Opinion | We need a ‘Mazars accountant warning’ on everything Trump says

[ad_1]

Are we next to hear from Trump’s longtime aesthetician of the possibility that orange is not his natural skin tone?

Story continues below advertisement

The accountants were apparently too busy on the abacus to notice earlier clues that Trump’s probity was suspect: his insurrection-fomenting lie about a stolen election, his personal fixer’s conviction over hush money Trump paid to a porn actress, an endless parade of scandal at Trump entities, or the 30,573 documented falsehoods he spoke as president.

The Mazars disavowal of Trump’s financial statements points to the folly of all those earlier attempts to pry loose details about Trump’s finances, such as his tax returns. He and his aides lied to the public, the media, Congress, the FBI and the courts. Why would he tell the truth in these filings? The question isn’t whether Trump’s financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” but why anyone would have relied upon them in the first place.

Still, there’s something useful in the should-not-be-relied-upon phrasing. Those accused of crimes receive a Miranda warning. Those who consume any Trump message should likewise receive a Mazars warning: “The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon.”

Story continues below advertisement

Follow Dana Milbank’s opinionsFollowAdd

“The latest pleading from Special Counsel Robert Durham provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign,” the former president announced this week, suggesting such a thing should be “punishable by death.”

Mazars Warning: The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon. The special counsel’s first name is John. He has not charged anyone with spying on Trump. Though Trump obliquely suggests his former opponent deserves execution, it’s a stretch to call the activity in question “spying,” the link to Clinton is tenuous, and, as The Post reported, Durham just let a key prosecuting deadline expire.

“The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis,” Trump stated after National Archives and Records Administration officials retrieved White House documents from his Mar-a-Lago Club. “In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material.” He further said the controversy was “a camoflauge for how horribly our Country is doing.”

Story continues below advertisement

Mazars Warning: The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon. The National Archives and Records Administration asked the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s taking of 15 boxes of official documents, including some classified as “top secret,” instead of sending them to the Archives as required by law, The Post reported. To put this in perspective, when former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger removed copies of one document from the National Archives in 2003, he lost his security clearance for three years, was fined $ 50,000 and was sentenced to community service. The correct spelling is “camouflage.”

Mazars warnings should also be slapped retroactively on the various assertions by Trump aides and allies that have recently come to light: That then-President Trump could declare an emergency and have the military seize voting machines; that Republican state legislatures could send slates of fake “alternate” presidential electors to Congress; that a Republican prosecutor in Michigan could turn over voting machines to the Trump campaign; and that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act to block the election certification.

Affix the warnings to Trumpified lawmakers, too.

Story continues below advertisement

The statements of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Should not be relied upon. He hosted a meeting of covid-19 quacks on Capitol Hill and praised their “qualifications.” One of them, Ben Marble, told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this week that the pandemic could be ended by killing government officials and bombing the World Economic Forum, as Media Matters reported.

The statements of Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) Should not be relied upon. He declared falsely on Fox News this past week that “originally” the Biden administration “said they would include crack pipes” in safe-smoking kits for overdose prevention.

And the statements of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Certainly should not be relied upon. Asked about his campaign hawking mugs featuring the photo of him pumping his fist in solidarity with the Jan. 6 crowd outside the Capitol, Hawley told HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney: “It’s not a pro-riot mug.”

As with surgeon-general warnings, people would be free to ignore Mazars warnings. But it would be harmful to their country’s health.

[ad_2]