Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The "Leak" of President Trump's Tax Return

Rachel Maddow, on her television program, disclosed that two pages of President Trump's 2005 federal income tax return had been released by some unknown source. Her guest, a tax expert, speculated that it might have been leaked by Mr. Trump himself to divert attention from other embarrassing disclosures including the lack of evidence for his baseless charge of wire-tapping by his predecessor and the investigation of ties between his campaign and Russian hackers who interfered in the recent election.
Today, during an interview with Tucker Carlson on the Fox network, President Trump labeled the release of his return a crime though he hastened to add that it did not reveal any adverse information about him. Tonight, on Fox, Sean Hannity, in furtherance of his campaign to disparage career civil servants, called the release of the tax return a felony and urged a criminal investigation to uncover and prosecute the leaker. His guest, Newt Gingrich, concurred and denounced the presumed felons within the IRS.
What all of the accusers overlooked, or ignored, is that the tax return is clearly stamped "Client's Copy" (as could be seen when Ms. Maddow held it up to the camera). Since client copies are not filed with the IRS it seems indisputable that no one at IRS was the source of the leak. Indeed, what seems compelling is that either the "client", Mr. Trump, or his tax preparer had to be the source of the disclosure.

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