Donald Trump’s Taxes Targeted By WikiLeaks For Public Release?


WikiLeaks, and founder Julian Assange, could now be targeting Donald Trump’s taxes for public release after a key adviser to the new commander-in-chief admitted that he has no intentions of making them available as he pledged he would during his campaign run.

“Trump’s breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts,” WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter on Sunday in a post that also encouraged the leak of the information.

Throughout the latter stages of Trump’s often-volatile and bitter run against Clinton, WikiLeaks released a treasure trove of information deemed harmful to the Democratic nominee, arguably giving Trump just the edge he needed to pull off his upset victory.

Among the hacked data posted online were official emails from the Democratic National Committee and personal transmissions from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Meanwhile, Trump somewhat quieted critics of his refusal to make his tax documents public on the campaign trail by claiming he couldn’t yet disclose the information because they were under routine audit.

Back then, he vowed that he would do so after the process had ended, just as every president before him since Richard Nixon has voluntarily done.

But during a recent TV interview, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway let it be known the president now has no intention of ever going public with that information, adding any attempt to press the issue is simply wasted energy by the other side desperate to try and re-litigate the entire election.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy where he continues to seek asylum following an extradition request from Sweden in 2012. [Image by Carl Court/Getty Images].

“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said. “We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: Most Americans… are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like.”

The new administration has also insisted Trump has taken all the necessary steps to separate himself from his vast and complicated business interests.

Not so fast, WikiLeaks officials counter, citing Trump’s previous vow to be forthright with all his tax related information.

In addition, a petition now posted on the White House website demanding that Trump “immediately” release his returns has garnered more than 214,000 signatures, more than twice the number needed to assure an official response from the White House.

A recent ABC/Washington Post poll also found nearly three-out-of-four (74 percent) American voters still want Trump to make the information public, including 49 percent of Republicans.

One of the primary reasons cited for the continued push for the release is to gauge if Trump has any foreign conflicts of interest.

Up until now, Assange has denied wide-spread speculation that he may have gotten the Democratic emails he leaked from the Russian government.

Hillary Clinton leaves after the Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. [Image by Saul Loeb – Pool/Getty Images].

U.S. intelligence previously concluded that the hacks were directed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, with some going as far as to insist it was all done for the benefit of Trump and his run for the Oval Office.

Back then, Trump publicly sided with the version of the story offered by Assange, dismissing the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies and officials, who persisted in directly pointed an accusatory finger at Putin and the Russian government.

Trump previously caused a stir among some of his base supporters by flip-flopping on the details related to his proposed construction of a border wall along the Mexican border, another signature staple of his campaign platform.

Throughout election season, Trump boastfully insisted that he would force the Mexican government to foot the bill for the construction of the wall, but after posting his November win, he began floating a plan calling for Americans to incur the billions in cost and be reimbursed at a later date.

[Featured Image by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images]

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