Trump Released This Letter to Prove He Has No Russian Ties. We Annotated It.

The document raises more questions than it answers.


The White House on Friday released a one-page letter from Trump’s private tax attorney, Sheri Dillon, that was intended to debunk the notion that President Trump has any Russian business dealings or sources of income. Dillon is the same lawyer who vowed at a January 11 press conference that Trump would meaningfully separate himself from the Trump Organization—something that never happened. No surprise: Dillon’s new letter is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on, raising as many questions about Trump’s business activities as it answers.

So, we marked up the letter with some questions and observations of our own.

Click here for a larger version.

Annotations by Andy Kroll.

 

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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