The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

President Trump’s claim that Puerto Rico ‘has been given’ $91 billion

We originally wrote about Trump’s eye-popping claim that Puerto Rico had received $91 billion in aid back in March, when The Washington Post reported that he had raised this number in a meeting with Republican senators. We did not offer a rating, only an explanation, because we did not have a direct quote. Senators interpreted his comment as referring to money already committed or spent, but administration officials said he was talking about future liabilities to recover from 2016′s Hurricane Maria.

We later learned that the White House would refer reporters to our column when there were queries about this number. Perhaps officials also should bring it to the attention of the president, as we have since noted a tendency by the president to act as if the money was already spent.

That’s wrong, and worthy of Pinocchios.

The Facts
There are three numbers to keep track of:

$11.2 billion: spent
$40.8 billion: allocated
$91 billion: guesstimate for potential liabilities over the next 20 years.
In other words, Trump is acting as if the money has been already doled out to the island. But administration officials had told The Fact Checker it’s an internal Office of Management and Budget estimate of the potential liabilities over the life of the disaster that would need to be committed under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988. The estimate was described as a high-end estimate subject to change year by year.

Currently, the estimated Stafford liabilities amount to $50 billion. Adding the $41 billion in announced funding to the $50 billion in Stafford liabilities gets you to $91 billion.

But this number is well beyond the traditional 10-year budget horizon. No one really knows how it will shake out. The government is still paying for the damage from Hurricane Katrina almost 14 years after it struck New Orleans.

While Trump describes this theoretical number as the highest ever given to a state, it’s important to remember that Puerto Rico is an island that received the full brunt of the storm. The Congressional Research Service says Congress “provided roughly $120 billion for Hurricane Katrina,” but that storm hit two states — Louisiana and Alabama.

The Pinocchio Test

It’s simply false for the president to assert that Puerto Rico has received $91 billion. It has been allocated less than half of that, and the president is treating a guesstimate as an established fact. There may be valid reasons for the estimate, though OMB has not explained them. But there’s still no excuse for the president to cite the number as a solid figure.

Three Pinocchios

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Donald Trump Would Now Like To Bring Back Policy For Service Academy Athletes That He Rescinded To Punish Obama

When Donald Trump’s administration decided in April of 2017 to overturn a rule that had allowed athletes from the service academies to defer their military commitment until after their professional sports careers were over, it wasn’t for any of the starchy reasons laid out in a memo from the–Secretary of Defense James Mattis, most of which came down to those athletes having been educated at taxpayer expense. As a matter of principle, Trump doesn’t like to see other people getting things at what he perceives to be a discount, but also the real reason he rescinded the rule was because the rule had been put in place by Barack Obama back in 2016.

“It kind of just sucked,” former Air Force linebacker Ryan Watson told USA Today in April. Watson had signed with the Cardinals as an undrafted free agent, but the rule being overturned meant that he would still have to spend his next two years on an air base in Ohio. “You either gave up on your dream, (or) you were put in a situation where it was a lot harder (to reach).”

On Monday, while hosting the Army Black Knights football team at the White House for the presentation of the Commander In Chief Trophy, Trump proudly announced that he’d had a big new idea and would you like to hear it?

“It’s a big deal,” Trump told Army’s team and coach. “I hope it doesn’t become the story but it is a big story because I’m going to look at doing a waiver for service academy athletes who can get into the major leagues, like the NFL, hockey, baseball. We’re going to see if we can do it and they’ll serve their time after they’re finished with professional sports. And that’ll make things, can you imagine this incredible coach with that little asset?” Trump had by that point turned away from the microphone so that he could honk the last few words at Army coach Jeff Monken.

“And so on behalf of the coach, who’s a tremendous guy, we’re going to look at a waiver for the service academies,” he continued. “I think it sounds good, right? I always watched, it used to be five years, then four years, it’s a long time, now it’s two years, but it’s another four years, four or five years, that you have to do things. I think it’s a great idea.”

It’s one of the undeniable achievements of his presidency that Trump has not altered his lifestyle at all since ascending to the most important job on earth. Everything that Trump did before he was president he still does now, and does just about as much. Trump clearly believed that being president was fundamentally a simple job that a series of idiot weaklings had failed at because they overthought and overcomplicated it; as with many things that Trump believes, that’s an argument that could almost be made to work, but which he is fundamentally incapable of and uninterested in making. There’s no deeper critique to find: He just didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t doing the Good Smart Deals instead of the Bad Stupid Deals. Trump clearly still thinks all this is true—he thinks that everything that he’s ever thought is true—and gets very angry when he is forced to do things like “work” or “listen,” both because they are things he dislikes and because they are outside what he understood to be the job description for President Of The United States.

Conveniently if unsurprisingly, Trump clearly thought that everything he already did every day was what presidents already do, and that he therefore would do it well. And that is not a long list. He is squinting thoughtfully at a large TV in an air-conditioned room while it blares a Raymour & Flanigan advertisement at paint-peeling volume, or he is getting upset about things he sees on cable news between those commercials and then posting online about how upset he is, or he is crowing triumphantly that someone on TV is talking about him. Or maybe he is driving a golf cart into and out of sand traps on a golf course he owns. Or he is on the phone, barking out unworkable orders to confused underlings or cold-calling various wealthy acquaintances to gossip and complain about other people from the golf club. Always, always, he is at the center of a roiling cloud of lawsuits, some serious and others spurious, all of which reflect his lifelong dedication to ripping people off whenever and wherever he can.

There is one other component to the job, as Trump understood and understands it, and that is throwing parties. These are not fun parties, but he is not a fun guy. They are big gilded formal-dress affairs with shitty music and a gleaming beef lump perspiring under a carving station heat lamp and someone going around taking photos. At some point, Trump will get up to Make Some Remarks. He has always done this—he famously did this at various weddings and parties at his clubs even when he didn’t know anyone involved—and now that he is president he continues to do it. To see him comfortable, in his job and in his own skin, you should check him out pivoting at random and chuckling at his own jokes in his ceremonial role as Toastmaster In Chief. In what he perceives to be a friendly crowd, in a role that he knows pretty much by heart, Trump is ... well, still very weird, but decidedly in his element. This was how it went when Army visited the White House.

The problem is that this isn’t all Trump’s job is. It’s part of it, and it’s clearly the part that he enjoys—even when surrounded by people who transparently think he’s an oaf and a joke, he is not just comfortable but delighted to be doing this sort of holding forth. The big guy loves to talk, and clearly considered Army’s football team to be his dear friends and sincere admirers. It’s one of his favorite formulations, one of the stock phrases that his gluey dumpling of a brain periodically shoves towards his mouth: [Other person] likes me, and I like them.

All of this can be done by rote. The trouble doesn’t start when Trump has to stop talking, because he can’t listen and can’t learn and doesn’t really remember things that don’t have to do with him. He remembers every slight and has spent his life cultivating and pursuing various opaque feuds, but what that pursuit does to other people doesn’t stick in his mind if it ever even alights there in the first place. The service academy athletes that Trump boned out of NFL training camp invites on a whim back in 2017 were just more collateral damage in Trump’s lifelong campaign against every perceived offense he’s ever endured.

There’s no guarantee that this waiver for service academies will ever actually happen. When Trump says he is going to “look into something” he means nothing at all; his concern with the cadets squinting and shifting their weight behind him is negligible, whether they are bound for war or the Detroit Lions rookie minicamp; he seemed to have forgotten the coach’s name by the end of his presentation. If Trump follows through on the waiver, it will be because he sees it as a Win, which is the same reason he overturned the rule in the first place. It’s axiomatic that he doesn’t give a shit—he stops caring about what he’s saying the moment that people stop applauding for it.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show Over $1 Billion in Business Losses

By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir “Trump: The Art of the Deal” hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns.

Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities and financial condition.

The data — printouts from Mr. Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, for the years 1985 to 1994 — represents the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president’s taxes, information he has kept from public view. Though the information does not cover the tax years at the center of an escalating battle between the Trump administration and Congress, it traces the most tumultuous chapter in a long business career — an era of fevered acquisition and spectacular collapse.

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

Over all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years. It is not known whether the I.R.S. later required changes after audits.

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, journalists at The Times and elsewhere have been trying to piece together Mr. Trump’s complex and concealed finances. While The Times did not obtain the president’s actual tax returns, it received the information contained in the returns from someone who had legal access to it. The Times was then able to find matching results in the I.R.S. information on top earners — a publicly available database that each year comprises a one-third sampling of those taxpayers, with identifying details removed. It also confirmed significant findings using other public documents, along with confidential Trump family tax and financial records from the newspaper’s 2018 investigation into the origin of the president’s wealth.

The White House’s response to the new findings has shifted over time.

Several weeks ago, a senior official issued a statement saying: “The president got massive depreciation and tax shelter because of large-scale construction and subsidized developments. That is why the president has always scoffed at the tax system and said you need to change the tax laws. You can make a large income and not have to pay large amount of taxes.”

On Saturday, after further inquiries from The Times, a lawyer for the president, Charles J. Harder, wrote that the tax information was “demonstrably false,” and that the paper’s statements “about the president’s tax returns and business from 30 years ago are highly inaccurate.” He cited no specific errors, but on Tuesday added that “I.R.S. transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate” and “would not be able to provide a reasonable picture of any taxpayer’s return.”

Mark J. Mazur, a former director of research, analysis and statistics at the I.R.S., said that, far from being considered unreliable, data used to create such transcripts had undergone quality control for decades and had been used to analyze economic trends and set national policy. In addition, I.R.S. auditors often refer to the transcripts as “handy” summaries of tax returns, said Mr. Mazur, now director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.

