Whenever I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself for having sundry druncles and Trumpy uncles (Venn diagram not a perfect circle, but close) mulching up the family tree, I pity folks like Mary Trump instead. The daughter of Fred Jr., Mary has a much worse uncle than any of us: the beast himself.
According to The Daily Beast (which has lived up to its name for three years and change), Mary Trump was The New York Times’ secret source for its explosive 2018 story that confirmed suspicions that the Trumps are multi-generational tax cheats. That story didn’t get nearly enough traction with the public, IMO. I don’t remember exactly what brand of fuckery was afoot in October 2018 when the story broke, but like the innumerable other Trump scandals that would have brought down any normal president, the Trumps’ theft of hundreds of millions of dollars just went by the boards like a common tan suit.
Anyhoo, Mary Trump is writing a tell-all that is scheduled to come out in August, right before the Republican National Convention and Virus Swap Meet.
From The Daily Beast:
As she is set to outline in her book, Mary was a primary source for the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, supplying Fred Trump Sr.’s tax returns and other highly confidential family financial documentation to the paper.
Details of the book are being closely guarded by its publisher, Simon & Schuster, but The Daily Beast has learned that Mary plans to include conversations with Trump’s sister, retired federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, that contain intimate and damning thoughts about her brother, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Huh. The book’s revelations, no matter how sordid, are unlikely to make a dent in public perceptions of Trump. What could it possibly reveal about Trump’s low character that isn’t already known? He cheats. He lies. He steals. He abuses power. He has done these things all his life, and he is doing them now. It is known.
For my money, the most amusing teaser in The Daily Beast’s account of the forthcoming book confirmed the deservedly low reputation (in these parts) of the so-called “paper of record.” When The Times published the Trump tax scam article, many of us lamented that the paper hadn’t ferreted out those long-ago facts when it might have made a difference, i.e., before the 2016 election, instead of manufacturing “shadows” and “clouds” over the Clinton Foundation.
But it was still a genuinely important story and of a piece with the excellent investigative reporting that The Times’ defenders cite to justify their ongoing subscriptions. However, as our own Kay occasionally notes, The Times’ Beltway reporting is often a double-dipping scheme in which reporters get paid for covering campaigns for the paper while burnishing a brand to monetize on the side through book and television deals (see Chozick, Amy).
The Beast refers to earlier reporting I’d missed that identifies a Times starfucker who was far more aggressive than average: David Barstow.
In June of 2019, The Daily Beast reported how The New York Times Trump tax team imploded when four-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David Barstow went rogue, aggressively pursuing a source of their groundbreaking investigation to ghostwrite their book and secure a six-figure payday—a move explicitly forbidden by the Times’ ethics rules.
That story detailed how Barstow went behind his colleagues’ backs and pursued the source—who was not his source to begin with—even after his editors told him not to do the book.
Barstow even went so far as to make a surprise visit to the source’s residence after they ceased communications with him, staying at least three hours, and ringing the front and back doorbells multiple times as the person hid in their home.
“The source was freaked out. The source felt invaded. They ended up hiding until he left the residence,” a person with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast at the time, adding that the source considered calling the police.
While Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet backed Barstow over his questionable ethical decisions and Barstow claimed he acted appropriately, he soon left the paper to take up a position leading the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s investigative reporting program.
The source who hid from Barstow was Mary Trump. And of course Baquet backed Barstow. Excusing shoddy, unethical practices that undermine American journalism far beyond the boroughs and sometimes have cataclysmic effects on the country is what he does. The Daily Beast concludes:
“My aunt and uncles should be ashamed of themselves,” Mary Trump said about Donald Trump and his siblings in that rare 2000 interview, which provides a preview of the tone of her book. “I’m sure they are not.”
So are we all, Mary. They have no shame, at least of the common human variety. Neither does The Times, which is garbage. It is known.
Punchy
TPM has a blurb up about a SCOTUS ruling in favor of LBGTQ. Cant find a real-time link….anyone got one?
Baud
OT: Supremes upheld LGBT right to use under discrimination laws as sex discrimination.
SCT site is crashing.
Betty Cracker
Just saw the news about the SCOTUS ruling on Twitter — looks like Gorsuch and Roberts joined the libs on this one! Woohoo!
Ruckus
As you say, this is all nice, if not just a bit late in the overall scheme of things. And what sort of revelations can we see that we don’t already understand? That shitforbrains cheats and lies? This is my shocked face…. Isn’t the key to all tell all stories, the timing? Because the timing here sucks donkey balls.
debbie
@Punchy:
Surprising, but very good news if true. I wonder if Trump will tweet about his power to fire the justices?
Baud
It’s especially big news because Trump has been trying to change a number of rules to exclude LGBT protections. This undercuts a lot of that.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Opinion by Gorsuch. 172 pages long.
