White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said this week that President Donald Trump’s taxes are still under audit and that Trump will release his taxes once the audit is finished.
In Thursday’s White House press briefing, McEnany said, “The president’s taxes are still under audit.” However, she could not immediately name which years are under audit.
NBC’s Peter Alexander noted that Trump is able to release his taxes, despite the audit, and asked why the public shouldn’t believe that Trump is trying to hide something in his taxes. McEnany responded, “First, let me note something, the taxes are under audit he said he would release them when they are no longer under audit.”
Kayleigh McEnany claims Trump’s tax returns are still under audit but he’ll release them when it’s over, which reminds me I have a bridge for sale in New York pic.twitter.com/bqpvCu2qs9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 9, 2020
McEnany’s assertion that Trump will release his taxes once they’re no longer under audit comes on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that found that a district attorney in New York can subpoena Trump’s longtime accounting firm.
Trump has been promising for years that he would release his taxes. In 2016, he said a number of times that he would release his taxes and long before that, in 2011, Trump said that “maybe” he would release his taxes if President Barack Obama released his birth certificate.
At that time, Trump said, “Maybe I’m going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate. I may tie my tax returns, I’d love to give my tax returns, I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate.” Obama released his birth certificate a week later.
Then in a 2016 presidential debate, Trump said that he would release his tax returns after they are no longer under audit, saying “I’m under a routine audit, and it’ll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released.”
Trump made history as the first president in the modern era not to release his tax returns and the Internal Revenue Service has said that Trump can release his taxes despite an audit. Former President Richard Nixon released his taxes while they were under audit.