In fact, the source of The Times’s newly obtained information was able to provide several years of unpublished tax figures from the president’s father, the builder Fred C. Trump. They matched up precisely with Fred Trump’s actual returns, which had been obtained by The Times in the earlier investigation.

Mr. Trump built a business licensing his name, became a television celebrity and ran for the White House by branding himself a self-made billionaire. “There is no one my age who has accomplished more,” he told Newsweek in 1987, adding that the ultimate scoreboard was “the unfortunate, obvious one: money.” Yet over the years, the actual extent of his wealth has been the subject of much doubt and debate. He broke with four decades of precedent in refusing to release any of his tax returns as a presidential candidate, and until now only a few pages of his returns have become public. Last year’s Times investigation found that he had received at least $413 million in 2018 dollars from his father.

The new tax information does not answer questions raised by House Democrats in their pursuit of the last six years of Mr. Trump’s tax returns — about his recent business dealings and possible foreign sources of financing and influence. Nor does it offer a fundamentally new narrative of his picaresque career.

But in the granular detail of tax results, it gives a precise accounting of the president’s financial failures and of the constantly shifting focus that would characterize his decades in business. In contrast to his father’s stable and profitable empire of rental apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, Mr. Trump’s primary sources of income changed year after year, from big stock earnings, to a single year of more than $67.1 million in salary, to a mysterious $52.9 million windfall in interest income. But always, those gains were overwhelmed by losses on his casinos and other projects.

The new information also suggests that Mr. Trump’s 1990 collapse might have struck several years earlier if not for his brief side career posing as a corporate raider. From 1986 through 1988, while his core businesses languished under increasingly unsupportable debt, Mr. Trump made millions of dollars in the stock market by suggesting that he was about to take over companies. But the figures show that he lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously.

In Washington, the struggle over access to Mr. Trump’s tax returns and other financial information has sharpened in recent days, amid partisan warfare over the findings in the Mueller report. On Monday, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said he would not deliver the tax returns to the Ways and Means Committee. And after vowing that “we’re fighting all the subpoenas” from House Democrats, the president has filed lawsuits against his banks and accounting firm to prevent them from turning over tax returns and other financial records.

In New York, the attorney general’s office is investigating the financing of several major Trump Organization projects; Deutsche Bank has already begun turning over documents. The state attorney general is also examining issues raised last year by The Times’s investigation, which revealed that much of the money Mr. Trump had received from his father came from his participation in dubious tax schemes, including instances of outright fraud.

The first of the two previous glimpses of the president’s tax returns came from his 1995 filings, pages of which were anonymously mailed to The Times in 2016. They showed that Mr. Trump had declared losses of $915.7 million, giving him a tax deduction so substantial that it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying federal income taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars of income for almost two decades. Several months later, the journalist David Cay Johnston was mailed pages of Mr. Trump’s 2005 returns, which showed that by then he had significant sources of income and was paying taxes.

THE ART OF LOSING MONEY

The year was 1985, and Mr. Trump appeared to be on top of the world.

He was still riding high from the completion of his first few projects — the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Trump Tower and another Manhattan apartment building, and one Atlantic City casino. He also owned the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League.

As the year played out, he borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel a wave of purchases, acquiring a second casino ($351.8 million), a Manhattan hotel ($80 million), the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida ($10 million), a New York hospital he intended to replace with an apartment building ($60 million) and an undeveloped expanse of railroad yards on the West Side of Manhattan ($85 million), where he planned to construct an entire neighborhood, including a 150-story tower envisioned as the world’s tallest.

For the first time, Forbes’s ranking of the wealthiest Americans listed Mr. Trump individually, independent of his father — with an estimated net worth of $600 million that included the real estate empire Fred Trump still owned.

“What I have done is build the most beautiful buildings in the best locations,” Donald Trump told the magazine.

But what the newly revealed tax information makes clear is that, with his vast debt and other expenses on those properties, Mr. Trump’s fortunes were already on the way down.

His yearly carrying costs on the rail yards would rise to $18.7 million. He would not be able to convert Mar-a-Lago into a moneymaking club for another decade. The apartments on the hospital site would not be ready for sale, as Trump Palace, until 1990, and another residential project would be stalled for years. The football league would soon fold.

Because his businesses were generally created as partnerships, the companies themselves did not pay federal income taxes. Instead their results wound up on Mr. Trump’s personal ledger.

Beyond the $46.1 million loss that his core businesses logged in 1985, Mr. Trump’s tax information shows that he carried over $5.6 million in losses from prior years. The I.R.S. data on one-third of high-income tax returns that year lists only three taxpayers with greater losses.

In his letter, Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, took issue with comparing the tax returns of “a real estate developer to the returns of all taxpayers.” But most of the high-income taxpayers appeared, like Mr. Trump, to be business owners who received what is known as pass-through income. (That data does not include businesses, like most large corporations, that pay their taxes directly.)

The next years were a time of continued empire building. The information also documents, year by year, a time of gathering loss. Here is how it added up.

In 1986, he bought out his partners in Trump Tower and the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. He bought an apartment building in West Palm Beach for $43 million. His business losses for the year: $68.7 million.

About two weeks before the stock market crash of Oct. 19, 1987, he spent $29 million on a 282-foot yacht. Months later he bought the Plaza Hotel for $407 million. He recorded $42.2 million in core business losses for 1987, and $30.4 million for 1988.

In 1989, he bought a shuttle operation from Eastern Airlines for $365 million. It never made a profit, and Mr. Trump would soon pump in more than $7 million a month of his dwindling cash to keep it airborne, New Jersey casino regulators, who closely monitored his finances in those years, found.

Mr. Trump’s business losses that year soared to $181.7 million.

Then came the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino, which opened in April 1990 saddled with more than $800 million in debt, most at very high interest rates. It did not generate enough revenue to cover that debt, and sucked revenue from his other casinos, Trump’s Castle and Trump Plaza, pulling them deep into the red.

As a result, 1990 and 1991 represented the worst years of the period reviewed by The Times, with combined losses of $517.6 million. And over the next three years, as Mr. Trump turned over properties to his lenders to stave off bankruptcy, his core businesses lost an additional $286.9 million.

The 10-year total: $1.17 billion in losses.

Mr. Trump was able to lose all that money without facing the usual consequences — such as a steep drop in his standard of living — in part because most of it belonged to others, to the banks and bond investors who had supplied the cash to fuel his acquisitions. And as The Times’s earlier investigation showed, Mr. Trump secretly leaned on his father’s wealth to continue living like a winner and to stage a comeback.

This is not to say that Mr. Trump never made money on a deal. One that turned out quite well came in 1985, when he bought the Hotel St. Moritz in Manhattan for $73.7 million. Mr. Trump has said he sold it for $180 million in 1989. His tax information showed long-term capital gains of $99.8 million, accounting for the vast majority of such gains in the 10 years reviewed by The Times.

But that rich payday was overwhelmed by his business losses, and Mr. Trump still paid no federal income taxes that year.

Some fraction of that ocean of red ink represented depreciation on Mr. Trump’s real estate. One of the most valuable special benefits in the tax code, depreciation lets owners of commercial real estate write down the cost of their buildings.

“I love depreciation,” Mr. Trump said during a presidential debate in 2016.

In “The Art of the Deal,” Mr. Trump points to one of his Atlantic City casinos to illustrate the magic of depreciation. If the casino’s cost was $400 million, he says, he would be able to depreciate it at a rate of 4 percent a year, allowing him to shelter $16 million in taxable income annually.

But while this example is intended to show the benefits of depreciation, it also demonstrates that depreciation cannot account for the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses Mr. Trump declared on his taxes.

The tax code also lets business owners like Mr. Trump use losses to avoid paying tax on future income — a lucrative deduction intended to help troubled businesses get back on their feet. Mr. Trump’s losses over the years rolled into the $915.7 million free pass from income taxes — known as net operating loss — that appeared on his 1995 returns.

The newly revealed tax information sheds light on how those net operating losses snowballed. By 1991, they had grown to nearly $418 million, accounting for fully 1 percent of all the losses that the I.R.S. reported had been declared by individual taxpayers that year. And the red ink continued to accumulate apace.

Because Mr. Trump reported a negative adjusted gross income in each of the 10 years, he was not allowed to deduct any charitable contributions. So while he has boasted of making large donations at the time, the information obtained by The Times shows no such itemized deductions. Potential deductions could have been carried over to a future year, should Mr. Trump have reported a positive income.

A VULTURE’S APPETITE

As losses from his core enterprises mounted, Mr. Trump took on a new public role, trading on his business-titan brand to present himself as a corporate raider. He would acquire shares in a company with borrowed money, suggest publicly that he was contemplating buying enough to become a majority owner, then quietly sell on the resulting rise in the stock price.

The tactic worked for a brief period — earning Mr. Trump millions of dollars in gains — until investors realized that he would not follow through. That much has been known for years. But the tax information obtained by The Times shows that he ultimately lost the bulk of the gains from his four-year trading spree.

The figures do not include an itemization of individual trades. But The Times was able to align the reported total gains with details on trades publicly documented by casino regulators at the time.

As with many things Trump, his adventures in the stock market were more image than substance, helped greatly by news reports quoting anonymous sources said to have knowledge of Mr. Trump’s actions. An occasional quote from an associate — including his stockbroker, Alan C. Greenberg — helped burnish the myth.

“He has an appetite like a Rocky Mountain vulture,” Mr. Greenberg, the legendary chairman of Bear Stearns, told The Wall Street Journal in 1987. “He’d like to own the world.”

