Trump's 'Art of the Deal' Ghostwriter Calls for Book to Be Marketed as Fiction

His comments come after The New York Times obtained Trump's income tax records, despite Trump's dogged and long-running attempts to keep the documents private, which revealed the real estate mogul turned President lost over US$1 billion between 1985 and 1994 — meaning he didn't pay income tax for eight years.

Despite Schwartz ghostwriting Art of the Deal, the journalist and author has been a voluble critic of Trump, suggesting he's "unfit to lead".

​The vast bulk of his tweets prior to the Times' bombshell report on 7^th May were all attacks on the President. Upon the article's publication, he suggested Trump was either the "worst businessman ever" or "biggest tax cheat" — "it's one or the other — and very likely both," he continued.

"The legal implications of Trump's staggering losses may have very little to do with the amount of money he lost — although he was clearly a terrible businessman — than with the fact that he likely committed vast tax fraud in claiming the level of losses he did," Schwartz said in another post.

​Schwartz incendiary rebuke of the book prompted a deluge of responses on social media.

​​​​The Art of the Steal*

‘Tax Shelter'

For his part, Trump has defended his apparently epic losses on Twitter, suggesting the figures were misleading and "a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job", as at the time real estate developers were "entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered ‘tax shelter'".

​Nonetheless, the state of New York has passed legislation potentially limiting the President's ability to withhold his tax returns from Congress, and forcing local agencies to hand over tax returns to a number of congressional and senate committees upon request.