May 12, 2017

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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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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