In his actions, Mr. Trump was more like a peacock.

An early and profitable gambit came in February 1987, when Mr. Trump started buying stock in the company that owned United Airlines. That April, The Times reported that Mr. Trump was “believed to own 4.9 percent” of United and was “believed to have paid” about $50 a share.

Trump takeover speculation set off a rally in the stock. At the end of the month, Mr. Trump quietly sold nearly all his shares. The next day, The Journal reported that Mr. Trump’s gamble appeared to have netted him $55 million.

It was a gross exaggeration. New Jersey gaming regulators later determined that he had purchased only 2.3 percent of the company and gained $11 million, before interest and commissions.

The same tactic continued to work through 1988. Mr. Trump made a total of $57 million by briefly presenting himself as a takeover threat to, among others, Hilton Hotels, the Gillette razor company and Federated Department Stores, casino regulators found.

In all, from 1986 through 1989, Mr. Trump declared $67.3 million in gains from stocks and other assets bought and sold within one year.

By 1989, investors were less fooled by his moves. That September, he bought a large stake in American Airlines and announced a takeover bid.

“I’m very skeptical of everything this man does,” Andrew Geller, then an airline analyst at Provident National Bank in Philadelphia, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Trump was rebuffed, and the stock price fell sharply. Though at the time his losses were reported to be modest, the new tax return figures show that in 1990, the year he sold his American Airlines stake, Mr. Trump lost $34.9 million on short-term trades, wiping out half his gains from the previous four years.

He appears to have held only one other significant chunk of stock by decade’s close: a 27 percent stake in the Alexander’s department store company.

Mr. Trump had bought those shares for $67.9 million and held on, hoping to gain control of the company’s real estate with a partner. After climbing on the possibility of a takeover, the stock price slid.

Mr. Trump ultimately agreed to turn over that stock and most of his other assets — including the yacht, the Trump Shuttle and his stake in the Grand Hyatt — to his lenders. On the day in 1992 when he gave up the stock, it was trading at about $9 a share — which would represent a loss of $55.5 million.

And with that, Mr. Trump’s days as a market mover were over.

ONE HUGE PAYDAY

As would be expected for a business owner, the line on Mr. Trump’s tax returns showing regular wages and salary does not represent the bulk of his income. But one year stands out: 1988, when he recorded $67.1 million in salary — 90 percent of his total regular wages for the 10 years.

The figure appears to include a payment he received as part of a deal to buy the unfinished Taj Mahal casino from Merv Griffin, the talk show host turned businessman. Mr. Griffin’s company had agreed to pay Mr. Trump to manage construction of the casino, among other services, and the resolution of a bitter dispute between the two included Mr. Griffin’s company paying Mr. Trump $63 million to buy out that contract.

That windfall contributed to Mr. Trump’s making his biggest income tax payment of the 10 years reviewed by The Times. Even so, his overwhelming business losses meant that he paid only $1.4 million in alternative minimum tax that year.

The only other income tax he was required to pay in those years was $124,344 in 1987, also under the alternative minimum tax, which was created to make sure wealthy people could not avoid all income tax through loopholes and deductions.

AN INTEREST MYSTERY

One number from Mr. Trump’s tax returns is particularly striking — and particularly hard to explain: the $52.9 million in interest income he reported in 1989.

Mr. Trump reported $460,566 in interest income in 1986. That number grew to $5.5 million the next year, and $11.8 million the next. Then came the outlier 1989.

Taxpayers can receive interest income from a variety of sources, including bonds, bank accounts and mortgages. High-yield bonds, though less common today, were popular with institutional investors in the 1980s. And to make $52.9 million in interest, for example, Mr. Trump would have had to own roughly $378 million in bonds generating 14 percent a year.

Hard data on most of Mr. Trump’s business life is hard to come by, but public findings from New Jersey casino regulators show no evidence that he owned anything capable of generating close to $52.9 million annually in interest income.

Similarly, there is no such evidence in a 1990 report on Mr. Trump’s financial condition, prepared by an accounting firm he hired at his bankers’ request and based on his most current tax returns and audited financial statements.

Mr. Trump’s interest income fell almost as quickly as it rose: He reported $18.7 million in 1990, and only $3.6 million in 1992.

At his nadir, in the post-recession autumn of 1991, Mr. Trump testified before a congressional task force, calling for changes in the tax code to benefit his industry.

“The real estate business — we’re in an absolute depression,” Mr. Trump told the lawmakers, adding: “I see no sign of any kind of upturn at all. There is no incentive to invest. Everyone is doing badly, everyone.”

Everyone, perhaps, except his father, Fred Trump.

While Donald Trump reported hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for 1990 and 1991, Fred Trump’s returns showed a positive income of $53.9 million, with only one major loss: $15 million invested in his son’s latest apartment project.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

5 Takeaways From 10 Years of Trump Tax Figures

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, journalists at The New York Times and elsewhere have been trying to piece together Donald J. Trump’s complex and concealed finances. Now The Times has obtained 10 years of previously unrevealed figures from the president’s federal income tax returns. The tax numbers, for the years 1985 through 1994, paint a far bleaker picture of Mr. Trump’s deal-making abilities and financial condition than the one he has long put forth.

Mr. Trump became an unprecedented president — a businessman and reality television star with no government experience — and he broke with decades-old presidential tradition by refusing to release his income tax returns. Questions about what secrets they may hold — about his recent business dealings and the sources of his financing — only intensified with the Russia inquiry, and the Trump administration is now locked in a battle with House Democrats demanding the last six years of the president’s returns. On Monday, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said he would not give a House committee access to the returns.

The newly revealed tax information covers an earlier period of Mr. Trump’s business career. And The Times did not obtain Mr. Trump’s actual tax returns. But it obtained printouts from his official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, from someone who had legal access to them. They represent the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president’s taxes. And they show that during a tumultuous decade of fevered acquisition and spectacular collapse, Mr. Trump’s core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings — ran up $1.17 billion in losses.

The White House’s response to the findings has shifted over time.

Several weeks ago, a senior official issued a statement saying: “The president got massive depreciation and tax shelter because of large-scale construction and subsidized developments. That is why the president has always scoffed at the tax system and said you need to change the tax laws. You can make a large income and not have to pay large amount of taxes.”

On Saturday, after further inquiries from The Times, a lawyer for the president, Charles J. Harder, wrote that the tax information was “demonstrably false,” and that the paper’s statements “about the president’s tax returns and business from 30 years ago are highly inaccurate.” He cited no specific errors, but on Tuesday added that “I.R.S. transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate” and “would not be able to provide a reasonable picture of any taxpayer’s return.”

Mark J. Mazur, a former director of research, analysis and statistics at the I.R.S., said that, far from being considered unreliable, data used to create such transcripts had undergone quality control for decades and had been used to analyze economic trends and set national policy. In addition, I.R.S. auditors often refer to the transcripts as “handy” summaries of tax returns, said Mr. Mazur, now director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.

In fact, the source of The Times’s newly obtained information was able to provide several years of unpublished tax figures from the president’s father, the builder Fred C. Trump. They matched up with Fred Trump’s actual returns, which had been obtained by The Times in the earlier investigation.

If the new tax information does not offer a new narrative of Mr. Trump’s career, its granular detail gives a precise accounting of his financial failures and of the constantly shifting focus that would characterize his decades in business. Here are some key takeaways.

1. Mr. Trump was deep in the red even as he peddled deal-making advice
“Trump: The Art of the Deal” came out in 1987. It became a best seller — and a powerful vehicle for the self-spun myth of the self-made billionaire that would ultimately help propel him to the presidency.

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Dating Advice for Those Who Never Thought They’d Need Tinder
Mr. Trump has long attributed his first run of business reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that hit three years later, in 1990. But the new tax information reveals that he was already in deep financial distress when his master-of-the-universe memoir hit the shelves.

For Mr. Trump, the 1980s were a frenzy of acquisition and construction, buoyed by hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money. In 1985, for the first time, Forbes’s “rich list” included Mr. Trump individually, independent of his father. But his estimated net worth according to the magazine, $600 million, included the real estate empire Fred Trump still owned.

With Mr. Trump’s vast debt and other expenses on his properties — among them Trump Tower and the Grand Hyatt hotel in Manhattan, and two Atlantic City casinos — his fortunes were already on the way down. In 1985, his core businesses reported a loss of $46.1 million; they also carried over a $5.6 million loss for earlier years.

Because those businesses were generally created as partnerships, they did not pay federal income taxes themselves. Instead, their gains, and their losses, flowed onto Mr. Trump’s ledger. To put his results in perspective, The Times compared them with detailed information that the I.R.S. compiles on an annual one-third sampling of high earners. Most of them appeared, like Mr. Trump, to be businessmen who received what is known as pass-through income.

For 1985, the I.R.S. information indicates this: Only three individual taxpayers in the sampling reported bigger losses than Mr. Trump.

2. In multiple years, he appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer
The tax results for the years that followed trace an arc of continued empire building — and gathering loss.

He bought the Eastern Airlines shuttle for $365 million; it never made a profit, and he spent more than $7 million a month to keep it flying. His new Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino, opened in 1990 with more than $800 million in debt, sucked revenue from his other casinos, pulling them along into the red.

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And so, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer, according to the I.R.S. information on high earners — a publicly available database with taxpayers’ identifying details removed. Indeed, in 1990 and 1991, his core businesses lost more than $250 million each year — more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the sampling for those years.