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
172 pages for everything, including the dissent.
Punchy
@debbie: His “boy”, Gorsuch, voted with the libs. Expect an absurdly insane screed about “disloyalty” and such. Gunna be very, very ugly.
JWR
I’ve been watching the coverage on NBC, and that former Bush guy, Pete something, is aghast that the ruling was written.by Gorsuch. And the decision came down 6-3.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”
kindness
Sounds like the family doesn’t have it’s tentacles wrapped around Mary’s money.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: IMO, the only good that could come out of it is that it might make The Beast even more erratic and nasty, thus reinforcing his image as a mean, greedy, whiny prick when he needs every fence-sitter vote. But yeah. The link to the 2000 story about the contested will has several Trump quotes in it. He has always been the same mean, greedy piece of shit. We already knew that too.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Baud: I assume, though I can’t get a copy. As someone on SCOTUSBlog said, this is what happens when you let Justice Souter run the server.
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Damn, that’s cold.
Baud
IIRC, if you’re a committed textualist, the case came out the right way, so Roberts and Gorsuch are playing the principled textualist role in joining the libs here.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
The court’s opinion is only 30 pages long. The rest of the 172 pages is the dissent and a long appendix to Alito’s.
TaMara (HFG)
Wow great news about SCOTUS and LGBTQ.
As for Mary – get the money while the getting is good. Didn’t Donny fuck over her dad?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: whoa, I don’t think anyone expected that.
Mary G
I have to admire Mary Trump for sitting on this for years and years to release it right before the reelection campaign in order to get the maximum revenge for cutting off an infant great nephew’s health insurance just after he’s been diagnosed with a horrible expensive to treat disease.
scav
The Gorsuch detail is going to fry some of the Eeeeeeeevangelicals’ glee at getting their judges by subordinating their missions to the sinful man.
Betty Cracker
FYI, Dave put up a SCOTUS ruling thread.
Anonymous At Work
Mary Trump’s 2018 story was enough to get Trump’s sister, a federal appeals court judge with a lifetime appointment, to resign rather than face an investigation by bar associations and court watchdogs. Not without consequence.
Matt McIrvin
For all of his asshole behavior, Gorsuch seems to be a committed ideologue rather than a pure hack. You can sway an ideologue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t particularly recall any assholish behavior from Gorsuch. Now Kavanaugh otoh….
Another Scott
@Baud: But, but, the First Amendment says that Religion is #1 and any religious claim trumps (heh) everything, amirite??!
That’s why I can have 6 wives and 8 husbands, sell my children into slavery, and erect a 666 story temple to Aken in my backyard!!11ONE.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
To Betty’s point in the post:
trumpov is immune because he’s completely shameless, and openly rallies the GOP around white supremacy – the only “policy position” they have left. His GOP enablers, however, are not immune and should have been asked repeatedly, “how can you continue to support this president*? Either he should resign…or you should.”
But what do I know? The Lincoln Project seems to be doing a nice job of pounding on vulnerable GOP Senators for their many other flaws and not just their support of the Ill Douche.
Shalimar
If politics were football, Trump would be the player who brings a pistol on the field and shoots you in the crotch. “Lies and cheats” can’t possibly convey how bad he is.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: When does Dump start tweet-screaming that Injustice Gorsuch is a total loser?
(Yes – Injustice – and he will be beyond the end of time.)
Shalimar
@Jeffro: All the grift and cheating should be fatal to Ttump’s popularity, but i have a feeling the real nosedive will begin when the ads showing him struggle to hold a glass of water go viral. Conning people is quintessentially American. Weakness is not.
Elizabelle
And, source Mary Trump has a Ph.D. In Clinical Psychology.
That has to come in useful in dealing with that shambles of a family/grifting operation.
Anonymous At Work
@Matt McIrvin: You can’t sway an ideologue. Their nature is that they know “the truth” and cannot be swayed by things like “facts”, “evidence” or “reality”. But it does mean that they won’t sway their ideology when situations flip. An ideologue for Unitary Executive would allow President Bernie Sanders to treat Republicans like President Trump treats everyone.
Elizabelle
@Anonymous At Work: I still hope they can go after Judge Maryanne Trump. Corrupted is corrupted.
If memory serves, the statute of limitations had tolled on the tax scamming activities the NY Times reported. Wonder if NY State could eventually go after the whole family with a RICO prosecution.
NY Times from April 2019: “President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.”
Robmassing
“Virus Swap Meet.” Betty you are a national treasure.
Anonymous At Work
@Elizabelle: Mixing and matching a bit, I think. Not a practicing attorney, but I believe that RICO is federal tool so I think the underlying crimes still have to be within Statute of Limitation. Ongoing conspiracy to evade taxes would still be valid since it is ongoing but if the entire thing was carried out and done too long ago, that’s too long ago.
