Times Reveals Trump Secured Massive Windfall Then Poured Millions Into 2016 Campaign
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams
"The more we learn about what Trump is hiding in his tax
returns, the worse it looks," Tax March tweeted Friday with a link to the
report. The group is leading a coalition of progressive
organizations behind the #WePaidMore campaign to raise
awareness about the country's "utterly rigged" tax system, as
demonstrated by Trump's actions.
The latest piece for the Times' investigation into
Trump tax documents obtained by the newspaper—which kicked off last month with
a bombshell exposé detailing how he paid
little-to-no federal income taxes in the years leading up to his
presidency—generated concerns the president illegally funded his campaign with
a business loan.
Times journalists Susanne Craig, Mike McIntire, and Russ
Buettner report that as Trump struggled to raise money for his White House
run in 2016, he secured "more than $21 million in what experts describe as
highly unusual one-off payments from the Las Vegas hotel he owns with his
friend the casino mogul Phil Ruffin."
As the trio of journalists detail:
The tax records, by their nature, do not specify whether the more than $21 million in payments from the Trump-Ruffin hotel helped prop up Mr. Trump's campaign, his businesses, or both. But they do show how the cash flowed, in a chain of transactions, to several Trump-controlled companies and then directly to Mr. Trump himself.
The bulk of the money went through a company called Trump Las
Vegas Sales and Marketing that had little previous income, no clear business
purpose and no employees. The Trump-Ruffin joint venture wrote it all off as a
business expense.
The report raises concerns about potential legal problems
related to both claiming the tax deduction and whether the payments are
technically campaign contributions.
Just weeks before the 2016 election, "the Trump-Ruffin
partnership borrowed $30 million from City National Bank in Los Angeles,"
according to the Times. "Mr. Trump signed the loan documents
in New York City, but tax records show that Mr. Ruffin personally guaranteed
nearly the entire amount, should the company ever be unable to pay."
"The partnership was not required to disclose on its tax
returns how the borrowed money would be spent," the reporters note.
"But the timing of the loan, combined with the partnership's lack of
available cash that year, strongly suggests that the loan funded the millions
of dollars in payments to Mr. Trump."
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) president and former Republican
chairman of the Federal Election Commission Trevor Potter said in a statement
Friday that "if Trump took out a bank loan in the LLC's name for the
purpose of financing his election, then the Trump campaign violated its legal
reporting requirements by failing to disclose the loan, and failing to disclose
that Trump's Vegas property was used as collateral."
"If Trump secretly financed his 2016 campaign using an
undisclosed bank loan backed by a billionaire developer, then voters have been
illegally deprived of important information about the true sources of Trump's
financial support," he said. "Additionally, if the LLC took a tax
deduction for the payments to Trump, it would mean that Trump secretly relied
on taxpayers to help subsidize his 2016 campaign."
"Disclosure to voters in 2016 would have been important,
since Trump's claim that he was self-financing his campaign was central to his
campaign message, and created a veneer of credibility for him to accuse rivals
of being beholden to wealthy special interests," Potter added.
"Voters had a right to know where Trump was getting the money for his
campaign."
The Times report goes on to detail Ruffin's
friendship with the president and years serving as a "wingman for Mr.
Trump's political ambitions." Jennifer Renzelman, a spokesperson for
Ruffin, told the newspaper that the 85-year-old was not involved in the
day-to-day operations of the hotel in question and that "all tax
statements go to the people who work on his taxes."
White House spokesperson Judd Deere called the report "yet
another politically motivated hit piece inaccurately smearing a standard
business deal," and said that "during his years as a successful
businessman, Donald Trump was longtime partners with Phil Ruffin and earned
whatever payments he received."
Meanwhile, tax and campaign finance experts, reporters, and
other political commentators highlighted the legal concerns raised and called
for further investigation.