Trump: IRS Audit Not Stopping Me From Releasing My Tax Returns

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You probably think the headline on this post is clickbait. Nope. Here is Donald Trump on Bill O’Reilly’s show last night:

“I am under a routine audit, and when it’s completed I will release my returns,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday, repeating a claim he has made routinely during his presidential campaign. “In the meantime, she has 33,000 emails that she deleted. When is she going to release her emails? She probably knows how to find [them]. Let her release her emails and I’ll release my tax returns immediately.”

Trump is referring to Hillary Clinton’s personal emails, which are well and truly gone, and which she shouldn’t release anyway. Nobody should release their personal emails to the public. So Trump knows he’ll never have to make good on this promise.

Nevertheless, he’s willing to release his taxes if he can get some advantage out of it. The audit isn’t what’s stopping him at all.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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