The goal would be to investigate for ongoing or recent fraud, like Michael Cohen’s testimony about conflicting and fraudulent valuations of properties for tax purposes.
The Moar You Know
As for Mary – get the money while the getting is good. Didn’t Donny fuck over her dad?
@TaMara (HFG): If by “Donny” you mean “Fred Sr.” and by “fuck over her dad” mean “drove him to drink himself to death”, then yes.
Another Scott
@Anonymous At Work: It’s never* RICO, according to PopeHat.
* – or at least vanishingly close to never.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I’m more in awe of the timing, rather than the revelations. Why now? Why not 4 yrs ago when it might have done some actual good?
That he is a shit has been well known for decades. I knew it in the 80s, from articles in Forbes and WSJ. They didn’t come right out and say this but there was no mistaking the articles. And nothing I’ve seen since has made me anything but far more convinced. He and his buddies and enablers are shit and have never been at all capable of being any better. The world is full of shitty people, we don’t need to elevate them for that, they will stand on piles of shit to elevate themselves.
The Moar You Know
@Robmassing: Agreed. I take pride in being able to write well and every now and then being able to turn a witty phrase. Ms. Cracker does it nearly every day.
MattF
Mary Trump has kept very, very quiet– I was unaware of her existence. We shall see, but I’m thinking we won’t have to wait for Barron’s tell-all.
Cameron
@JWR: It should have been unanimous. I think there’s hope for Gorsuch, because he seems to be quite intelligent. As for Beer-Drinking Rape Boy…no.
ET
I know all the books and articles will never convince die hard kook-aid drinking tRumpers, but as far as I am concerned the more of them there are that add to the written record, the BETTER! tRump has so much control of the current narrative because he is currently president and as much as we wish he could be ignored he can’t be. However, once he is out of the WH he doesn’t have the bully pulpit and when it comes to policy, he won’t matter. When he is dead he can’t tweet and because his reach is not wide and relies heavily on bullying, how loyal are people (likely not as loyal as they have been for Reagan).
Just Chuck
@Another Scott: No, but a decades-long scheme to launder Russian mob money probably qualifies for RICO. But no one has the spine to invoke it. Not sure it matters much, since federal law enforcement has a lot more tools, especially against money laundering, than they did back when RICO was first written. Heck, invoking it might even hinder things, but I’m just an unqualified (*) Random Internet Guy, I don’t really know.
(* – As I am cognizant of my ass from my elbow however, I am overqualified for the current administration)
MisterForkbeard
@Punchy: I don’t think Trump cares, really. He’s never been particularly anti-gay so far as I can tell – he just doesn’t care about them at all. This is why he can act supportive and then do massive damage to them, because he wants to make evangelicals happy.
But it’s not like black & brown people, whom he actively disdains. Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he just shrugs and says “okay” and then moves on, because it doesn’t directly affect him.
This MIGHT change if he gets enough whining from the evangelicals about it, because then he’ll have to show that it wasn’t HIS judgment that was the problem.
MisterForkbeard
@Mary G: I’m glad she’s doing it.
I think it would have been better to do it in 2016. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, since the NYT was so fixated on Hillary Clinton then.
Just Chuck
@MisterForkbeard:
You’d have to pick my jaw up off the floor if T was ever seen being that gracious.
Elizabelle
@Anonymous At Work: When you think of all the crimes that Trump and his family has possibly committed, law schools could have a “Trump Semester.”
There’s branding, for you.
And good point on RICO being federal. I hope NY State has a lot of powerful prosecuting tools at their disposal for cases like this. The Trumps, for sure. But also a lot of residents who have gotten away with lax enforcement and high-priced legal and financial advisers.
It is a rotten system. And we could use the money. For years to come.
Just Chuck
If it weren’t such a pain to type, I’d start referring to T as ⊥. It’s the mathematical symbol for “bottom”. The lowest type, it represents failure. Fitting.
MisterForkbeard
@Just Chuck: I don’t think he’ll have a public reaction to it at all. If he was smart he’d say something like “I’m happy that in our great country everyone can live equally” or some sort of shitty pablum that would have the various media figures swooning for a few days.
hitchhiker
If Mary Trump’s book had shown up while the economy was still cranking along and there was no pandemic to highlight trump’s utter incompetence, it would have had less impact than it will this summer.
trump has been seen as a sort of “bold and mischievous scamp” by his admirers — the American archetype of a swashbuckler male who breaks the rules that never should have been there in the first place, has fun doing it, makes piles of money, and ends up with the prettiest girl.
