'Harvard's tax-exempt status will be revoked'

WASHINGTON:

US President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration will revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, returning to a threat he issued against the Massachusetts school last month as part of his wider attack on elite universities.

"We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform, without elaborating.

The university responded, saying that would be an unlawful misuse of the US tax code, which makes it a crime for the president, vice president or any White House employee to request the Internal Revenue Service investigate or audit a particular individual or entity.

Harvard is already suing the Trump administration over the announcement last month that the government was freezing federal grants to the Ivy League university amounting to $2.2 billion, mostly to fund medical and other scientific research.

Trump previously said on April 15 that he thought Harvard should perhaps "lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'"