March 14, 2017

Lawrence O'Donnell covered Trump's salary lie last night, which got me thinking:

At least in one concrete way, Donald Trump is worse than Dick Cheney.

In 2003-04, Dick Cheney was under fire for receiving Halliburton profits via stock, all while acting as sitting Vice President.

We aren't talking here about the massive no-bid contracts handed to Halliburton during the Iraq War, or the no-bid contract handed to Halliburton for Katrina cleanup, or the secret energy company meetings held under the Vice President's office in violation of sunshine laws.

We're not talking about the lies told to get us into the Iraq War. All those sins are on Dick Cheney's immortal soul, may he rot in Hell for them.

But when it came to tax returns and making sure that on paper and in terms of actual income received, Dick Cheney's tax lawyers made sure that dirty hippie liberals like me couldn't scream bloody murder over his tax returns. He did everything according to law to make sure he paid taxes owed, released his returns, and didn't profit directly from the Halliburton stock while acting as Vice President. He even hired an independent administrator to handle the stock transfers to charity, and did not take a tax deduction for the donation.

It's not like he needed the money, and it was worth it, obviously, to shut down criticism from people like me.

But last night Lawrence O'Donnell showed that Trump is not nearly so ethical as Dick Cheney. Trump promised during the campaign that he "wouldn't take a salary" as President. Yesterday Sean Spicer "clarified" that Trump will "donate his salary to charity" at the end of the year.

That means that the Treasury is out the $400,000 (minus $1 they have to pay to ensure his status as 'employee') and also the over $150,000 Trump will obviously take as a tax deduction for the charitable contribution.

Anyone want to bet he donates the money to The Trump Foundation? Nevermind.

And here is your regular reminder that Trump lied about Obamacare, too:

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