White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday threw her support behind Rep. Kevin Brady’s (R-TX) call for a probe into the sources of the New York Times’ bombshell report revealing President Trump’s decades-long history of tax avoidance.
Brady, a ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, released a statement on Monday that accused the paper of record’s sources of committing a felony by disclosing Trump’s tax information.
“While many critics question the article’s accuracy, equally troubling is the prospect that a felony crime was committed by releasing the private tax return information of an individual — in this case the President’s,” Brady wrote.
Brady then demanded an investigation into the sources used in the Times’ report.
“To ensure every American is protected against the illegal release of their tax returns for political reasons, I am calling for an investigation of the source and to prosecute if the law was broken,” Brady wrote.
When asked about whether the President is involved with Brady’s call for a probe into the Times’ sources during an interview on Fox News on Tuesday morning, McEnany denied that’s the case by saying he “hasn’t been pressed for that.”
McEnany then backed Brady’s demand, which she called a “fair” and “important” investigation.
“We’ve seen the politicization of taxes before,” McEnany said, before echoing Trump’s gripe that the IRS treats him like the tea party. “We’ve seen the IRS targeting tea party groups and it’s an unacceptable proposition for that to happen and unacceptable for the documents to president to leak illegally to the “New York Times” who then publishes the information.”
McEnany’s remarks come a day after the President tweeted that the Times “illegally obtained” the information with “bad intent.”
The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 28, 2020
In its report on Trump’s tax avoidance, the Times noted that documents were retrieved by sources who had legal access to them. Additionally, the Times declined a request by a lawyer for the Trump Organization to see the documents prior to the publishing of the report in order to protect its sources.
Watch McEnany’s remarks below:
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says call for a probe into sources of the New York Times bombshell report by Kevin Brady, the head Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, is "important" pic.twitter.com/TGH9nlU0Qy
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) September 29, 2020
