Posted on 03/06/2017 3:48:32 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A New York Times columnist is encouraging IRS employees to commit a felony by leaking Donald Trump’s tax returns to his newspaper.
“If you’re in IRS and have a certain president’s tax return that you’d like to leak, my address is: NYT, 620 Eighth Ave, NY NY 10018,” Nicholas Kristof wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Kristof, a liberal who writes about global affairs, was responding to a tweet from Vox.com editor Matt Yglesias who marveled that the IRS rarely leaks tax information.
One reason for that is because doing so constitutes a felony. The unauthorized release of an individuals’ tax returns is punishable by a fine of $5,000 and up to five years in prison. Leakers would also likely face a series of professional sanctions.
Trump has refused to release his taxes, claiming that they are under audit. The Republican flirted with the idea of releasing the documents during the presidential campaign but never followed through.
The Times has obtained and published some snippets of Trump’s taxes — three pages of Trump’s 1995 state tax records. Published in October, the documents showed that Trump took more than $900 million in losses that year.
The release of the records, which were sent to the paper by an anonymous tipster, set off an intense ethics and legal debate.
The Trump campaign accused The Times of illegally publishing the documents. Some pundits argued that the newspaper broke the law by publishing the leaks. Others said that The Times would be protected by the First Amendment and that federal law only deals with the release of federal tax documents, not those filed with states.
The month before the publication, Times executive editor Dean Baquet said that he would risk jail time to publish Trump’s taxes.
It is unclear whether Kristof would face other penalties for encouraging an IRS employee to break the law.
_________________________
Nicholas Kristof ✔ @NickKristof
But if you're in IRS and have a certain president's tax return that you'd like to leak, my address is: NYT, 620 Eighth Ave, NY NY 10018. https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/838554230529089536 …
8:00 PM - 5 Mar 2017
1,384 1,384 Retweets
3,370 3,370 likes
Incredibly unprofessional.
Perhaps we should mail the fool some stuff?
Dang, he’s a real fool, He added the NYT to that, and basically named his employer as a co conspirator.
Trump, file a suit...
WRONG WRONG WRONG, The writer is Not Encouraging an IRS employee to Commit a Felony,
HE IS CONSPIRING WITH HIM, and as soon as he published his address, that my friends is an “OVERT ACT” in furtherance of a Conspiracy to Violate Federal Law, He should have ALREADY BEEN ARRESTED!
This may be a path to abolishing the IRS.
No wonder the New York Slimes is the poorest, worse written media in America...they can’t even beat Slate and that place stinks to high heaven...
I hope Trump sues the New York Slimes and this idiot...and sends Carlos Slim back to Mexico where he belongs!!!
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 684; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(G), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
It would be great if Kristof and the NY Slimes were to be flooded with millions of F-U types of documents at that address — fake tax docs, humorous flyers, etc.
Maybe this would be a fun bit of FReeper activism!
All in professional looking envelopes and with return addresses that had to be taken seriously, so that they would waste staff hours for months to come trying to go through it all. Screw those vile a-holes.
The american people don’t care about the tax returns. Why do liberals keep beating this dead horse???
This subject is only of interest to the media types in the New York/Washington axis.
And do the Clintons really want to get in a pissing contest about tax returns and what they reveal? For example we learned the Clintons donated $1 million to their own charity. While apparently legal, it raises some ethical questions.
Yet the media never discussed that subject as they reviewed the Clintons taxes.
Heck ordinary voters never raised this issue, regarding tax returns for either candidate.
Only the media and opposition political operatives want to comb through these tax returns.
Can some clever freeper come up with an image we could print and send off?
Is abetting a felony of this kind also a felony?
Tax returns?
Remember, Obama and the Clintons have NEVER really had jobs!
There is nothing to report. And all the other money they make is done ILLEGALLY and not reported, run through bogus foundations, etc...
Yup, its conspiracy. And hes included his employer in said conspiracy as well.
They woild be smart to jettison him and write a “we have nothing to do with his irs felonious plan, and he no longer works here” letter.
Does anyone doubt that if there was anything illegal in Trumps tax returns they would have been leaked before the election?
From what we know now, the Obama/Clinton cabal were searching everywhere for some dirt on Trump. They even tried to fake some.
There is nothing in Trump’s tax return that will hurt him.
:^)
i have been told that the irs data system has built in automated audits which prevent individual tax returns from being retrieved in an undetected, unauthorized manner.
so if an irs employee retrieves a trump irs return, in theory, the automated audit would flag both the employee and the retrieval (presuming that the automated audit system works as intended and advertised).
at a minimum, or so i have heard, an irs employee who executed an unauthorized irs return retrieval would be immediately (eg within 24 hours) fired.
therefore— if this is true— any retrieval of trump returns would have to be
older returns and certain other returns are probably exempt from this protection, either because the audit system had not been in place at the time the return was filed, or the return was filed by hardcopy and not electronically, thus allowing a data entry clerk to make a physical photocopy. also, modern irs physical return data entry processing probably uses OCR and multiple video monitoring systems. though this is just a guess on my part, it would probably be roughly consistent with the level of security that i described for electronic irs return filing.
Seems like the guy has no inside sources, so he’s trolling the IRS using an oh so public channel.
Now. Are any IRS employees stupid enough to commit a felony by answering his call?
It is unclear whether Kristof would face other penalties for encouraging an IRS employee to break the law.
Hmmm, Ok lets see where this takes us then:
If I ASK somebody to GO ROB THAT BANK and give them My Address to SEND ME THE MONEY, Did I COMMIT A CRIME??
If I ASK Someone to GO KILL THAT GUY and Mail me his Right Index Finger, did I COMMIT A CRIME???
Need Any more examples?? LOCK HIS ASS UP NOW
I heard about a guy who went around conducting seminars on how to evade income taxes. The IRS locked him up in prison.
It isn’t just his call. He puts his Employer as the recipient!
Imagine it was a stock broker at Merrill Lynch, requesting the financial documents of Trump, sent to Merrill Lynch. It’s now a corporate affair.
This is a major issue and the NYT should be shooting a fast moving cruise missile of termination at this guy. He’s toast within hours, and an apology to Trump forthcoming just as quick.
Corporate suicide.
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