Although the New York Times's report analyzing decades and hundreds of thousands of documents of Trump family dealings uncovered massive tax fraud, "the story's not over," writer Adam Davidson told MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
"It's not that they found one time there was massive fraud," Davidson continued. "What they found is at the core of the Trump Organization was decades and decades of unimaginably blatant fraud, creating false companies to pretend to buy hundreds of, millions and millions of dollars worth of equipment. "
Rather than being a mere case of a rich family evading taxes, the Times' "shocking" report showed how "blatant" the Trump patriarch's grift was, the writer noted.
"It also shows that Donald Trump himself added virtually no value to the company," Davidson added, referencing the many occasions in which the president's father worked around the 55 percent large gift tax to bail him out.
The ineptitude and historical criminality, the New Yorker reporter noted, is just the beginning of the story.
"[Trump's] businesses in New Newk, New Jersey, Florida, California, Virginia — these are states that either likely will have or could well have Democratic attorneys general who have every right to seek both criminal investigations for tax fraud as well as to start reclaiming money," Davidson said. "The Trump family might owe as much as $400 million just in New York state tax, forget about federal taxes, Virginia taxes, Florida taxes."
"What the New York Times found is unbelievable documentary evidence through 2004 of ongoing schemes for decades," he noted. The exact same people continued to run the Trump Organization. We have no evidence that they change their strategy."
Though the Times acquired the mountain of data that led to the bombshell investigative article, its reporters "don't have subpoena power" — but prosecutors do, Davidson observed.
"The courts are very clear that while the statute of limitations for criminal tax fraud is generally six years, it's six years from the last effort to conceal," he added.
"I think a prosecutor would have a fairly easy time saying, no no, this is an ongoing criminal enterprise," Davidson concluded.
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