‘I do think that there is a precedent that unfortunately could be starting to set in, which really started with President Trump…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg took criticism from both sides of the aisle for trying to buy the presidential election.
That backfired spectacularly on Super Tuesday, when—despite flooding the airwaves and spending an estimated $500 million on his self-financed campaign, he was able to win only a single primary, the U.S. territory of American Samoa.
But his short-lived campaign also worked to his benefit as his lawyers found legal loopholes to avoid making public his many assets—which some even speculated might include a leading conservative website that drastically reversed its political outlook during the campaign.
Although Bloomberg announced his candidacy in November, in order to meet the filing deadline to make the ballot in crucial Super Tuesday states, he was able to avoid the 30 day deadline to disclose his financial holdings by twice filing for extensions.
His requests cited “the complexity of his holdings and the need to obtain certain information from third parties,” according to Forbes.
But it wouldn’t be the first time Bloomberg surreptitiously sought to shield his political influence through indirect means.
Most notoriously, he used a grant provided to the New York University law school to pursue his global-warming agenda by having the school staff environmental activists, working ‘pro-bono’ in the offices of several Democratic attorneys-general.
The scheme prompted the formerly GOP-led Virginia legislature to enact a new law that would require such personnel decisions in the AG’s office and other executive wings to be vetted and approved by the General Assembly.
Some on the Left have continued to hound President Donald Trump for refusing to disclose his taxes, which has been used to advance conspiracy theories about his alleged Russia collusion and other foreign emoluments.
Trump has said his returns are under IRS audit and that, given the media’s fondness of attacking him and the past history of partisanship within the federal bureaucracy, making them public would invite his opponents to try to find dirt on him where none existed.
However, Trump did provide an 88-page financial disclosure list, which shed light on his business transactions over the past year. True to form, media adversaries scrutinized it to attack the president by saying several of his high-profile resorts were failing financially.
Trump, himself does not oversee the day-to-day operations, although family members, including son Eric Trump, maintain charge of the Trump Organization, and his association with the brand continues to have an impact.
At least one leftist advocacy group sought to deflect from Bloomberg’s questionable attempts to duck the disclosure requirements by claiming he was simply following the precedent set by Trump.
“I do think that there is a precedent that unfortunately could be starting to set in, which really started with President Trump, who broke decades of tradition in not disclosing his tax returns,” claimed Noah Bookbinder, executive director at the far-left Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Bookbinder did not elaborate as to whether the refusals of Democratic candidates to offer those disclosures also warranted incessant media coverage and libelous accusations of collusion directed at them, up to and including impeachment.