It’s been a constant of every presidential election since the Watergate era: serious candidates releasing their tax returns. President Richard Nixon, himself, publicly released his returns while they were being audited in 1973, a controversy that led famously to Nixon telling reporters that year, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”
Even so, Donald John Trump now says he won’t release his tax returns because of an audit, despite saying a year and a half ago he “certainly” would.
Should NOT be a surprise to any follower of this 2016 election, since June 16th of last year, when The Weave announced his candidacy.
Trump, clearly, doesn’t stand on tradition; he torches it. That’s part of his appeal to supporters, who see him as a guy who tells it like it is, who upsets the establishment, who will win others over by the sheer force of his will.
Carrot Top might even think this plays to an anti-establishment advantage; he has become more steadfast in his refusal since Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, called Trump’s failure to release his tax returns “disqualifying” in May of this year.
It should be pointed out that Grandma Hillary has eight years of her tax returns on her campaign website, which notes the Clintons have made their tax returns public, since 1977.
Releasing returns is NOT required of presidential candidates, of course. But it’s something Americans should demand. Failure to do so would set a bad precedent while releasing them, as Romney said, can confirm “the veracity of a candidate’s representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest.”
The operative term here, aunts and uncles, being ‘conflicts of interest.’
In other words, it erases doubts, such as those sown by Washington Post columnist George Will [also a FOX contributor] , who said perhaps Trump isn’t releasing his returns because they may show “he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs.” That’s “probably the reasonable surmise,” Will said.
Uh, oh…
Wednesday, a Trump aide said he “will not be releasing” his returns, and emphasized it has “nothing to do with Russia.” Later, in a news conference, Trump tried to deflect attention to something of Clinton’s he would like to see: some 33,000 plus emails that Grandma Hillary deleted, claiming they were personal, during a State Department investigation into a private email server she used as Secretary of State.
Remember, Trump is running for the highest office in America, to be the leader of the free world. If he is elected, which is, incredibly, entirely possible, shouldn’t he set a better example? Instead of the narcissistic boorish bully he displays on a daily basis.
Which brings me back to Trump’s tax returns, and my suggestion: Trump and Clinton should agree that he will release his tax returns, and she will release the transcripts of ALL her paid speeches that she has given to big banks, over-sea donors to the Clinton Foundation and other financial institutions – foreign and domestic. Clinton has already said she would “look into” making those remarks public.
What does the term ‘look into’ mean, literally?
Lastly, in February of this year, CNN found that Grandma Hillary earned more than $21 million from 92 paid speeches from 2001 until Clinton launched her campaign last year, including at least $1.8 million from at least eight speeches to big banks.
Holy crap, Batman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lobster on the Prairie 