That stops working when the country needs actual leadership, like in a pandemic or a financial collapse, or a sudden nationwide confrontation with entrenched racism. Mary Trump’s book might not bring any news, but it will inflame his fragile ego. He’ll react like a bitter, weak loser — and that will matter.
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: The recent win by Bob Good in the GOP convention in VA05 (the incumbent Denver Riggleman was endorsed by Donnie and has a ~ 98% with-Trump rating, but married an interracial gay couple who were on his staff) would seem to indicate that Donnie doesn’t have too much leeway to ignore this ruling, if he wants to keep his base fired up…
OTOH, Donnie is all gut, so who knows what he’ll do (besides lie about it – that’s always a given).
Cheers,
Scott.
planetjanet
@Betty Cracker: I think there are more people open to this argument now. It is good to get the facts aired. Sometimes the truth needs to be repeated many times to get it to sink in. The timing of the books is wonderful.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Do we think the Supreme Court looked at all the protests, admitted to themselves that they have crossed the line far too many times, and decided they would not like to have people protesting THEM?
Baud
@WaterGirl: No, the protests are too recent to have had an effect on this decision.
bemused
It’s good to know that there are a few in the trump family that are not corrupt psychos.
I was just reading about Mitch McConnell’s daughters from his first marriage. They don’t seem to be fans of dear old turtle either.
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Yeah, well maybe they got a heads up that the Deep State was planning to rile up protests and riots, did you ever think of that? :)
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Plus it says a lot about her intelligence and abilities. No way Donald or his spawn can outsmart that woman!
LOL funny, thanks~!!!~
mad citizen
They might want to move up the publishing date, just in case trump is out of office before the convention in August. I can’t stop thinking about his dementia, reading Tom Joseph’s twitter, etc. The one thing that I was hung up on was, how can he play golf. I watched him hit a ball on Memorial Day weekend, and he looked terrible, although he hit the ball apparently. The people playing golf with him must see a lot.
So I googled “how can dementia patients play golf?” and it turns out they can because there is no action/reaction, and they find it therapeutic.
Has anyone else gone down this rabbit hole?
Feathers
The people saying that this book is too late to do any good are missing an important function it will serve. People who fell under the Trump spell will need an excuse to leave. We joke about the “I was a Democrat until I remembered about Chappaquiddick and now they are dead to me” folks, but this is a real phenomenon. The reason con men lie is because they know that once the suckers realize that they have fallen for a lie (which everybody else saw through), they will usually double down rather than admit they were fools. Now that Trump is on the downturn, every new revelation is a fig leaf for followers to use to creep away.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Are they teenagers or mutants, by chance? Maybe ninjas?
MazeDancer
“Virus swap meet” is a great, great line.
billcinsd
@Omnes Omnibus: well as long as you don’t include Gorsuch’s opinion in the frozen truck driver case as behavior, or his joking about it at a conservative conference
denverpost.com/2017/03/23/in-a-case-of-a-truckers-life-vs-his-cargo-judge-neil-gorsuch-ruled-for-the…
tokyokie
@Shalimar:
And then meeps to the refs that they should be making ticky-tacky holding calls in his favor.
...now I try to be amused
@Feathers:
I can think of two other reasons. First, it can draw attention from the media leaving less attention paid to Trump’s negative campaigning and other lies. Second, there might be a juicy anecdote or two that will give anti-Trump voters more motivation to turn out.
I’d love it if Mary Trump has something personally humiliating in store for Donald. Best. Served. Cold.
prostratedragon
@Feathers: Made this exact point the other day with someone. We agreed that he’s now bad enough to give at least some who had voted for him the cover to say, Who knew he’d be this bad? Many of us did know, of course, but it’s conceivable that for some this has been an education in ugliness.
prostratedragon
Oh, and definitely a “Here’s looking at you, kid” to the NYT for rapaciously pursuing an opportunity to control the access to a source identity, and possibly out her, while making it seem like part of a heroic journalistic enterprise. Not to be forgotten.
Martin
So, funny thing I discovered about my behavior when filing whistleblower complaints. I reveal as much as I think is necessary to get the corrective action, but not more. Over time, as I question whether corrective action will actually happen, I reveal more. I go from ‘these wrong things are happening but I don’t want to question the motives of the person doing them’ eventually to ‘this is a bad person and here’s a bunch of other evidence to prove it’. Part of it is that I don’t want to make it personal, but more than that, I want the institution to guard against the bad behavior even when it’s not a bad person. Systemic solutions vs dealing with bad apples. As we know, the latter is infinitely easier than the former.
I’m guessing Mary revealed as much as she thought would result in Donalds defeat. She was wrong. Now she’s coming back with more ammunition.
No One You Know
@Martin: I’m glad I’m not the only one with this particular response.