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| No - No...I can't Release my Tax Returns Details |
To the frustration of Democrats and Republicans
alike, Donald Trump’s most consistent position—perhaps his only consistent
position, actually—throughout this ludicrous campaign season has been his
refusal to release his tax returns. Now, at least two wealthy Hillary Clinton
allies have put out a bounty for them.
The reason given is that he is under audit, and
that he cannot release his returns until the audit is complete. According to no
less an authority than the IRS, this is a fake, made-up reason: The Republican
nominee is free to make his returns public regardless of whether they are under
audit. (As it turns out, the IRS has been auditing Trump for no less than 12 years,
which is very unusual.)
In any case, the returns exist—his taxes are
done by a mid-sized, Manhattan-based firm called WeiserMazars—and his
reluctance to make them public implies that their contents are at best simply
embarrassing and at worst outright damning. It is hardly a surprise then, that
Moishe Mana, a top fundraiser for Clinton, has offered a $1 million gift to the
charity of Trump’s choice if he releases them.
“Through
his financial documents, we are trying to break into the image that he’s
portraying to the American people,” Mana, a Miami real estate developer, told
the Associated Press. “He says he’s a successful businessman who wants to do
for the country what he did for his company. Well, go ahead, show me the
money.”
On a phone call will reporters earlier this
month, Clinton ally David Brock said that he had documentation proving a
“lifelong Republican” had put $5 million into a bank account, to be given to a
veteran’s charity of Trump’s choosing if he released his returns.
Speculation abounds that Trump’s reluctance is
motivated by the fact that releasing his returns would reveal his ties to
countries like Russia. Asked at a press conference in Doral, Florida, on
Wednesday when he would release his returns, he said: “I don’t know. Depends on
the audit.” The Associated Press reports:
Trump said Wednesday that he has no ties to
Russia whatsoever, but that hasn’t stopped Democratic donors in Philadelphia
from saying that in the absence of Trump’s tax returns, voters are left to
wonder whether there are undisclosed financial ties between Trump and foreign
entities.
“Think
of what’s gone on just this week and connect the dotted lines,” said top
Clinton donor J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire venture capitalist in Chicago. “I’m
not sure what’s going on, but it sure doesn’t look good. The question is who
his investors are, and whether there are any in China or Russia that are
affecting his personal income.”
Mana also wants that answered. If Trump’s
elected president, he said, “how much in debt would we be to other countries?
This is about the security of the United States. We have the right to make sure
he’s not in debt to other countries.”
“He is obfuscating in order to avoid being
discovered as a liar,” Pritzker said. Asked in May to disclose even his tax
rate, Trump said, “It’s none of your 
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