There's more to The New York Times' bombshell story about President Trump's tax information than the reveal that Trump is not the best at running a business.
Trump reportedly had a rough go of it between 1985 and 1994. Naturally, he's hand-waving the $1.17 billion that his core businesses lost during that time period — in fact, he's somehow arguing it actually proves how smart he is, business-wise. But his critics are not just challenging that notion. They've also spotted some possibly illegal activity in the form of market manipulation.
Between 1986 and 1988, Trump's businesses were really struggling, the Times reports. Yet he was still raking in millions of dollars on the stock market. His methods, however, were questionable, to say the least.
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Eventually, the Times writes, those investors wised up and stopped taking the claims seriously, which eventually resulted in Trump losing most of that money. But it does look like he dodged the Security and Exchange Commission. Not only were Trump's business ethics sketchy, his actions might have been outright against federal law. Tim O'Donnell
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