Tax returns reveal Trump lost over $1 billion in business deals, making him one of the biggest financial losers in the U.S.

Mod: The theory is that after Trump lost almost everything daddy gave him due to disastrously managed business deals, his financial profile became so awful that no bank would lend him any money. Which is when the Russians stepped in to bail him out. For certain considerations, of course. 

Tax returns reveal Trump lost over $1 billion in business deals, making him one of the biggest financial losers in the U.S. (New York Daily Newslink): President Trump— who has spent decades crafting an image of himself as a master dealmaker — lost more than $1 billion on sketchy business ventures in the 1980s and 90s, making him one of the biggest financial losers in the country, according to a bombshell report Tuesday.

Copies of Trump’s personal 1040 tax transcripts from 1985 to 1994, which were obtained by The New York Times, reveal the president totaled $1.17 billion in losses for the time period, the newspaper said.

The astronomical hit was so severe that Trump avoided paying any income tax for eight of the 10 years, according to the Times. The data, printouts of Trump’s official IRS transcripts with figures from his federal 1040 forms, was provided to the Times by someone who had “legal” access to it. When compared with Internal Revenue Service information on other high-income earners, Trump“appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer," the Times reported.

The startling tax details come as the House Ways and Means Committee is pressing the IRS to provide Trump’s personal and business returns for 2013 through 2018. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday, however, refused to hand them over, saying the Democrat-controlled panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.”

Mnuchin’s move, though not unexpected, will likely set off legal fireworks; Democrats could either subpoena the IRS for the returns, or file a lawsuit.

Trump is the first president since Watergate to decline to make his tax returns public. According to the Times, Trump was swimming in red ink while he was peddling his 1987 best-seller “The Art of the Deal.” For example, in 1985, his core businesses reported a loss of $46.1 million, and carried over a $5.6 million loss for earlier years.