The tax code allows owners of commercial property to write down the cost of their buildings — a valuable tax shelter known as depreciation. In “The Art of the Deal,” Mr. Trump cited one of his Atlantic City casinos to show how it works. Built for $400 million and depreciated at a rate of 4 percent a year, he said, it could allow him to shelter $16 million in taxable income annually. But Mr. Trump’s example, meant to demonstrate the magic of depreciation, shows something else: Depreciation alone cannot account for the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses he declared on his taxes.

3. He paid no federal income taxes for eight of the 10 years
Business owners like Mr. Trump may also use their losses to avoid paying taxes on future income. Over the years, those losses rolled into a $915.7 million free pass, known as a net operating loss, that appeared on his 1995 tax returns, pages of which were mailed anonymously to The Times during the 2016 campaign.

The new tax information shows how Mr. Trump’s net operating losses snowballed, reaching $418 million in 1991. That was fully 1 percent of all the losses that the I.R.S. reported had been declared by individual taxpayers that year.

And the red ink continued to accumulate apace. In all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying any federal income taxes for eight of the 10 years.

4. He made millions posing as a corporate raider — until investors realized he never followed through
For a time, Mr. Trump was able to stave off his coming collapse with the help of a new public role: He traded on his business-titan brand to present himself as a corporate raider. He would acquire shares in a company with borrowed money, suggest publicly that he was contemplating a takeover, then quietly sell on the resulting bump in the stock price. An occasional quote from a high-profile associate helped burnish the myth.

“He has an appetite like a Rocky Mountain vulture,” his stockbroker, Alan C. Greenberg, told The Wall Street Journal in 1987. “He’d like to own the world.”

From 1986 through 1989, Mr. Trump declared $67.3 million in gains from stocks and other assets bought and sold within a year.

But ultimately, the figures show, he lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously.

5. His interest income spiked in 1989 at $52.9 million, but the source is a mystery
Amid the hundreds of figures on 10 years of tax transcripts, one number is particularly striking: $52.9 million in interest income that Mr. Trump reported in 1989.

In the three previous years, Mr. Trump had reported $460,566, then $5.5 million, then $11.8 million in interest.

The source of that outlier $52.9 million is something of a mystery.

Taxpayers can receive interest income from a variety of sources, including bonds, bank accounts and mortgages. Hard data on the workings of Mr. Trump’s businesses is hard to come by. But public findings from New Jersey casino regulators show no evidence that he owned anything capable of generating that much interest. Nor is there any such evidence in a 1990 report on his financial condition, prepared by accountants he hired at his bankers’ request.

Mr. Trump’s interest income fell almost as quickly as it rose. By 1992, he was reporting only $3.6 million.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The Trump administration is in contempt of Congress

THE CONFLICT between President Trump and congressional Democrats is intensifying. But these equal branches of government do not bear equivalent amounts of blame. Congress has a profound interest in robust executive branch oversight. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump and his circle have abused whatever legitimate concerns exist about protecting executive branch deliberations and the secrecy of grand jury investigations. Their “just say no” approach to congressional requests places them squarely — if not yet technically — in contempt of Congress.

Attorney General William P. Barr appeared before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee last week to testify about his handling of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, but he refused to attend a similar hearing before the Democratic-run House Judiciary Committee the following day, citing lame concerns about the proposed hearing format.

Though Mr. Barr reiterated at the Senate hearing his view that he has no objection to Mr. Mueller testifying, the president undercut his attorney general’s position in a tweet, insisting that the special counsel should not appear before Congress.

Then, on Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to disclose Mr. Trump’s tax returns despite a lawful Democratic request, arguing that the Democrats had no legitimate legislative purpose to ask for them. And on Tuesday, White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone instructed his predecessor, Donald McGahn, to refuse to hand over documents relating to the special counsel probe. This occurred as the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee sought a compromise that would avert a committee vote Wednesday to hold Mr. Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the unredacted Mueller report.

To be clear: The president cannot legally prevent Mr. Mueller from testifying, particularly once the special counsel formally exits the Justice Department. Congressional Democrats have the authority to demand Mr. Trump’s tax returns, and they have provided ample justification in the eyes of the law. And, though the unredacted Mueller report would seem to offer little more than what has already been released, the handling of Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation, in which Congress obtained voluminous amounts of information, suggests the Democrats are due more information in this case, too.

More to the point: Americans last year elected a Democratic House in part to act as a check on a wayward president. Neither Mr. Barr nor Mr. Trump gets to decide when Congress’s investigation into Russia’s election-year interference or into the president’s unjustifiable behavior ends. It would be particularly premature to declare these inquiries over now, as Congress is just grappling with the results of a two-year special counsel investigation — and before Mr. Mueller has even had an opportunity to clear up the spin the attorney general has offered lawmakers and the public about the investigation’s findings. Meanwhile, Mr. Mnuchin’s insistence that Congress has no legitimate legislative purpose to demand Mr. Trump’s tax returns shows reckless disregard for black-letter law, all to help Mr. Trump evade the transparency to which every president in decades has submitted.

Several of these disagreements seem destined for lengthy court battles. That won’t serve the public interest. Previous administrations have sought to accommodate congressional overseers. But Mr. Trump’s “just say no” approach may mean that effective oversight may not come for years down the road.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

New York legislature advances bill that would allow release of Trump’s state tax returns

The New York State Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would allow President Trump’s state tax returns to be turned over to congressional committees, a move that could pave the way for House Democrats to obtain the president’s closely guarded financial records.

The bill must still be approved by the State Assembly and signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-N.Y.), but Cuomo has expressed support for the measure and Democrats have a majority in the legislature’s lower chamber.

The legislation comes after the New York Times published a report, based on data from 10 years of Trump’s federal tax returns, showing he took more than $1 billion in losses and lost more money than almost every other taxpayer in America from 1985 to 1994.

House Democrats have sought more recent records, from 2013 to 2018, citing the need to oversee how the Internal Revenue Service audits the president’s tax returns. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin officially denied House lawmakers’ request for Trump’s tax returns.

“One period of taxes that has been leaked shows many inconsistencies,” said Brad Hoylman, the Democratic state senator who is spearheading the legislation. “A lot of Americans want to know what else there is.”

Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential campaign, breaking decades of precedent.

New York’s legislation would not give House Democrats access to the six years of federal tax returns sought by House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.). But the state returns could provide an unprecedented look into Trump’s New York business dealings, his income, and a range of other personal financial information, according to legal experts.

“The New York state tax returns likely contain information that is similar to what is in the federal returns,” said Harry Sandick, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, noting his business losses and income likely would be similar at the federal and state levels.

The Trump administration has rejected Democrats’ requests for the president’s tax returns as violations of taxpayer privacy, with congressional Republicans echoing similar concerns. Leading Republicans in New York state have similarly ridiculed Hoylman’s bill as a partisan attempt to embarrass the president.

In his letter earlier this week, Mnuchin said of House Democrats’ request for Trump’s records, “in reliance on the advice of the Department of Justice, I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, and . . . the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.”

Under the legislation, the state tax returns can only be released if requested by any of three committees: The House Ways and Means Committee; the Senate Finance Committee; or the Joint Committee on Taxation. It likely would not contain any information about IRS audits into Trump’s tax returns, a key part of Neal’s request, as those would not be filed in the state returns.

Federal law limits the kind of federal tax information that states are permitted to disclose, which could translate into criminal penalties if New York state’s Department of Taxation and Finance does not adhere to statute should Neal request Trump’s returns.

“They’re bound by the confidentiality agreement that applies to all federal tax information,” said George Yin, a tax expert at the University of Virginia who has briefed congressional officials on Trump’s returns. “They have to be very, very careful in what they’re doing.”

Hoylman, the state senator, said he had consulted extensively with counsel about his legislation and was confident of its legality.

Some legal experts have speculated that the Trump administration or Trump’s attorneys could try getting a federal court to prevent New York state from turning over the president’s records. But others say a court challenge is unlikely to prevent the congressional bodies from obtaining the state returns.

“The claim that New York can’t give Trump’s returns to Ways and Means is really, really, really weak,” said Daniel Hemel, a professor at the University of Chicago. “New York has a really good argument that it’s just mirroring Congress’s own choice about confidentiality.”

The Treasury Department did not return a request for comment about the New York legislation. Trump’s attorneys also did not return requests for comment.

[Athos_131]

House committee subpoenas Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig over Trump tax returns

A House committee issued subpoenas Friday ordering Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig to turn over President Trump’s tax returns by next Friday at 5 p.m., according to copies of the subpoenas provided by the committee.

House Ways and Means Chair Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) authorized the subpoenas following months of disagreements with the Trump administration over whether federal law allows Congress to obtain the records.

“The IRS is under a mandatory obligation to provide the information requested,” the subpoenas state. “The IRS has had more than four weeks to comply with the Committee’s straightforward request. Therefore, please see the enclosed subpoena.”

Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential campaign in a break with decades of precedent from previous presidents. Legal experts have said Mnuchin’s refusal to turn over the returns is unprecedented, noting a 1924 law explicitly gives lawmakers the authority to seek the records.

The subpoenas come amid a widening legal conflict between House Democrats and the White House over a range of oversight issues, with the administration invoking executive privilege to prevent Trump's former counsel from giving certain records to Congress.

Neal first demanded six years of Trump’s personal and business returns, from 2013 to 2018, in letters to the administration this March.

The Trump administration has rejected Democrats’ requests for the president’s tax returns as violations of taxpayer privacy, with an attorney hired by the president and congressional Republicans echoing similar concerns. Mnuchin repeatedly asked for more time to respond to Neal’s request before rejecting it outright earlier this month.

