He Mailed Manure To Mnuchin To Protest New Tax Law
Steve Mnuchin Image by Getty Images
Dec 25 (Reuters) – A man claiming to be the person who delivered a gift-wrapped package of horse manure at the Los Angeles home of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday he did it to protest the federal tax overhaul signed into law last week by President Trump.
Robert Strong, 45, a psychologist for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department, said by telephone he left the poop-filled parcel addressed to Mnuchin and Trump in the driveway outside Mnuchin’s home in the posh Bel Air community.
KNBC-TV, an NBC television affiliate in Los Angeles, reported Mnuchin was not home at the time. The package was found by Mnuchin’s neighbor.
“Protest really should be funny,” Strong told Reuters. “People’s eyes glaze over when they just see angry people in the streets.” He believes the new tax law will hurt poor people.
Neither the U.S. Secret Service nor the Los Angeles Police Department, both of which investigated the incident, would confirm Strong was responsible. The Secret Service interviewed an individual who admitted delivering the package, but no charges had been filed against him as of Monday afternoon.
LAPD Lieutenant Rob Weise said it was possible whoever left the package did not break any criminal laws. While he is not assigned to investigate the incident, Weise said if the box did not present any danger, it would not be illegal. The LAPD bomb squad X-rayed the box before opening it on Saturday.
In a photo of the card Strong posted on Twitter, he wrote “Misters Mnuchin & Trump, We’re returning the ‘gift’ of the Christmas tax bill” and signed it “Warmest wishes, The American people.”
Strong said a Secret Service agent, accompanied by six police officers, showed up at his house to question him on Sunday night, and the agent chided him, asking, “‘Are you ashamed of your behavior?’”
The White House declined to comment on Monday and officials with the Treasury Department could not be reached.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
