Trump's top election fraud lawyer owes the IRS over $100,000 in unpaid taxes: report

It's widely known that former President Donald Trump isn't a big fan of paying taxes -- and according to The Daily Beast, Trump's top election fraud lawyer, Jesse Binnall, shares that aversion.

The report states: "According to IRS records, Binnall owes the U.S. government for unpaid taxes dating back to 2010. The IRS filed a $139,242 lien against Binnall almost four years ago—in August 2018— and it covers unpaid amounts every tax year from 2010 to 2015. Records on file with the City of Alexandria, VA, show that, as of May 5, Binnall has not paid off the lien."

An expert in the legal profession at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Leslie Levin, told The Daily Beast that if Binnall willfully failed to file tax returns he would be breaking the law and quite possibly violating legal ethics rules.

“It depends on why the lien was levied and why he hasn’t paid. If he refused to file, that raises ethical issues. The deliberate failure to file constitutes a crime,” Levin said. “If he has a good faith basis for contesting whether he owes the money, however, there is no ethical violation there.”

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Trump's attorney told The Daily Beast that his IRS issues are a matter of "financial flexibility."

“Like many small business owners, in the past I had to be financially flexible as my business grew. That has resulted in some tax bills that I have had to arrange to pay over time, instead of all at once. Many business owners have been in the same position,” Binnall said. “The unfortunate question is whether these issues truly arise out of an attempt to serve the public good or whether I am targeted because of the clients I serve.”

Binnall reportedly has a number of high-profile clients who have paid his law firm millions of dollars in legal fees over the past several years - including $1.4 million from the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee in the past 18 months.

But , like many hardcore fiscal conservatives, Binnall expresses open hostility to the IRS. Last March in this tweet, for instance, Binnall compared federal taxation to theft.