“I think we’re coming to the point where we’re running out of letters to write,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, in an interview on Thursday.

If Mnuchin and Rettig do not turn over the returns, Neal could respond by going to a congressional body to authorize a lawsuit in federal court against the two Trump administration officials. That body, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, is controlled by Democrats.

Even if House Democrats receive Trump’s tax returns, there is still no guarantee they will necessarily be made public. Legal experts say leaking the returns is a violation of privacy law that could be punishable with up to five years in prison, a provision intended to ensure taxpayer privacy, said George Yin, a legal expert at the University of Virginia.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published a report, based on data from 10 years of Trump’s federal tax returns, showing Trump reported more than $1 billion in losses to the IRS and lost more money than almost every other taxpayer in America from 1985 to 1994.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Giuliani’s remarkable admission about seeking Ukraine’s assistance for Trump

President Trump asked for and received help from the Russian government in his 2016 election victory. And despite all that has followed, his lawyer is now heading to neighboring Ukraine for more potential political assistance.

That’s the almost impossible-to-ignore takeaway from former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s remarkable interview with the New York Times’s Kenneth P. Vogel and a subsequent interview with Fox News on Thursday night. Giuliani is going to Ukraine to pressure the government to investigate cases that Giuliani himself admits have bearing on Trump’s political fate. And he’s not even really trying to disguise the purpose.

In the two interviews, Giuliani made clear he is going to Ukraine to press for probing of whether the Ukrainian government assisted Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign by disseminating documents about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work in the country. Giuliani said he will also inquire about the “collateral” matter of a Ukrainian energy company that employed and handsomely compensated one of Joe Biden’s sons. The elder Biden, as Barack Obama’s vice president, pushed for and secured the removal of a prosecutor who had authority to investigate the oligarch who ran the company.

And Giuliani admits he’s going to Ukraine in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer to push for investigations that could help Trump.

"We’re not meddling in an election; we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani told Vogel.

But then he acknowledged the very real electoral and political benefit that could arise.

“This isn’t foreign policy; I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop,” Giuliani said. “And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it, because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”

Just before the quote above, Giuliani acknowledged the potential ethical and appearance problems.

“There’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “Somebody could say it’s improper.”

Legal experts say it could well be the latter and, depending on Giuliani’s actions, possibly even the former.

“This is the first instance of which I am aware in which a private lawyer for the president of the United States has, in his own words, ‘meddled’ in a foreign criminal investigation of a third party in order to politically benefit the president,” said Tim Meyer, an international law expert at Vanderbilt University. “Mr. Giuliani’s actions undermine the long-standing U.S. foreign policy of promoting the rule of law in Ukraine generally and in the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office specifically.”

The U.S. government often takes an interest in foreign investigations and prosecutions — and has done so several times in matters involving Ukraine. Biden did so himself as vice president, when he traveled to Kiev in 2016 and threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from the Ukrainian government if it didn’t remove its prosecutor general, whom the U.S. accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in a key region. As was reported at the time and has since been expanded upon, the removal of that prosecutor could be seen as a boon to Hunter Biden, who was making as much as $50,000 per month to serve on the board of the energy company, Burisma Holdings.

Bloomberg has since added to the reporting, though, saying the investigation of the oligarch had been tabled long before Biden’s trips. It also noted that the Obama administration previously pressured the Ukrainian government to cooperate in a British investigation into the same oligarch — a decision that wouldn’t seem to have benefited Biden’s family.

What makes Giuliani’s trip different is the capacity he’s taking it in, and the more personal aims he appears to have. While the U.S. government gets involved in justice matters in other countries, Giuliani is not representing the U.S. government, but rather his client. That client happens to be the U.S. president. He’s also seeking to fuel specific investigations that he acknowledges carry political benefits for that client. (He then adds as an aside that maybe they might benefit the U.S. government, too).

There is also the matter of leverage. Although Biden’s threat was clearly stated, Giuliani’s ability to secure outcomes may be more about implied leverage. He’s there as the personal lawyer of the president of the United States, a country with which Ukraine would very much like to remain in good relations. It’s difficult to believe that doesn’t ratchet up the political pressure it might feel to maintain and strongly pursue very specific investigations.

Meyer said there is also a legal question for Giuliani here, as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for a U.S. citizen to corruptly offer “anything of value” to a foreign official to retain business or influence an official decision. There is no evidence that has taken place or will, Meyer emphasized, “but given the breadth of the statute, any quid pro quo Mr. Giuliani offers from which he profits in his representation of the president could be illegal.”

Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked Giuliani about the Times’s article on Thursday night, and Giuliani again suggested there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. But he again acknowledging the potential political benefit — by invoking the very specific political cutoff of Election Day 2020.

“I guarantee you: Joe Biden will not get to Election Day without this being investigated,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani himself admits it’s possible to view this as “improper,” and he doesn’t seem terribly sad to feed that conclusion.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

After backlash, Giuliani cancels Ukraine trip meant to ‘meddle’ in investigations to help Trump

President Trump asked for and received help from the Russian government in his 2016 election victory. And despite all that has followed, his lawyer planned to head to neighboring Ukraine for more potential political assistance.

That was the almost impossible-to-ignore takeaway from former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s remarkable interview with the New York Times’s Kenneth P. Vogel. Giuliani was going to Ukraine to pressure the government to investigate cases that Giuliani himself admitted have bearing on Trump’s political fate. And he didn’t even really trying to disguise the purpose.

But now, after a backlash, he’s canceled the whole thing.

“So I’ve decided ... I’m not going to go to the Ukraine,” Giuliani said. “I’m not going to go because I think I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president, in some cases, enemies of the United States."

In the earlier interviews, Giuliani made clear he was going to Ukraine to press them on whether the Ukrainian government assisted Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign by disseminating documents about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work in the country. Giuliani said he would also inquire about the “collateral” matter of a Ukrainian energy company that employed and handsomely compensated one of Joe Biden’s sons. The elder Biden, as Barack Obama’s vice president, pushed for and secured the removal of a prosecutor who had authority to investigate the oligarch who ran the company.

Giuliani admitted he was going to Ukraine in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer to push for investigations that could help Trump.

"We’re not meddling in an election; we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani told Vogel.

But then he acknowledged the very real electoral and political benefit that could arise.

“This isn’t foreign policy; I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop,” Giuliani said. “And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it, because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”

Just before the quote above, Giuliani acknowledged the potential ethical and appearance problems.

“There’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “Somebody could say it’s improper.”

Legal experts said it could well be the latter and, depending on Giuliani’s actions, possibly even the former.

“This is the first instance of which I am aware in which a private lawyer for the president of the United States has, in his own words, ‘meddled’ in a foreign criminal investigation of a third party in order to politically benefit the president,” said Tim Meyer, an international law expert at Vanderbilt University. “Mr. Giuliani’s actions undermine the long-standing U.S. foreign policy of promoting the rule of law in Ukraine generally and in the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office specifically.”

The U.S. government often takes an interest in foreign investigations and prosecutions — and has done so several times in matters involving Ukraine. Biden did so himself as vice president when he traveled to Kiev in 2016 and threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from the Ukrainian government if it didn’t remove its prosecutor general, whom the United States accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in a key region. As was reported at the time and has since been expanded upon, the removal of that prosecutor could be seen as a boon to Hunter Biden, who was making as much as $50,000 per month to serve on the board of the energy company, Burisma Holdings.

Bloomberg News has since added to the reporting, though, saying the investigation of the oligarch had been tabled long before Biden’s trips. It also noted that the Obama administration previously pressured the Ukrainian government to cooperate in a British investigation into the same oligarch — a decision that wouldn’t seem to have benefited Biden’s family.

What makes Giuliani’s now-canceled trip different is the capacity in which he planned to take it and the more personal aims he appears to have had. While the U.S. government gets involved in justice matters in other countries, Giuliani does not represent the U.S. government, but rather his client. That client happens to be the U.S. president. He was also seeking to fuel specific investigations that he acknowledged carry political benefits for that client. (He then added as an aside that maybe they might benefit the U.S. government, too.)

There is also the matter of leverage. Although Biden’s threat was clearly stated, Giuliani’s ability to secure outcomes may be more about implied leverage. He would have been there as the personal lawyer of the president of the United States, a country with which Ukraine would very much like to remain in good relations. It’s difficult to believe that doesn’t ratchet up the political pressure Ukraine might feel to strongly pursue very specific investigations.

Meyer said there is also a legal question for Giuliani here, as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for a U.S. citizen to corruptly offer “anything of value” to a foreign official to retain business or influence an official decision. There is no evidence that has taken place or would have, Meyer emphasized, “but given the breadth of the statute, any quid pro quo Mr. Giuliani offers from which he profits in his representation of the president could be illegal.”

Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked Giuliani about the Times article on Thursday night, and Giuliani again suggested there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. But he again acknowledged the potential political benefit — by invoking the very specific political cutoff of Election Day 2020.

“I guarantee you: Joe Biden will not get to Election Day without this being investigated,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani on Friday night was singing a different tune, saying this wasn’t politically oriented and that it had nothing to do with the 2020 election he had invoked just the night before.

“The reality is this has nothing to do with the election of 2020,” Giuliani said. “The election of 2020 is a long time from now, and if I wanted to meddle in that election, which I don’t, I could have held this for a year and dropped it before the convention."

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Kudlow acknowledges U.S. consumers, not China, pay for tariffs on imports

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that American consumers end up paying for the administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports, contradicting President Trump’s repeated inaccurate claim that the Chinese foot the bill.

