LePage goes further with gestapo comment [View all]

[cali]

By Steve Mistler [e-mail]
Staff Writer

Gov. Paul LePage today attempted to clarify his recent comment comparing the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, during a fundraiser in Vermont. However, the governor may have reignited a controversy that's made national headlines.


During an interview with a reporter from the Burlington weekly Seven Days, LePage said that the IRS wasn't as bad as the Gestapo, the Nazi police force that imprisoned and murdered millions of Jews during World War II, but that the agency was headed in that direction.

"What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated," LePage said. "Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet."

Seven Days reporter Paul Heintz asked, "But they're headed in that direction?"

LePage responded, "They're headed in that direction."

Heintz then asked LePage if he knew what the Gestapo did during World War II. LePage said, "Yeah, they killed a lot of people." Heintz asked if he thought the IRS was going to kill a lot of people.

"Yeah," LePage said.

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http://www.kjonline.com/news/LePage-repeats-and-elaborates-Gestapo-comment-at-Vermont-fundraiser.html