Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Paul Manafort, said he does not think the presumptive Republican nominee will release his tax returns, in part because they would likely be too complicated for the public to understand.
“I will be surprised if he puts them out. I wouldn’t necessarily advise him to. It’s not really an issue for the people we are appealing to. His tax returns are incredibly complicated. I wouldn’t understand them, so how are the American people going to? The financial disclosure he put out gives the salient points,” Manafort told The Huffington Post in an interview posted Wednesday evening.
“The only people who want the tax returns are the people who want to defeat him,” Manafort added.
Trump’s decision so far not to release his tax returns has been a rallying point not only for Hillary Clinton and her supporters but also for the die-hard #NeverTrump crowd, led by 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who released his own tax returns under a drumbeat of attacks.
Trump has said he is worth more than $10 billion, but it’s impossible to nail down an exact figure based on his personal financial disclosure forms released last week. The real estate developer is worth at least $1.4 billion based on that disclosure — but the financial disclosure does not require candidates to list a precise figure.
Trump himself has waffled on the question in the last two years: Before announcing his candidacy, he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt he would release his returns, he told The Associated Press earlier this month he would not release them before the election and argued after that he promised to release the returns after an IRS audit is completed.