The Trump administration's drilling dreams may have just burst.
Late on Tuesday, a judge in Washington, D.C.'s U.S. District Court ruled that the Interior Department broke the law when selling off federal land for oil and gas drilling. It's a defeat for the Wyoming plan involved in the case, but also could spell trouble for President Trump's drill-happy Bureau of Land Management, The Washington Post suggests.
Two environmental advocacy groups first sued the BLM for leasing and selling federal lands for drilling under former President Barack Obama's watch, saying the department ignored the threat of climate change when making the decision. Additional moves by the Trump administration to increase drilling offshore and in Alaska later boosted the case's implications, the two groups later said. That's because even though Obama's Interior Department started considering climate change more heavily as his administration waned, Trump officials completely reversed those considerations. And when the D.C. judge ruled that the Obama BLM broke the law because it "did not sufficiently consider climate change," Trump's looser standards were almost certainly lumped into that decision.
The Tuesday decision temporarily stops companies from drilling on the 300,000 acres of Wyoming land the BLM sold under Obama, the Post says. It also could force the BLM to rethink what it considers before authorizing future drilling projects, seeing as current standards "deprive the agency and the public of the context necessary to evaluate oil and gas drilling on federal land," the judge wrote in his decision. Read more at The Washington Post. Kathryn Krawczyk
Tax records obtained by The New York Times appear to show that President Trump reduced his taxable income by treating his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, as a consultant, then deducting this as a business expense.
The Times reports that Trump Organization tax records show between 2010 and 2018, President Trump wrote off as business expenses $26 million in "consulting fees." The consultants are not listed by name, but the Times compared the tax records to financial disclosures Ivanka Trump filed when she started working at the White House in 2017 as a senior adviser to her father. Ivanka Trump reported receiving $747,622 in payments from a consulting company she co-owned — the same exact amount in consulting fees the Trump Organization claimed as tax deductions for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver.
As an executive officer with the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump managed the Hawaii and Vancouver hotel projects, "meaning she appears to have been treated as a consultant on the same hotel deals that she helped manage as part of her job at her father's business," the Times said. Ivanka Trump earned a salary of about $480,000 while serving as an executive with the Trump Organization, and the amount jumped up to $2 million after her father became president, the Times reports; since leaving to work in the White House, she has not received a salary from the company.
The tax filings also show that Trump collected $5 million for a hotel deal in Azerbaijan and reported $1.1 million in consulting fees and made $3 million in Dubai while reporting a $630,000 consulting fee. People with direct knowledge of the deals told the Times they were not aware of any consultants or third parties who would have been paid in connection with the projects. When asked about the matter, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, did not comment.
The Internal Revenue Service said for consulting fees to be deducted as an expense, they must be an "ordinary and necessary" part of running a business, and the recipient must still pay income tax. Catherine Garcia
President Trump on Sunday said The New York Times' report on his tax returns is "totally fake news."
The Times obtained tax return data extending for more than two decades, which shows Trump has largely avoided paying taxes because he reported losing substantially more than he made. Trump was asked about the Times' report during a press conference, and he responded, "Actually, I pay taxes. You'll see that as soon as my tax returns, they're under audit, they've been under audit for a long time." He went on to accuse the Internal Revenue Service of treating him "very, very badly," adding that he will be "proud to show" his returns once they are no longer being audited.
The IRS audits every sitting president's returns, and has said individuals are allowed to make their tax returns public while an audit is being conducted. Catherine Garcia
The New York Times has obtained tax return data for President Trump covering more than two decades, which shows that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the last 15 years, primarily because he reported losing more money than he made.
Trump has not made his tax filings public, and the information made its way to the Times via sources with legal access to it. The filings contain information Trump disclosed to the Internal Revenue Service, but do not reveal his net worth. Trump has said his tax returns aren't as important as the annual financial disclosures he must submit as president, and comparing the two, the Times found that in 2018, Trump put in his disclosure he made at least $434.9 million, while the tax records show he incurred $47.4 million in losses.
During Trump's first two years in the White House, he received $73 million from overseas operations. Most of this came from his golf properties in Ireland and Scotland, but it also included millions in licensing fees: $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India, and $1 million from Turkey. In 2017, the same year he paid $750 in U.S. income taxes, Trump paid $156,824 in taxes in the Philippines and $145,000 in taxes in India, the Times reports.
The tax returns show that since 2010, Trump has failed to pay back $287 million to lenders, and within the next four years, more than $300 million in loans that he is personally responsible for will come due. Trump Tower in Manhattan is what is helping keep Trump afloat, the Times reports — the retail and commercial space has delivered $336.3 million in profits since 2000.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, told the Times "most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate" in the newspaper's report, adding that over the last decade, Trump "has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015." The Times notes when Garten says "personal taxes," he seems to be conflating income taxes with other federal taxes Trump has paid, like Medicare and Social Security. Read more at The New York Times. Catherine Garcia