Making a new case for Trump's tax returns to be released

It’s been over a week since President Trump took his Vladimir Putin obsession to new heights (or in this case new lows) following their meeting in Helsinki, and now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo begins the process of trying to explain why his boss thought it was wise to make the Russian president look so big and himself and the country so small before the entire world.

I’m sure Pompeo will offer the usual benign explanations for Trump’s weird behavior including the need to promote world peace with a basket-case of a country that is still a nuclear superpower.

None of what he says will matter unless Pompeo can convince his boss to do one thing: Release his tax returns.

All politicians have conflicts of interest of course; as the former California State Treasurer Jesse Unruh once said: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

Yes, people who give money to office holders often get something back in return.

But Trump, for better or worse, is the first non-politician businessman to win the White House in modern times. Businessmen (and women for that matter) turned politicians have an extra layer of possible sleaze associated with their life in public office.

Trump should and probably does know this better than most: “The Art of the Deal” is about looking for business opportunities, negotiating them so both sides go away happy and hopefully rich.

People tend to be even nicer to other people who have put money in their pocket and made them wealthy. You don’t want that business relationship clouding public policy decisions, and if it does, at the very least you want that conflict discussed and possibly checked.

The way to do that is through public disclosure of a politician’s tax returns.

Here’s a legitimate fear: Maybe Trump is kissing up to Putin because he knows that the Vlad is the functional equivalent of the CEO of Russia Inc., and he and the Trump Organization, now run by his two sons, have something to gain or possibly lose, by calling Putin out on his various atrocities -- annexing Crimea, possible hit-jobs on political opponents, and of course election meddling.

Again, we will only know if this is a real fear if Trump just releases his tax returns.

Not that I think Trump will do what's clearly in the country's best interest on this issue as opposed to his own. As we all know, Trump is the first president in the post-Watergate era to refuse to release his tax returns -- something that has always raised the suspicion that he was hiding something.

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Maybe he wasn't worth all that money he was bragging about? Or maybe his purported yuuuge charitable giving wasn't all that charitable? Democrats also made what I believe was the ludicrous charge that Trump was hiding how much he would benefit from his own tax cuts, as if Trump has ever been bashful about bragging about how much money he makes (or claims to be making).

These arguments largely fell on deaf ears with voters because most people don't care whether Trump is worth $2 billion or $10 billion. Like all rich people and businesses, they expect him to exploit the tax system for his own benefit. Also, charitable giving has never been a high priority of the American voter.

But Americans generally hate politicians who game the system they control, which makes the tax-return issue all the more important as Trump continues to ramp up ties with Russia and enhance the country’s status around the world while he heaps inordinate praise on its glorious leader.

If you think it is far-fetched to worry about such conflicts, rewind the Helsinki tape.

Trump not only lavished Putin with weird praise, he offered to turn over a U.S. diplomat for questioning by Putin's thugs. He also sided with him over U.S. intelligence, taking Putin’s words over our own spies, when it came to Russian meddling in the U.S. election. And who knows what he negotiated behind closed doors without his aides, like Pompeo, present.

When it was over, Trump invited Putin to the White House for round two.

Now consider what’s already in the public record involving Trump’s dealings in Russia and his various attempts over the years to do more business there lasted nearly until the day he was elected president.

News stories and some of Trump’s own tweets offer up a curious narrative detailing Trump's Russia/Putin obsession. According to published reports, Trump Tower, his signature property in Manhattan, is a veritable “Little Moscow” having sold many of its units to entities connected to Russia. Sometime around 2014, after Trump moved the Miss Universe pageant (which at the time he ran) to Russia, he began wooing Vlad on Twitter with various degrees of hero worship, even weirdly rationalizing the Russian invasion of Crimea on the grounds that some people in Crimea were "marching in favor of joining Russia."

Over time, both of Trump’s sons, now running the Trump Organization, have been quoted discussing how Russian money helps finance Trump projects. When Trump ran for president, his wooing of Putin only intensified. The Democrats suggest it was aimed at winning the White House with the help of Russian state-sponsored hackers breaking into DNC computers.

Yes, Trump did his best to cement that perception of course, famously prodding the Russians to hack into their computers, which they did. But somewhat less noticeable were the forays the Trump organization made to open a Trump-branded hotel in Moscow that were abandoned in early 2016 just before Trump secured the Republican nomination to be president.

Of course, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, was up to her eyeballs in various sleazy conflicts. Recall her speech-making before financial firms regulated by the federal government and how the shady charity known as the Clinton Foundation sought donations from entities who clearly wanted to curry favor with the federal government while she was President Obama’s secretary of state.

But at least grudgingly, Clinton released plenty of information on the various donors to her alleged charity, and of course, in preparation for the 2016 campaign, she did release her tax returns.

Contrast that with what little we know about Trump’s fairly opaque businesses run through the Trump Organization. Yes, Trump likes to put his names on buildings and go on television. He had some odd-ball marketing gimmicks, such as his faux college known as Trump University, and Trump-branded water and steaks.

But we don’t know much else about the sources of the president’s wealth that may continue to this day. While the Trump Organization is now run day-to-day by his kids, Trump himself never divested his holdings. He is still the CEO for all intents and purposes of a company that lusted for business in Russia, and may still be doing so -- we don’t know because as a private company, it doesn’t have to make such disclosures.

But as president of the United States, Trump should, which is all the more reason, Mr. President, to release your tax returns. And you can meet with Vlad as many times as you want.

Unless of course you’re really hiding something.