Discussing Cindy McCain's tax returns, NBC's Curry did not note effect on John McCain of wife's fortune or benefit to Cindy of tax cuts her husband now supports

On the May 8 edition of NBC's Today, co-host Ann Curry interviewed Cindy Hensley McCain, Sen. John McCain's wife, who said in response to calls for her to release her tax returns: "[M]y husband and I have been married 28 years, and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate." Curry responded by asking, "So you'll never release, you're saying? ... Even if you're first lady?" After McCain said, "No," Curry added, "Because that is -- even though not an elected position, you would be in a very public role." McCain replied, "I'm not the candidate." Beyond noting Cindy McCain's "very public role" if she became first lady, Curry did not challenge her with any other reason why her tax returns are relevant to the presidential campaign. Among those reasons: John McCain, and therefore John McCain's campaign, benefits from his wife's wealth, and the tax returns would indicate the extent to which Cindy McCain -- and presumably therefore John McCain -- has benefited from President Bush's tax cuts, which McCain supports permanently extending.

In an April 27 New York Times article, Barry Meier and Margot Williams reported that McCain's campaign used a corporate jet owned by his wife's company, Hensley & Co., "over a seven-month period beginning last summer" and that "[f]or five of those months, the plane was used almost exclusively for campaign-related purposes." Meier and Williams also reported that "McCain's campaign was able to use his wife's corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign's actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit."

Further, Associated Press reporter Sharon Theimer, in an April 4 article, wrote that "[t]he McCains' marriage has mixed business and politics from the beginning, according to an expansive review by the Associated Press of thousands of pages of campaign, personal finance, real estate and property records nationwide." From the article:

Within a few years of marrying Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, John McCain won his first election. He was new to Arizona politics and fundraising in the 1982 race for the House of Representatives, and his campaign quickly fell into debt. Personal money -- tens of thousands of dollars in loans to his campaign from McCain bank accounts -- helped him survive.

Anheuser-Busch's political action committee was among McCain's earliest donors. Cindy McCain's father, James Hensley, and other Hensley & Co. executives gave so much money that the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain to give some of it back. His campaign used Hensley office equipment such as computers and copiers, and Cindy McCain personally paid some of the campaign's bills.

Campaign reimbursed wife

The campaign gradually reimbursed Hensley for use of its equipment and Cindy McCain for her expenses. The loans -- described initially by McCain as coming from him and his wife -- caught the eye of the FEC, which repeatedly questioned him about them; spouses are held to the same donation limits as everyone else.

McCain told the FEC the loaned money came from his share of joint accounts. At the time, McCain reported drawing a $25,067 salary and $25,000 bonus working for Hensley in public relations and receiving a Navy pension of $11,038 a year. His 1982 financial disclosure report showed bank interest income, but it did not say how much the bank accounts held.

[...]

McCain's campaign still taps Hensley assets: His presidential campaign paid at least $227,000 last year to a limited liability corporation in which his wife and children are invested, King Aviation, for use of its private jet, according to campaign finance reports.

McCain also used Arizona property owned by Cindy McCain for a March 2 barbecue for reporters. The property is worth more than a million dollars and, according to profile by Home & Garden Television, has both a guest house and a third house next door for additional "living and entertainment space."

Curry also failed to point out -- either during the interview or a discussion with Today co-host Meredith Vieira -- that Cindy McCain's tax returns would also indicate the extent to which the McCains have benefited from the Bush tax cuts -- which John McCain supports extending permanently, despite previously opposing them. On April 18, the McCain campaign released John McCain's 2006 and 2007 income tax returns, but not Cindy McCain's separate returns. As part of John McCain's tax returns, the campaign released the "Wages and Salaries" that Cindy McCain received in 2006 and 2007 as chair of Hensley & Co., the McCains' share of interest income from a bank account, and their shares of income from John McCain's book royalties. But the information did not reveal the capital gains income, if any, for Cindy McCain from that period. By contrast, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Sen. John Kerry, did release what The New York Times reported on October 16, 2004, was a "two-page document" showing "total income of $5,073,554 last year" that enabled the Times to determine how much she had benefited from the Bush tax cuts.

A May 8 MSNBC.com article about Cindy McCain's interview by contributor Mike Celizic also failed to mention the reported intersection of her wealth and John McCain's political career.

From the May 8 edition of NBC's Today:

CURRY: She defended her own right to keep her tax returns private.

McCAIN: You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years, and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate.

CURRY: So you'll never release, you're saying?

McCAIN: No, no.

CURRY: Never?

McCAIN: No.

CURRY: Even if you're first lady?

McCAIN: No.

CURRY: Because that is -- even though not an elected position, you would be in a very public role.

McCAIN: I'm not the candidate.

CURRY: She disputed what has been described as her husband's temper.

[...]

CURRY: I also asked Cindy McCain about published reports this week that she and her husband didn't vote for George W. Bush after their bruising campaign loss in 2000. She said it's not true. Meredith?

VIEIRA: Very adamant about those tax returns -- a lot of people have been wondering if she's going to release them. She quite definitively said no.

CURRY: She's an extremely wealthy woman.

VIEIRA: Yeah.

CURRY: She's reportedly worth something like $100 million. But she is adamant that she will never release them because she's not a candidate -- she's actually not somebody who's a candidate, ever to be elected.

VIEIRA: All right, Ann. Thank you very much. Very interesting.