White House press secretary Sean Spicer tore into NBC News on Sunday for “illegally” sharing two pages from President Trump’s 2005 tax returns during a now-infamous episode of “Maddow” last week.
“It was unbelievably dishonest and it shows the lengths to which NBC News will go to get ratings,” Spicer said.
About an hour before her program Tuesday evening, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow tweeted that she had obtained “Trump tax returns.” The tweet immediately sparked interest among journalists who have urged the president to release his tax returns since long before he entered office.
Maddow invited David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who now runs DCReport.org, to share the tax documents on her show. Johnston claimed he received the Trump tax returns from 2005 through the mail, suggesting that the president himself may have sent them.
“This is a former reporter who is now running a blog that I’m sure gets minimal traffic — I mean, it’s a little bit suspect,” Spicer said. “They should be asking this former reporter, who was let go by the New York Times, why he has become the primary target to get out big news.”
Spicer said NBC “should be extremely ashamed of how they handled this and the lengths they will go to get ratings.”
