Following last night’s debate, “big league” Christian Donald Trump floated a possible reason why he is facing an audit: because he’s a Christian.
Trump, who cited an ongoing audit as the reason why he won’t make his tax returns public, said he is being targeted by the IRS “maybe because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian.”
Trump’s claim of facing religious bias and mistreatment from the IRS may play well among conservatives who believe that the Obama administration is using the tax agency and other government institutions to persecute and intimidate conservative Christians.
This claim, along with allegations that conservative Christians are facing discrimination from the American government, is nothing but a myth that has been repeatedly debunked, but is nonetheless frequently spread by Republican politicians and even mainstream media personalities.
Conservative activists have repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory: Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski of the Family Research Council alleged that Obama used the IRS to “eliminate his enemies”; Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action alleged that the IRS made it so that conservative groups “weren’t allowed to exist,” swinging the 2012 election to Obama; televangelist James Robison said “Satan himself” was behind “the gross abuse of power by the IRS”; and Glenn Beck said the non-scandal proved that America has surpassed Nazi Germany in its evil and could round up conservatives just as Adolf Hitler hounded Jews.
And now, it seems that the billionaire mogul is also under attack by this anti-Christian tax agency.
