Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow announced on Twitter that she had President Donald Trump‘s tax returns, and then dedicated her program to discussing the President’s finances and revealing parts of Trump’s returns from 2005. Whether or not one feels the show ultimately lived up to the hype, the White House wasn’t very happy about it. Before Maddow’s show even aired, they released the following statement.
.@WhiteHouse statement on Maddow show @realDonaldTrump tax return via @ewstephe pic.twitter.com/nP8Z0o94p6
— David Shepardson (@davidshepardson) March 15, 2017
The White House is saying that MSNBC broke the law by revealing the President’s tax information, but as LawNewz.com founder Dan Abrams pointed out on ‘Good Morning America’ on Wednesday, that’s probably not true. Abrams mentioned a federal law prohibiting disclosure of someone’s tax information without permission but, he asserted, that’s mainly meant to keep government officials from revealing an individual’s info. More importantly, however, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the media can report information even if their source obtained it illegally. “If the media can’t report on the President’s tax returns, then what does the First Amendment mean?” Abrams noted.
[Image via screengrab]
