Seventy-four percent of Americans want Trump to release his tax returns.
WASHINGTON ― President
Donald Trump will not release his tax returns because “people didn’t care” about it during the election, one of his top aides said Sunday.
“He’s not going to release his tax returns. We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care,” White House advisor Kellyanne Conway said on ABC, two days after Trump took the oath of office.
Conway’s statement not only echoes Trump’s Jan. 11 assertion that only reporters care about his tax returns, but goes further in stating that he simply won’t release the returns at all. She was answering a question about a White House petition for Trump to release his tax returns that had
received over 200,000 signatures, a total that necessitates a White House response. An
ABC poll from Jan. 12-15 found that 74 percent of the public wanted Trump to release his returns.
During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly stated his taxes had been under a routine Internal Revenue Service audit since 2009 and that he could not release them until the audit was finished. He further promised that he would release his tax returns once the audit was completed.
“I don’t mind releasing,”
he said during his first president debate with Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton. “I’m under a routine audit. And it’ll be released. And as soon as the audit’s finished, it will be released.”
The IRS has
already stated that there is nothing preventing Trump from releasing his returns while they are under audit. The government agency, which is now under Trump’s control, further stated that Trump’s tax returns prior to 2009 are not even under audit at all. Trump claimed during the campaign that his lawyers didn’t want him to release the returns.
More: After Promising To Release His Tax Returns, Trump Aide Says He Won't Because ‘People Didn’t Care’
Gee, is anyone surprised? Only
74% of Americans want Trump to release his tax returns.