The Register's Editorial

God bless the New York Times.

Knowing full well that they’re likely to be sued for publishing information from Donald Trump’s personal income-tax returns, the newspaper’s editors have done so anyway.

The records show that Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax return, a deduction so large it could have enabled him to legally avoid paying any federal income tax for up to 18 years.

It’s a stunning revelation that provides additional evidence the GOP presidential nominee is not the successful businessman he claims to be, and that his extravagant lifestyle is subsidized by the working men and women who can’t take advantage of tax shelters for the wealthy.

Trump’s defenders are beside themselves, arguing that while the tax records indicate Trump has done nothing illegal, the Times has violated the law in publishing them and must be held accountable.

The once-respected Rudolph Giuliani, now Trump’s chief toady and bootlicker, and Chris Christie, still the billionaire’s most shameless sycophant, have each declared that the tax returns prove Trump to be a “genius” when it comes to finance.

“The media broke the law, the New York Times breaks the law,” fumed radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday. “Donald Trump has followed the law.”

The fact is that under federal law, it’s a felony to willfully print or publish, without authorization, someone else’s tax returns if the chain of disclosure begins with government officials, such as IRS employees, leaking the documents. In those cases, the offense is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In this case, the Times didn’t persuade an IRS official to turn over the records; the documents arrived in the mail, sent by an anonymous individual. And the courts have ruled that newspapers are entitled to publish truthful, lawfully obtained information on matters of public concern, even when in cases where an individual’s right to privacy is threatened.

Trump could sue the Times in civil court, as his lawyers has already threatened to do, but he’d almost certainly lose. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that even in those cases where the law has been violated by a third party, “a stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern.”

Some of Trump’s supporters claim the voting public has no legitimate interest in knowing whether candidates for president are paying any taxes. They may have forgotten the outrage that swept the nation in 1973, when it was revealed that President Richard Nixon had paid just $878 in federal income taxes on a $200,000 salary, and that Nixon had lessened his tax bill by improperly backdating his deductions.

The disclosures led to a series of reforms in federal tax law and prompted the president to go on national television to proclaim, “I am not a crook.” But none of that would have happened had the Providence Journal not obtained Nixon’s tax records from unnamed “government sources” and then published the information.

Trump says that paying little or no taxes makes him a smart businessman. That would be a tough argument for any politician to sell, but it’s downright laughable coming from Trump, who has a history of condemning other Americans for not paying more in taxes.

“HALF of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling govt debt,” Trump tweeted in February 2012.

Two months later, Trump condemned President Barack Obama for not paying more in taxes, tweeting, “Barack Obama who wants to raise all our taxes only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. … Do as I say, not as I do.”

Last year, Trump tweeted, “The hedge fund guys have to pay higher taxes ASAP. They are paying practically nothing.”

Donald Trump’s campaign for the highest office in the land is built on the premise that he is a successful businessman, with unsurpassed knowledge in real estate and finance. He has also railed against those who twist the tax code to their benefit and saddle the rest of us with the burden of paying more for our military, our roads, our schools and our police and firefighters.

When Nixon told the American public he wasn’t a crook, he was mired in a cesspool of illegal activities that had yet to be publicly revealed. But he got one thing right that day, prefacing his comments with a statement that Trump’s supporters need to consider in 2016: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.”

Thanks to the way federal tax laws are now written, Trump may not be a crook. But if his tax records, unpaid debts and bankruptcies are any indication, he just might be the biggest freeloader in all of America.