So why wasn't the NYT punished for publishing info from Trump's tax returns? The laptop story could at least be true. There is no way for the NYT to receive Trump's tax returns without someone committing a crime.
NYT didn't publish Trump's tax returns, they published prose about supposed contents of Trump's tax returns.
If the articles had PDFs of the documents at the bottom, Twitter should probably block them too. But they don't.
Which is even worse, because apparently they literally spread fake news due to their not understanding how estimated tax payments work.
So, they illegally obtained something and then misreported on it without giving people the ability to verify their claims. I’m not even sure why they’re allowed to be on twitter in that case.
Journalists have been dealing with this for a long time. For instance they don't release information about minors accused of a crime even if they have access to it, but they do discuss the events that happened. Seems pretty straightforward to me.