Trump tax records reveal new inconsistencies — this time for Trump Tower

AlterNet logoDocuments show the president’s company reported different numbers — higher ones to lenders, lower ones to tax officials — for Trump’s signature building. Last month, ProPublica revealed a similar pattern in two other Trump buildings.

Donald Trump’s business reported conflicting information about a key metric to New York City property tax officials and a lender who arranged financing for his signature building, Trump Tower in Manhattan, according to tax and loan documents obtained by ProPublica. The findings add a third major Trump property to two for which ProPublica revealed similar discrepancies last month.

In the latest case, the occupancy rate of the Trump Tower’s commercial space was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11, 16 and 16 percentage points higher in filings to a lender than in reports to city tax officials, records show.

View the complete November 27 article by Heather Vogell from ProPublica on the AlterNet website here.

Supreme Court precedents do not shield Trump financial records, House, prosecutors argue

Washington Post logoThere is no precedent for keeping a House committee from examining President Trump’s financial records, lawyers for the House told the Supreme Court on Thursday, and “each day of delay harms Congress by depriving it of important information it needs to carry out its constitutional responsibilities.”

House General Counsel Doug N. Letter said in a brief that the court’s precedents involving Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton make clear that the chief executive enjoys no special privilege to be free from investigation or legal action.

The Supreme Court “has established that even a private citizen may invoke the courts’ subpoena power against the president in appropriate cases,” the brief states. “In light of that settled law, it would hardly make sense to say that Congress, a coordinate branch, cannot use its own subpoena power in a matter involving the president.”

View the complete November 21 article by Robert Barnes on The Washington Post website here.