The Donald Trump Memory Hole
By 
Donald Trump lied about releasing his tax returns, has lied about why he’s not releasing them, and now is just not going to release them despite massive conflicts of interest. The media — which spent a year writing obsessively about a trivial nanoscandal about an issue that attracts no media attention whatsoever if it involves anybody else — has chosen to pretty much ignore this:
Monday was the deadline for President Trump to file his 2016 federal tax return. Ordinarily, a president would make the document public. Trump did not, which is unsurprising.
What is notable is that the media forgot to ask.
Among dozens of questions posed to Trump during an impromptu news conference in the Rose Garden on Monday were several about tax policy but none about his own filings, which were, at one time, hotly pursued by the media.
That Trump was spared a single inquiry about his tax return, for which he had received a filing extension, is a testament to his highly effective burial of the issue. He has stalled or refused to release tax documents so many times that the pressure is off.
While propagating his birther conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama and mulling over a White House bid in 2011, Trump told ABC: “I may tie my tax returns — I’d love to give my tax returns — I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate.”
You know what happened. Obama released his birth certificate; Trump held on to his tax returns.
[…]
For now, however, the reporters have stopped hounding Trump to turn over his tax returns, which amounts to a victory for the president.
Now imagine a world in which Hillary Clinton just refused to release her tax returns. It would make EMAILS look as undercovered as healthcare policy was during the campaign.
The conclusion is obvious:
Periodic reminder that the press let Trump win https://t.co/Hx4ESOB5Z3
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) October 24, 2017