Elections

Mark Levin: Media Reaction to Trump Tax Leak Should Be ‘Disgust, Contempt’

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The media’s reaction to The New York Times’ unauthorized release of a portion of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns should be one of “disgust and contempt,” according to conservative radio host Mark Levin. 

“Isn’t it amazing that there is almost no ethical issue raised when somebody leaks a portion of somebody else’s taxes to a newspaper, which happily obliges and prints the information? Oh, I know he’s running for president, but really, ladies and gentleman, that could happen to any of us now,” Levin said on his radio show Monday. 

According to the conservative host, while the release and reaction to Trump’s tax returns has been inappropriate, the Left’s use of the tax system as a weapon is just par for the course. 

“But liberals don’t seem to mind these things, after all, they did turn the Internal Revenue Service into a political operation against conservatives and Tea Party organizations, didn’t they? And the media didn’t care about that either,” he said. “Now, if it had been a Republican they would have wanted his or her impeachment.”

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Levin argued that Trump did not write the tax laws and that Democratic politicians who are outraged at Trump’s apparent use of the tax code could have changed the law, if it were so abhorrent.

“So what ever are in Trump’s tax returns ultimately, he follows the law, he follows the law,” Levin said. “He didn’t write the law, and I didn’t write the law and you didn’t write the laws. The idiot running against him, Hillary Clinton, she was in a position to write it or rewrite it or do whatever the hell she wanted, wasn’t she. How about the big dummy in the Oval Office, and the other dummy who sits outside the Oval Office, aka Joe Biden. I mean if this is so outrageous — the way you can deduct a loss, which doesn’t seem all that outrageous to me. I don’t invest in these heavy duty things, but so what! — Then why is it in there?”

While he defended Trump against the content of the returns, Levin — a former opponent turned grudging Trump supporter — chided the Trump campaign, rhetorically asking his listeners if they had “ever seen a dumber campaign in your life?”

“[Trump] should be mopping the floor with these fools, he really should be,” he said.

Levin noted further that Trump’s tax returns did not reveal illegality, unlike some of the actions of his Democratic opponent. 

“I’m not aware that he’s committed any crime. I mean it’s not like he violated the Espionage Act, or the Federal Records Act, or the Freedom of Information Act. And then lied about it to the FBI, and lied about it to the American people, and lied about it to Congress,” Levin said.

Caroline May