Conway Backtracks On Trump’s Tax Returns, Saying He’s Still Under Audit

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul of the tax code that would... Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul of the tax code that would eliminate income taxes for millions of Americans, while lowering them for the highest-income earners and business.(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway claimed Monday that Trump was still under audit from the IRS and would not release his tax returns until the audit was finished.

Conway claimed there was an ongoing audit via her Twitter account:

That justification is a shift from Conway’s response to the tax question on Sunday.

“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care.”

In fact, hundreds of thousands of people have signed a White House petition calling on Trump to release his taxes, and a recent Pew Research survey found a large majority of Americans agree that he should release them.

Trump has never produced any proof that he is under audit from the IRS, although he did release a letter from his lawyers which said as much. He acknowledged in September that he could still release his returns even while under audit, but that he refused to do so. Nothing legally prevents Trump from releasing the returns, even if he is under audit.

Lawyers representing Trump wrote last year that he had been under “continuous examination” since 2002 by the IRS.

WikiLeaks’ Twitter account on Sunday also appealed to readers to send in Trump’s tax returns:

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