Donald Trump and the problem of his tax returns

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump steadfastly refused to release his tax returns claiming that it would be inappropriate because he was under investigation by the IRS.

Now his excuse for not releasing his tax returns is that he won the election and clearly people don’t care about his tax returns.

 The Trumpster gives his standard response to anybody who disagrees with him

It may be that people don’t care about his tax returns and the fact that he hasn’t paid any income tax for over a decade. But it does seem unlikely.

Certainly Trump has no basis for maintaining that the American public is not interested in his financial affairs and potential conflicts of interest they will create.

Not on the basis of the way the votes were cast.

The results from the US presidential election indicate that Hillary Clinton got 48% (65.9m) of the votes while Donald Trump got 46% (63m). Because of the gerrymander of the US political system this was enough to give Trump a majority of the Electoral College votes.

It would appear that the total turnout of the US electorate was around 56% of which the  two major candidates got roughly 26% each.

You can be pretty certain that the 26% voted for Hillary Clinton would all want to see the Trump tax returns made public.

There is also a possibility, however remote, that some of the people who voted for Donald Trump would also think that he should make his tax returns public.

As for the 45% who didn’t vote, it’s impossible to estimate what they think.

But there is no logic in Trump’s claiming that because he won the election, people are not interested in his tax returns.

It is highly that as his presidency continues and more information about his business dealings in Russia becomes public, interest in his tax returns will intensify.

The seeds of the problem are already being sown.

In his Senate hearing, James Mattis, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, told the Senate armed services committee that Russia has “chosen to be a strategic competitor, an adversary in key areas”.

While Mattis said he was “all for engagement” with the Russians, he warned of “increasing number of areas in which we will have to confront Russia”.

The American public has a right to know that the US president does not have business interests and obligations in Russia that will preclude him from doing this.