In an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” two days after U.S.-China trade talks ended with no news of a deal, Kudlow was asked by host Chris Wallace about Trump’s claim.

“It’s not China that pays tariffs,” Wallace said. “It’s the American importers, the American companies that pay what, in effect, is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers.”

“Fair enough,” Kudlow replied. “In fact, both sides will pay. Both sides will pay in these things.”

Pressed again by Wallace, Kudlow acknowledged that China does not actually “pay” the tariffs.

“No, but the Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market,” he said.

Kudlow added that “both sides will suffer on this.”

The latest round of trade talks ended Friday with no announcement of an agreement. This followed tweets from Trump defending his decision to more than double tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

“Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products,” Trump tweeted. “These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.”

He also claimed that tariffs will “bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind.”

And Saturday, Trump suggested that the United States was “collecting” tariffs from China.

“Would be wise for them to act now, but love collecting BIG TARIFFS!” Trump said in a tweet.

Trump insisted Sunday night that the tariffs would be advantageous for the U.S. despite what Kudlow said.

“We are right where we want to be with China. Remember, they broke the deal with us & tried to renegotiate. We will be taking in Tens of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs from China. Buyers of product can make it themselves in the USA (ideal), or buy it from non-Tariffed countries,” the president tweeted.

Trump has argued that trade wars are “good and easy to win” and maintains that his tariffs are a useful way to force China to the negotiating table. But Democrats and a growing number of Republicans have voiced concern that Trump’s tariffs could undermine the past several years of robust economic growth.

The effect is being felt by industries across the country, from farmers in Iowa to auto manufacturers in Tennessee. Financial markets also have taken a dive amid the trade standoff, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index losing 2.18 percent last week, its worst week of the year.

On Sunday, figures on both sides of the aisle criticized Trump’s handling of the China trade talks.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ally of Trump, said on ABC News’s “This Week” that he is worried about the effect the tariffs will have on the U.S. economy.

Paul told host George Stephanopoulos that he is “very concerned” that Trump may enact permanent tariffs that will wind up hurting U.S. consumers, farmers and manufacturers.

“I know of a big company that told me that the tax cuts specifically helped them but that the tariffs are almost equal in punishing them,” Paul said, referring to the Republican-led tax overhaul passed in 2017. “The farmers in Kentucky are concerned about the tariffs, and I’ve talked to the administration about this. . . . The longer we’re involved in a tariff battle or a trade war, the better chance there is that we could actually enter into a recession because of it.”

In an appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Henry M. Paulson Jr., who was treasury secretary under President George W. Bush, said that although “we don’t have many good tools” to put economic pressure on China, tariffs are not an ideal choice.

“They’re a tax on the American consumer,” said Paulson, who is chairman of the Paulson Institute and a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs. He added: “Will it hurt us? If this persists too long, it will. There’ll be a cost to it.”

Paulson said he would “prefer the tactic of working with our allies to put pressure” on China but described that approach as imperfect as well because U.S. allies are often risk-averse when it comes to dealing with the Chinese.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), a 2020 presidential candidate, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Trump administration has “failed to understand that we are stronger when we work with our allies on every issue, China included.”

“This president seems to believe and has a preference for conducting trade policy, economic policy, foreign policy by tweet,” Harris said. “And that’s irresponsible.”

Among the lawmakers defending Trump on Sunday was Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

“I’m 100 percent with the president,” Graham said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Graham argued that Trump is “trying to break the stranglehold China has” on the global supply chain, and that while American consumers will pay more, “eventually, China is going to get hurt more than us.”

“When you put tariffs on products coming out of China, it makes other countries a cheaper place to do business, which eventually moves market share away from China,” Graham said. “This is what Trump’s trying to do.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

A guide to 20 inquiries Trump and his allies are working to impede

1. Tax returns

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is blocking Congress’s request for Trump’s tax returns, a demand based on a 1924 anti-corruption law. On Friday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) subpoenaed Mnuchin and Charles Rettig, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Democrats say they are ready to take the matter to court if need be.

2. The Mueller report

The White House asserted executive privilege over the full report issued by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III on Wednesday after Democrats tried to subpoena the underlying evidence in their probe of whether Trump obstructed justice. Democrats are preparing to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to honor their subpoena.

3. McGahn testimony

The White House has told former White House counsel Donald McGahn to ignore a House Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents pertaining to the Mueller investigation. McGahn was a central witness in several of 10 instances of potential obstruction identified by Mueller. He also could face being held in contempt of Congress if he refuses to appear to testify later this month.

4. Mazars

Trump’s personal and Trump Organization attorneys are suing the House Oversight Committee and his accounting firm, Mazars, to quash a subpoena for his financial information. The lawsuit cites an 1880s precedent that has been overturned and dormant for nearly 100 years. A judge recently agreed to fast-track the proceedings and could make a ruling as early as Tuesday.

5. Deutsche Bank and Capital One

Trump’s personal attorneys and Trump Organization lawyers are suing to block his former lender and bank from handing over similar financial documents related to a congressional investigation into Russia money laundering as well as political interference in the 2016 election.

6. Trump-Putin meetings

The Trump administration declined to comply with requests for documents and communications related to Trump and President Vladimir Putin’s private discussions. The Washington Post reported that Trump tried to conceal the contents of one discussion by taking possession of his own interpreter’s notes and instructing a linguist present not to discuss what had transpired.

7. Emoluments

Trump is defending himself in two lawsuits that say his company violates the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments. Justice Department lawyers representing the president have succeeded in temporarily blocking subpoenas by the attorneys general of D.C. and Maryland for financial records and other documents related to Trump’s Washington D.C. hotel. A second lawsuit was filed by 200 congressional Democrats.

8. Trump International Hotel

The Trump administration has been slow to turn over information regarding the lease for Trump International Hotel in Washington, which rents the historic federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion. Democrats say they have only received what they called a “partial” response for documents as part of the investigation being conducted by the Transportation and Infrastructure and Oversight committees.

9. FBI building

Five House panels have demanded records involving a decision to stop the relocation of the FBI headquarters to the suburbs of Washington. Democrats believe Trump was involved in the decision to prevent the building - located across the street from the Trump International Hotel - from being replaced by a hotel that could compete for business. There has been no response from any of the agencies from which they have asked for information.

10. Hush-money payments

The House Oversight Committee sent letters in January and February demanding more information about payments made by the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to an adult-film actress who said she had an affair with Trump. The White House allowed the committee to review some documents in person, but Democrats are continuing to demand the full records.

11. Security clearances

The White House has refused to answer most of the House Oversight Committee’s questions and document demands related to its security clearance process. Trump leaned on then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly to grant his son-in-law Jared Kushner a security clearance despite concerns from intelligence officials. Kushner was among more than 20 people whose security clearances were approved despite objections raised by national security officials, according to staffer Tricia Newbold.

12. Family separation policy

The administration has not fully responded to document requests or testimony from multiple committees on a policy that separated migrant children from their parents. The Health and Human Services Department has partially responded to House Energy and Commerce Committee demands for documents and communications related to the policy. Other committees, including Judiciary, Homeland and Oversight panels, say they are still awaiting answers.

13. Other immigration issues

The administration has not answered inquiries about a proposal to bus migrant children to sanctuary cities and the reasons for a leadership shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security. On the latter, the House Homeland Security Committee expects a response before it holds a DHS budget hearing on May 22. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating the issue.

14. National emergency declaration

The White House has ignored Judiciary Committee inquiries into the legal basis of Trump’s emergency declaration aimed at building a wall or fencing on the southern border. Trump declared the state of emergency on the border after a 35-day shutdown failed to result in a deal giving him billions for his proposed wall, which he had repeatedly promised would be paid for by Mexico.

15. Obamacare repeal

The Trump administration has refused to discuss the process by which it decided to challenge the Affordable Care Act in court, sending the committees demanding the information only a confirmation that it had received their letters.

16. Puerto Rico

The House Oversight Committee on Monday revived an investigation into the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria by sending letters to the White House, Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The committee is asking for all documents by May 20. In the fall of 2017, the committee had made a ipartisan request for those records to DHS and FEMA. Democrats say they did not receive answers.

17. Census

Barr has blocked Justice Department official John Gore from appearing for subpoenaed testimony on the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, an idea that reportedly began in the White House. Democrats have called the question unlawful and say it is aimed at depressing the number of undocumented immigrants tallied in the census.

18. Saudi nuclear transfer

The White House has refused to answer Oversight Committee questions or document requests on a proposal to transfer highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.

19. White House use of private email

The Oversight panel has sought more information surrounding allegations that White House officials have conducted work on private email, including Trump’s daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump. The White House has said it feels it has addressed the matter, but Democrats are pressing for more documents.

20. Kushner Saudi trip

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has asked for documents and information related to a February trip taken by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, to Saudi Arabia, where he reportedly met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to the committee, which has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to brief the panel on the purpose of the trip, U.S. Embassy diplomats were left out of the meetings.

Holy shit.

I was aware of all of these, but when you put it to paper the corruption is hilariously indefensible.

Unless you're an idiot.

#Resist

[Katiebee]

Trump makes his move in the tariff war. Screwed up because he isn’t the biggest player in the game. The farmers are really going to hurt now. China retaliated in us.

[watcher1]

Trump makes his move in the tariff war. Screwed up because he isn’t the biggest player in the game. The farmers are really going to hurt now. China retaliated in us.

His own economic advisor has now admitted tariffs will hurt us in the United States but in the long run, a time span he didn't elaborate on, China will feel the pain.  Meanwhile, US citizens will be shelling out more money for consumer goods and the price of soybeans have fallen to the point farmers cannot make a profit. And the stock market continues to fall due to Trump and his tariffs.

