the properties he inherited from his father. This tells us 2 things:

    * It points to him being a failed businessman
    * It reminds us that he lied in the 2020 election, when he claimed he paid "millions" in taxes

- Very limited charitable donations (and they haven't found evidence of him donating his salary to charity for at least some of the time, like he claimed he was doing)

- He actually paid more in taxes to several foreign countries than he did to the United States

- Trump may have been abusing something called Schedule C. (This involves him making "sole proprietor reports" for businesses with no revenue but high expenses, allowing him to claim a loss to offset his taxes. Trump had been found guilty of tax fraud back in the 1980s for doing the same thing.)

- Other potential areas of tax fraud include claiming personal expenses as business expenses and giving non-repaid 'loans' to his children in order to avoid gift taxes

See:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tax-returns-2020-debate-video-b2253769.html (Trump's lie of paying millions in taxes)
https://www.salon.com/2022/12/28/brazen-cheating-revealed_partner/ (A description of possible tax fraud)
https://news.yahoo.com/foreign-accounts-melania-modelling-no-072853278.html (information about his non-existent charitable deductions, as well as foreign business dealings)

Trump swears he didn't r ape E. Jean Carroll but also swears that she "enjoyed" it.