MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Monday invited employees of the Internal Revenue Service to leak the status of President Donald Trump's tax returns.
Trump has refused to release his tax returns since he was a presidential candidate, saying he cannot do so because he is under audit by the IRS. Critics took to the streets over the weekend to pressure the president to release his taxes with so-called "tax marches."
"We know there's no audit," Matthews said on his show "Hardball." "Can't the IRS just make a statement: 'He's not under audit?' Just make the announcement."
"By the way, that would be a great leak. Somebody from the IRS, just leak it," Matthews added.
NBC analyst Howard Fineman said that people have been inviting IRS employees to leak Trump's tax returns for months and gave agency workers credit for not succumbing to public pressure.
"I thought they were all liberals over there. Why doesn't someone leak?" Matthews asked.
"They might actually believe in the ethics of their job," Fineman responded.
Matthews then said to Fineman that IRS officials are listening and are "so taken" with him before laughing.
Matthews is not the first person in the media to call on IRS employees to leak information about Trump's tax returns. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof encouraged IRS workers to do the same last month on Twitter.
"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," Kristof wrote.
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://t.co/ujYe100Tn9
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 6, 2017