On Monday, Roger Stone, longtime adviser to Donald Trump, said on the Fernand Amandi Show on 610 WIOD Miami radio that Trump should immediately release his tax returns.
Trump has refused to release his tax returns for months, despite call from both sides of the political spectrum to do so. Hillary Clinton has called for him to do so, and upped the ante by releasing her own tax returns on August 12. 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney chastised Trump on May 11 for his refusal speculating that there may be a bombshell within the tax returns.
There have been disdainful remarks by some billionaires, including Mark Cuban, that Trump’s vaunted wealth is nowhere near his grandiose claims.
Another billionaire scoffed, “He’s not a billionaire. I’m a billionaire. He’s a clown living on credit.”
On Sunday, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said that Trump would not release his tax returns until an IRS audit is complete, even though he is well within his rights to do so. When it was pointed that that the audit of Trump’s tax returns from 2002-2008 was complete, and asked why Trump would not release them, she dodged the question, answering, “This entire tax return debate is somewhat confounding to me, in the following sense: I don’t think that it creates one job, gets one more individual who does not have health insurance covered by health insurance, particularly under the disaster that has been Obamacare with these private insurers pulling out our exchanges now and reporting billions of dollars of losses.”
“He’s not a billionaire. I’m a billionaire. He’s a clown living on credit.”
A billionaire when asked about Donald Trump’s wealth
But on Monday, Stone was asked, “Do you not think it is a mistake in judgment not to put, in the interest of transparency, his tax returns for public examination and view?” Stone replied bluntly: ”I think he should release his tax returns immediately.”