According to recent claims, back in the days of his business career, President Donald Trump was posing as a corporate raider and he was using his debts in order to purchase shares in companies. Trump was allegedly claiming that he would become a majority owner, which was boosting the value of the shares, and after buying them he was secretly selling them for profits.
Citing a report by The New York Times, which obtained new tax information about the President, Newsweek reported that President Trump made millions of dollars between 1986 and 1988 using this tactic until investors eventually caught on to what was happening and disregarded his claims.
However, Trump’s trading profits did not pay off on the long run, and according to his tax records from 1985 to 1995, most of the profits he had made were lost.
During that period, Trump’s debt-laden businesses, including casinos and hotels, struggled to survive. Several ventures collapsed.
He has since sought to rebuild his wealth and status by licensing out his name to real estate and leisure projects, building golf courses, and becoming a reality television star through The Apprentice. He also inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father, Fred Trump.
Trump’s lawyer Charles J. Harder did not respond immediately to Newsweek’s request for comment. Harder told The Times its reporting about the President’s tax returns and business dealings was “demonstrably false” and “highly inaccurate.”
The report comes as Congress battles with Trump to obtain his tax returns from the past few years. Trump is the first president since Richard Nixon to not release his tax returns publicly, breaking with a post-Watergate convention.
The President’s campaign insists his tax returns are still in audit and, once this process is complete, he will consider releasing them. But Trump’s critics accuse him of having something to hide.
The House Ways and Means Committee requested six years of Trump’s recent tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.
However, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin rejected that request on Monday, citing a Justice Department opinion that to do so would be unlawful.
Be the first to comment