Hillary Clinton tore into Donald Trump over a New York Times report that he declared a $916 million loss in 1995 that could have allowed him to legally avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.
“What kind of genius loses a billion dollars in a single year?” Clinton said at a rally in Toledo, Ohio, on Monday. “How anyone can lose a dollar, let alone a billion dollars, in the casino industry is beyond me. It’s just hard to figure.”
Her comments came a day after two of Trump’s top advisers — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — praised the real estate mogul as a “genius” for apparently using the loss as a loophole to legally avoid paying taxes for years.
Early Sunday, Trump himself took to Twitter to respond to the Times’ report.
“I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president,” the Republican nominee tweeted early Sunday. “And am the only one who can fix them…”
The Trump campaign did not dispute the newspaper’s findings, but claimed that the Times had “illegally obtained” the copy of Trump’s 1995 tax records from an anonymous source.
“Mr. Trump is a highly skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the campaign said.
On ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” Sunday, Giuliani was asked for his response to the news about Trump’s taxes.
“My response is he’s a genius,” Giuliani said on “This Week.”
“A genius?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Absolute genius,” Giuliani replied. “This is a perfectly legal application of the tax code. And he would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of it.”
Christie, chairman of Trump’s transition team, also called Trump a “genius” for avoiding federal taxes.
“There’s no one who has shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code and to rightfully use the laws to do that,” Christie said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And he’s already promised in his tax plan to change many of these special-interest loopholes and get rid of them so you don’t have this kind of situation.”
At her rally Monday, Clinton had no praise for Trump’s tax maneuvers.
“While millions of American families, including mine and yours, were working hard, paying our fair share, it seems he was contributing nothing to our nation,” the Democratic nominee said.
“Nothing for our veterans. Nothing for our military. And, you know, he’s been dissing America in this whole campaign. He talks us down, makes disparaging comments about our country, calls our military a disaster. It’s not, but it might have been if everyone else had failed to pay taxes to support our great men and women in uniform.”
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