[Katiebee]

Yep. Welcome to the Trump economy.

[Athos_131]

Omarosa requests to join lawsuit alleging women were underpaid by the Trump campaign

A former campaign staffer who accused President Trump of sexual misconduct and pay discrimination in a lawsuit this year filed a motion Monday asking a judge to formally expand the scope of her suit so that others, including former campaign and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, may sign on.

Alva Johnson, an Alabama woman who worked for the Trump presidential campaign for all of 2016, alleged in February that Trump kissed her without her consent at a campaign rally in Florida. Johnson, who is black, also alleged in the original lawsuit that Donald Trump for President Inc. paid her less than her white and male colleagues with similar job titles and responsibilities.

The White House previously dismissed Johnson’s sexual misconduct allegation as “absurd on its face.” In a separate motion filed last week, the campaign and Trump asked the court to dismiss Johnson’s pay discrimination lawsuit because it lacked substantive evidence for its claims, including proof that the only factor separating staffers was their sex.

Monday’s filing by Johnson’s attorneys, which asks the judge to certify the suit as a collective action, provides more information about those pay discrimination allegations. It includes an initial pay study conducted by Phillip M. Johnson, an economist and managing director of Econ One Research, which found that, on average, female campaign staffers were paid 18.2 percent less than their male counterparts between May and December 2016.

That analysis, which excluded a smaller cohort of higher-paid employees in “senior leadership roles” so as not to skew the data, was conducted using publicly available pay data maintained by the Federal Election Commission, according to court documents. It looked at pay for 77 female and 151 male staffers. The motion notes that more-detailed payment data could be obtained through discovery, such as job description, race, gender, age and payment justification.

“This case is about two things: Donald Trump’s predation, and his campaign’s discrimination against women and people of color,” Hassan Zavareei, the lead attorney representing Johnson, said in a statement.

Monday’s filing is the next step toward proving that the campaign participated in sex discrimination, Zavareei said, which is a violation of the Equal Pay Act. The pay study also observed a pay gap of nearly 50 percent among male and female staffers in top-ranking jobs.

“The Trump campaign has never discriminated based on race, ethnicity, gender, or any other basis,” Kayleigh McEnany, National press secretary for the campaign, said in a statement Monday. “Any allegation suggesting otherwise is off base and unfounded.”

In an interview with The Post, Zavareei called pay discrimination one of the most “insidious problems in our society.” A separate analysis by the Boston Globe in 2016 found that in April of that year, women working for the campaign were paid less than men by a gap of 35 percent.

“The fish rots at the head here,” Zavareei said. “If you have the president and his campaign discriminating against women … then that sets the tone for what happens in the commercial world and other sectors of government.”

He said Manigault Newman’s willingness to join the lawsuit as a “high-ranking female campaign staffer” strengthens the case. Zavareei said he is hopeful that her participation will empower other female staffers to join.

In a statement, Manigault Newman said the suit addresses the “gender pay gap” that exists not just between women, but between people of color and their white counterparts. She joined, she said, to “level the playing field in the political arena.”

“While I strongly suspected I was subjected to pay discrimination while with the Trump Campaign, I have since seen expert analysis confirming this to be true. The numbers don’t lie,” Manigault Newman said. “After nearly 20 years inside the Beltway, working for two White Houses and countless political campaigns, I’ve never witnessed such egregious violations as I did during my time under the leadership of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.”

If the judge grants Johnson’s motion, her legal team will be able to obtain contact information for all the Trump campaign’s female staffers and invite them to participate in the suit.

Zavareei said it is his understanding the Trump campaign required some, if not all, staffers to sign nondisparagement agreements as a prerequisite to employment and has pressured them to keep quiet. Other staffers, he said, are working in the White House or for the president’s reelection campaign and may not be inclined to join.

“We’re hopeful there will be others,” he said.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

17 of the ‘best people’ Trump hired — and then attacked

For most people, Mother’s Day weekend is a time to give thanks for someone whose role in your life you had no real control over. For President Trump, though, it was a time to settle scores with people he himself selected.

Trump on Saturday issued his most direct attack to date on former White House counsel Don McGahn. Then on Monday, he magnified criticism of his FBI director, Christopher Wray.

After reports surfaced that McGahn had declined Trump’s request to publicly say Trump didn’t obstruct justice, Trump on Saturday tweeted that “lawyer Don McGahn had a much better chance of being fired than Mueller. Never a big fan!”

Then early Monday morning, Trump passed along a commentary from Judicial Watch, which included this: “The FBI has no leadership. The Director is protecting the same gang.....that tried to ... overthrow the President through an illegal coup.”

Trump then added, “(Recommended by previous DOJ).”

In case it wasn’t clear, that parenthetical is meant to suggest Wray is a problem foisted upon Trump by former attorney general Jeff Sessions, whom — you guessed it — Trump also attacked, repeatedly. But just like Sessions and McGahn, Wray is someone Trump himself actually installed in his job.

And the three of them have plenty of company. Despite insisting that he hires “only the best” people, Trump has publicly attacked more than a dozen high-profile administration officials and campaign aides he selected. And he often does so by suggested their hiring wasn’t actually his fault.

Here’s a quick recap:

McGahn

Wray

Sessions: “I don’t have an attorney general. ... He was the first senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be attorney general, and I didn’t see it. And then he went through the nominating process and he did very poorly. I mean, he was mixed up and confused, and people that worked with him for, you know, a long time in the Senate were not nice to him, but he was giving very confusing answers. Answers that should have been easily answered.”

Former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein: “[Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe] and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon: “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. ... Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was.”

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson: "[Current Secretary Mike Pompeo’s] predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!”

Former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn: “Gary Cohn, I could tell stories about him like you wouldn’t believe. ... Gary Cohn never thought we could ever make this deal with Mexico and never thought in a million years we could make this deal with Canada.”

Former defense secretary Jim Mattis: “What’s he done for me? How had he done in Afghanistan? Not too good. I’m not happy with what he’s done in Afghanistan and I shouldn’t be happy. He was very happy.” “When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should.”

Former White House communications aide Omarosa Manigault Newman: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: “So far, I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay. Not even a little bit. And I’m not blaming anybody, but I’m just telling you I think that the Fed is way off-base with what they’re doing.”

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida and/or Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles: “I put a couple of other people there I’m not so happy with too, but for the most part I’m very happy with people.” (These were the only people Trump had appointed to the Fed at the time.)

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster: After McMaster said Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was “incontrovertible,” Trump responded, “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems.”

Former chief of staff John Kelly: “He’s doing an excellent job in many ways. There are a couple of things where it’s just not his strength. It’s not his fault, it’s not his strength.”

Former health and human services secretary Tom Price: On Price’s use of private planes, “I will tell, you personally I’m not happy about it. I am not happy.”

Former White House aide Cliff Sims: “A low level staffer that I hardly knew named Cliff Sims wrote yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer. He signed a non-disclosure agreement. He is a mess!”

Former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” (Also called him a “rat.”)

Former deputy campaign manager David Bossie: “There is no excuse for any group, including ones run by people who claim to be part of our ‘coalition,’ to suggest they directly support President Trump’s re-election or any other candidates, when in fact their actions show they are interested in filling their own pockets with money from innocent Americans’ paychecks, and sadly, retirements.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Julian Assange: Sweden reopens rape investigation

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump buildings face millions in climate fines under new New York rules

Donald Trump’s reluctance to address climate change is set to cost his business empire millions of dollars in fines levied by New York City due to the amount of pollution emitted by Trump-owned buildings.

According to data shared with the Guardian, eight Trump properties in New York City do not comply with new regulations designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions. This means the Trump Organization is on track to be hit with fines of $2.1m every year from 2030, unless its buildings are made more environmentally friendly.

According to city officials, the president’s eight largest New York properties pump out around 27,000 tons of planet-warming gases every ear, the equivalent of 5,800 cars. The buildings that exceed the new pollution thresholds include Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and the Trump Building on Wall Street.

The biggest potential offender is Trump International Hotel & Tower, a 583ft skyscraper that looms over the south-west corner of Central Park. The building is on course to be fined $850,871 a year if no improvements are made to its energy efficiency.

The New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, will hold a rally outside Trump Tower on Monday, seeking to highlight the looming penalties.

“President Trump, you’re on notice,” de Blasio said. “Your polluting buildings are part of the problem. Cut your emissions or pay the price.”

The fines are part of legislation passed by the city council in April that seeks to cut planet-warming emissions from the city’s largest buildings. All premises larger than 25,000ft – a total of 50,000 buildings – will be required to cut overall emissions 40% or face annual fines.

The new standards, hailed by advocates as the toughest action by any city on climate change so far, takes aim at the biggest source of greenhouse gases in New York, where buildings account for more than two-thirds of emissions.

Trump’s properties have long been identified as leading consumers of energy, although city officials say some other buildings are on track for even heavier fines.

In order to comply with the new regulations, the Trump properties must improve insulation, upgrade window glass, replace boilers and better automate electricity use.

“The good performers won’t have to pay any penalties but anything above the threshold has a lot of work to do now,” said Mark Chambers, director of the mayor’s office of sustainability. “It’s clear the president needs to pay attention to this, it’s a lot of money.

“We will do what’s necessary to combat the climate crisis. It’s important we are all held responsible and President Trump is the No 1 roadblock globally to us responding to climate change.”

