Marla Maples: American Hero
While you were out Saturday Night, the New York times published a story detailing the contents of three pages of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns sent to them by an unnamed source.
From the pages, it was apparent Trump lost $916 million and paid no federal income taxes that year, and the story went in to suggest it was possible Trump had not paid income taxes for the past twenty years, an assertion the Trump campaign did not deny in their response to the story.
The documents were sent from New York City, according to the postage stamp, to Times reporter Susanne Craig, with a return address of… Trump Tower, though this doesn’t mean the documents were necessarily sent from there.
Trump has infamously refused release his tax returns, and the three pages sent to the Times provides insight into why that might be and what is in the rest of them. It also raises a couple questions: How could Trump lose that much money in one year? How did he manage to pay no taxes with his amount of income? But most mysteriously, who sent the Times Trump’s tax returns?
Some have suggested Barron, Tiffany, Ivanka and even Melania Trump could be the culprit. More seriously, some have guessed it could be former Trump lawyer, accountant, or a someone at the IRS or another government agency that would have had access to Trump’s tax returns.
Let’s stop being silly. It was quite clearly Marla Maples.
Let me explain. Marla Maples: actress, model T.V. personality and Trump’s ex-wife. The two were married from 1993–1999, which obviously includes the 1995 year the tax returns were filed.
According to The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, Maples arrived in New York City from Georgia on September 20, and the Times received the documents on the 23, meaning Maples was in New York City at the time the documents were sent to the times.
If it were a lawyer, accountant of a family member, wouldn’t they just send over everything? Maples would only have access to Trump’s tax returns for the time in which they were married, and 1995 was one of those years. Maples had access to them, as they were her tax returns as well as Trump’s as shown by her signature on bottom of the document (see below).
So what? Just because she has them doesn’t mean she sent them. True.
But there’s more. In 1999 interview dug up by Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, Maples was asked about Donald Trump’s musings about running for president, and she vowed not to stay silent about her former husband.
“I will feel it is my duty as an American citizen to tell the people what he is really like,” she said.
Is there better way for her to expose her ex than to release his tax returns that show how much money he lost, especially considering that fact that a large part of his presidential appeal is that he is a supposedly successful businessman?
Trump withheld alimony payments in retaliation for her threatening to spill the beans. It is safe to say that Maples and Trump are not on good terms.
And, oh, there’s one last thing: If there’s a cardinal rule in trying to figure out where an ex’s head is at, it’s to check their likes on Instagram and Twitter. Just check out one of Maples’ recent favorites on Twitter:
Maples apparently loved the Hillary-Shack shimmy last week, probably because it’s a sign her scumbag ex-husband was humiliated on national T.V. It looks like Maples, a liberal, is probably #WithHer, offering even more incentive to release some of Trump’s shady tax returns.
So listen: Maples had access to the documents, a motive, an on the record statement saying she’d expose him. She is leaving clues behind after the act. It was her — I mean, we can’t say for sure… but it was her.
Marla, if you’re reading this, let us know if I’m right. It’d be good for page views! Supporting student journalism is always a good cause! (Plus then I’d get to take this tin foil hat off.)
[Image via.]
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a clarification and link to a story about Maples’ political views, and the date Maples arrived in New York has been corrected.
