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From The Reporter’s Notebook
TPM’s Tierney Sneed reported on the big picture surrounding the concerns raised about the Trump Foundation, including potential legal violations that charity law professors said should have been avoidable under the guidance of lawyers with non-profit expertise. One such lawyer — Marcus Owens, an attorney at Loeb and Loeb in Washington who represents nonprofit organizations — pointed out the irony that the Trump Foundation is registered in New York. “It’s interesting that all this is happening with a New York organization, because if you had to pick the one state where there is real charitable oversight, New York is right up there,” Owens said.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall: “We’ve known for years that the collapse of Trump’s debt-ridden casino empire in Atlantic City almost destroyed him more than two decades ago. He was able to wriggle through by a number of angles and connivances. But one of the biggest was that he was able to convince his lenders that they’d be even worse off if he was cleaned out and removed from the picture entirely. Convincing them that he was in essence too big or too important to fail, they took major ‘haircuts’ (losses) that allowed him to survive. He got others to absorb the impact of the losses, repackaged other parts and put them through bankruptcy, etc. The key question is how much of the Atlantic City losses did Trump absorb in real terms? How much of those losses were forgiven or written off formally? And perhaps most importantly, how much of those losses were squirreled away or ‘parked’ in places which effectively put them in a sort of limbo or suspended animation — neither truly absorbed nor forgiven?”
Say What?!
“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman?”
– Rudy Giuliani skipped right on past casual sexism while touting Trump’s business smarts.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “Trump supporters, particularly Giuliani, harp on Trump’s fiduciary responsibility. The issues in the NYT article involve Trump’s personal returns. There is no issue of fiduciary responsibility here to other investors, employees, etc. It’s a pure smoke screen of official sounding word salad that the interviewers should have caught.”
Related: Mark Cuban says voters shouldn’t assume that Trump’s 1995 business losses were simply the result of failed casinos.
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What We’re Reading
Trump backer: “Finally. Someone who thinks like me.” (The State)
Videos capture the minute-by-minute rescue response to an airstrike that destroyed a building in eastern Aleppo. (The New York Times)
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