New York has positioned itself as a bulwark against Trump administration attempts to dismantle action to address climate change. The city has vowed to divest its pension funds of fossil fuel investments and attempted to sue major oil companies for their role in the climate crisis. De Blasio has set a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.

The new regulations on large buildings echo a central plank of the Green New Deal, a federal plan put forward by the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that calls for retrofitting all buildings for energy efficiency within 10 years.

Ocasio-Cortez said: “Solving our current climate crisis will require leadership and bold ideas. New York City is providing both with its Green New Deal.”

New York’s new climate regulations have been opposed by some developers who complain it will hamper the construction of large, dense buildings and deter energy-hungry tenants such as media and technology companies.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the International Energy Agency, the construction and operation of buildings is responsible for more than a third of global energy consumption.

Last year, a major United Nations report warned that the world must make an “unprecedented” effort to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 and then effectively to zero by 2050 to avoid the worst ravages of climate change, including severe heatwaves, flooding, ruinous storms and food insecurity.

Maybe he should move to Moscow.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

U.S. stocks suffer big across-the-board losses as trade war escalates

U.S. markets plunged Monday as China said it would raise steep tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods, upping the stakes of a trade war that threatens to imperil the global economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 617 points, or nearly 2.4 percent, as investors feared that the standoff with China would escalate into a full-blown economic crisis — tipping the United States and world economies into recession. Dragging the Dow were Apple, Caterpillar and Boeing, with drops of 5.8 percent, 4.6 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively. The blue-chip index slumped to its lowest close since January.

“Investors have reassessed the trade issue," said Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones Indices. "They weren’t factoring enough risk into it.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 2.4 percent, holding just above a key threshold of 2,800. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was off 3.4 percent, its worst day of the year. Ten of 11 market sectors landed in negative territory. Utilities was the only bright spot.

Technology stocks took a hit Monday, with all five FAANG stocks — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet — deeply in the red.

Commodity futures in U.S. soybeans, the largest U.S. export to China, and copper, a predictor of the global economy, both fell to lows on trade fears.

“Today’s tit-for-tat in U.S./China trade tariffs has exacerbated tumbling futures out of fear that tensions could trigger a global recession,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

The drama began last week after President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion in Chinese imports to the United States. He also told aides to begin plans to hit more than $300 billion in other Chinese goods.

Asian markets were down more than 1 percent on China’s response, with the Shanghai Composite dropping 1.2 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 down just shy of 1 percent. European markets were down across the board, with the German Dax leading the drop, off 1.5 percent. France’s CAC had fallen 1.2 percent and the pan-European Stoxx 600 was off 1.2 percent.

Adding to the pressure on stocks was a Saudi news report that said two Saudi oil tankers had been attacked with “significant damage” in coastal waters near the Persian Gulf, heightening tensions with Iran.

The tankers were subjected to an “act of sabotage” early Sunday morning off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to a statement from Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi minister for energy, industry and mineral resources, carried by the official Saudi news agency.

Saudi Arabia did not say who was responsible for the apparent attack, which resulted in no casualties or oil spill, according to the statement.

Oil futures initially climbed on the news, with U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate advancing 1.6 percent and Brent crude up nearly 2 percent. Both benchmarks had reversed and oil prices declined by end of trading.

“Stock investors are in risk-off mode as Trump’s trade war with China seems to be escalating while negotiations seem to be breaking down,” said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “Adding to the geopolitical tumult is mounting tension in the Middle East following the sabotaging of Saudi oil tankers over the weekend.”

John Kilduff of Again Capital said that, at least for now, the concerns about Iran are taking a back seat to the fear that the trade salvos between the United States and China could ultimately lead to a reduction in world oil demand.

"Trade fears are overwhelming oil markets and sending prices down,” Kilduff said. “Markets are worried that the demand side of the oil trade will take a hit from tariffs and a slowdown in world economies.”

The president has alleged that the Chinese government is ripping off U.S. consumers and businesses by unfairly subsidizing Chinese companies, stealing intellectual property from U.S. firms, and flooding global markets with cheap goods to put other companies out of business.

On Monday, he warned China against retaliation in a series of tweets. But China countered with its own tariffs. The Chinese government said it would impose levies on U.S. imports starting June 1, with the steepest penalties affecting certain beef, live plants, dyed flowers, and a range of fruits and vegetables. The tariffs would range from 5 percent to 25 percent.

Technology stocks took the brunt of the pain. Apple shares were off 6 percent because of the risk a China trade war could have on Apple revenue in that country. The shares also were reacting to a Supreme Court ruling Monday that allows iPhone users to sue the phone giant over prices at its App Store.

Shares for Uber Technologies, another high-profile technology company, fell $3, more than 7 percent, Monday in its second day of trading. The ride-hailing company debuted Friday at $45 per share. Shares in the company, which is the most anticipated initial public offering of the year, are 17 percent off their opening price.

Monday’s skid comes on the heels of the first weekly decline of 2019 in U.S. stocks. Stocks in all 11 major industry groups ended lower last week, with technology and industrial companies sinking the most as Beijing promised to retaliate against the fresh U.S. tariffs.

“The recent strong data has emboldened Trump to take a hard line in trade negotiations,” said Ivan Feinseth of Tigress Financial Partner. “He feels the U.S. economy is strong and he can play a little bit. But he will back off if the stock losses accelerate. He wants to win re-election, and he is going to run on the strength of the stock market and the economy.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

I own the Red Hen restaurant that asked Sarah Sanders to leave. Resistance isn’t futile.

‘‘Hello Intolerant, intellectually-challenged, psychotic, socialists!

Your so-called business is in jeopardy. Rest assured this is not a threat but simply a warning that predicts your downfall. . . . When your treasonist hypocrite lowlife Obama took our nation into despair (for 8 yrs) we didn’t do or say the things you do. Get over it, before it’s too late! BTW, there are a lot more of us than there are of you.’’

I’ve been getting hate mail for almost a year now, ever since I asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to leave my Lexington, Va., restaurant, the Red Hen, last June.

At the time, the country was in turmoil over the Trump administration’s heinous practice of separating children from their parents at our southern border. In our tiny 26-seat restaurant, the horror felt simultaneously immediate and far away.

Faced with the prospect of serving a fine meal to a person whose actions in the service of our country we felt violated basic standards of humanity, we balked. We couldn’t do it.

I took Ms. Sanders aside and politely suggested she leave. She agreed, equally politely. She may or may not have expected this day would come, but she never showed any sign of outrage, or even much surprise. We’d drawn a line; she’d accepted it.

I’m pretty sure both of us thought that was the end of the matter.

When I awoke the next morning, social media was on fire. The incident had gone from a Facebook post to a tagged tweet to nationally trending news with the whoosh of lighter fluid to a flame.

The blowback was swift and aggressive. Within 24 hours, the restaurant’s phone line was hacked, my staff and I were doxxed, and threats to our lives and families and property were pouring in through every available channel. Protesters colonized the streets around the restaurant. Thousands of fake Yelp reviews torpedoed our ratings, and dozens of people attempted to lock up our tables with reservations they had no intention of honoring. Pundits lamented the prospect of “red restaurants” and “blue restaurants.” In less than three days, President Trump had mocked us on Twitter.

In the days following, I tried to balance fears for the safety of my family and staff against the reality of being well-protected in a small, loving community. Overhanging it all was a sense that I’d seen this show before; don’t we all have ringside seats to the outrage circus these days? But there was plenty I couldn’t predict or assess: How likely was it, really, that the guy texting me from a Minneapolis area code was really going to come to town to set fire to our restaurant? It felt impossible to know.

When the mail started pouring in, things got weirder. For the first few days the rubber-banded bundles fit into my letter carrier’s shoulder bag. But soon he was forced to heft large white plastic totes overflowing with letters and packages up to my door.

Staring at it all made my stomach clench. It’s one thing to set filters on your email, reset your privacy settings on Instagram and block callers on your phone. It’s a whole different feeling to face a mountain of mail dwarfing your living-room sofa, not knowing which contain abuse (or worse) and which appreciation.

The realness of that mail struck me. Paper correspondence carries all the marks of genuine humans, people who feel strongly enough about the whole event that they take on all those little tasks of letter writing — tracking down paper or card, composing their thoughts, handwriting or printing it out, locating our address and getting it into the mail.

In more than 4,000 painstakingly typed letters, hastily scrawled postcards, and feces-smeared notebook pages, I was branded a racist, a bigot and a hypocrite. A victim of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I was an idiot, or worse, and a lousy manager. Sure, I’d 86’d Sanders, but it was my business that was going down the drain.

Yet, as I kept opening the letters, I saw a pattern. For every hateful message, there was one of gratitude. For every angry accusation that our actions were driven by the inability to accept Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, there was a note of thanks from someone lamenting Trump’s rollback of protections for marginalized people. What’s more, for every wish that our business die a painful death, there was a dollar bill or a generous check or an order for a gift certificate.

When we opened after a 10-day hiatus, our dining room was full. In the following weeks, people who had never been to the Shenandoah Valley traveled out of their way to eat with us. Hundreds of orders for our Red Hen spice blend poured in. And the love spread far beyond our door, as supporters sent thousands of dollars’ in donations in our honor to our local food pantry, our domestic violence shelter and first responders.

After nearly a year, I’m happy to say that business is still good. Better than good, actually. And besides the boost to our area charities, our town’s hospitality and sales revenue have gone up, too.

Our haters may have believed that there were more of “them” than of “us,” but it turns out we have more than enough to keep us cooking. And to everyone who might be fearful about taking a stand, I say don’t be. Resistance is not futile, for you or your business.

#RESIST