Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Tuesday that it would be a departure from decades of historical precedent if presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump refused to release his tax returns before the November election.
“Well, most candidates for president have [released their returns] and that’s been the tradition in the past,” McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill, according to Politico. “He’ll have to make that decision himself but that’s certainly been the pattern for quite some time.”
Trump maintained last week that he had no imminent plans to release his returns, citing an ongoing audit as the reason for the holdup.
“There’s nothing to learn from them,” he insisted.
He later clarified that he release the taxes whenever the audit was completed:
In interview I told @AP that my taxes are under routine audit and I would release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2016
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has made her returns public, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) posted his 2014 returns.
Some Republican Party figureheads, including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have urged Trump to do the same. In a Facebook post last week, Romney suggested there was likely a “bombshell” lurking amid the returns that Trump did not want voters to see.
