Conservative radio personality and author Mark Levin told Breitbart radio listeners yesterday that President Donald Trump was being unfairly targeted by Democrats who want to investigate his businesses, his tax returns, and a whistleblower complaint regarding Trump’s conversation with a foreign official.
Levin attempted to defend Trump for most of his interview with Breitbart, but eventually spun into a cycle of “whataboutism”—imagining hypothetical scenarios and predicting that they would be widely considered unfair. His argument was essentially that if Democratic politicians released similar records or endured similar investigations, they would be found in similar scandals and therefore Trump is being held to unfair standards.
“And yet, President Trump comes under attack because of businesses he already created and owned, and they want his tax returns. Well, I tell you what, I want Nancy Pelosi’s tax returns. I want the past 10 years of Nancy’s and Paul’s Pelosi’s tax returns. How about every member of Congress—not your financial disclosure forms—10 years of tax returns. How is it that the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t apply to Congress but applies to a president of the United States?” Levin said.
Levin is wrong; FOIA does not apply to the Executive Office of the President.
“That’s right,” Breitbart News editor-in-chief Marlow said. “And how come they don’t walk the walk? How come they don’t volunteer it? Just volunteer it.”
“And how about transcripts of all the chairmen of all these committees and their conversations with foreign powers? Wouldn’t that be fascinating? Or how about we hear testimony from all of their top lawyers in their offices? You see, they would never do that to themselves,” Levin said.
“Yeah, Obama transcripts, oh, give me those transcripts,” Marlow said.
“We’ve had enough of this. The country is not going to be dragged into this,” Levin said. “This is an attack on us, it’s an attack on our constitutional system, and I would argue that what these people are doing is absolutely un-American, period.”
