The release of five years of former President Donald Trump‘s tax returns has split MAGA world into two camps, with one side suggesting Trump go on a “scorched earth” revenge tour and the other silently “waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
The returns in question, made public by the House Committee on Ways and Means last week, track Trump’s finances from 2015-2020 and show the former president taking advantage of loopholes in the U.S. tax code to pay little to no federal income taxes across those five years.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM THE RELEASE OF TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS
Still, a half-dozen current and former Trumpworld figures note that despite the lengthy court battle waged by the House to publish Trump’s returns, the thousands of pages of documents failed to produce a “smoking gun” implicating Trump in illegal activity, as many of his critics have alleged.
A second former Trump administration official pointed out that Trump’s returns show his 2017 tax reforms actually negatively affected the former president, undermining the argument that Trump sought office for personal financial gain.
“Sure, he took advantage of the tax code, but we all already knew that,” that person continued. “He literally stood up in that debate back in 2016 and explained how the government allowed wealthy elites to avoid paying taxes. That was a major selling point of his run, trying to change the system.”
A third Trump administration and campaign veteran specifically likened the situation to Trump’s first impeachment, which, after Democrats failed to oust him from the presidency, saw his general approvals jump before falling again during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is the Russia witch hunt all over again,” one person, a former Trump administration official, told the Washington Examiner. “Radical Democrats have spent years trying to tear down President Trump, and the American people can see through their games.”
Two other former Trump advisers suggested the former president will begin to ramp up his so-far-nonexistent campaign schedule to highlight his “vindication” through the release of the tax returns.
The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated inquiries about Trump’s plans in the new year.
Still, five other former and current Trumpworld figures expressed varying degrees of concern about scrutiny of Trump’s taxes.
“This seems far from over, and I think he’s basically waiting for the other shoe to drop,” one such former administration official told the Washington Examiner. “Now that the raw documents have been released to the public, you can expect the liberal media will breathlessly pour through every line.”
A former Trump campaign official agreed that “media sleuths” won’t be discouraged by not having yet unearthed any “discrepancies.”
“It will never end,” that person concluded.
“President Trump’s taxes include thousands and thousands of documents,” a third former adviser added. “It’s literally impossible for anyone to have combed through everything yet, and it’s smart for him to sit tight until he knows he’s really in the clear.”
Trump’s tax returns have appeared to ignite a motion among House Democrats to reform the presidential audit process.
The Internal Revenue Service is required to conduct “mandatory” audits of each president and vice president while in office, yet only audited Trump’s taxes for fiscal 2016 in 2019 after Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) sent a letter to the IRS on the subject.
Neal spearheaded a symbolic bill reforming the presidential audit process through the House in December of 2022, though the Senate did not pick up the legislation during the lame-duck session.
“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” Neal said following the committee vote on the legislation.
Republicans, in turn, have argued that Democrats are setting a “dangerous precedent” that could be applied to everyday people, not just high-ranking government officials.
“Democrats have charged forward with an unprecedented decision to unleash a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, overturning decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since Watergate,” Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady (R-TX) concluded after Trump’s returns were released.
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The White House has not yet offered a public comment regarding House efforts to reform the presidential audit process but notes that President Joe Biden‘s taxes for fiscal 2020 and 2021 were audited by the IRS.
