President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned that because of the vast reaches of the Trump Organization, voters wouldn’t understand how to parse through his tax returns if they were released. | AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta White House Trump: 'People wouldn't understand' my tax returns

President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed that he still could not turn over his tax returns because they are under a “continuous” audit, but said that even if they were released, “people would not understand them.”

Asked whether he would try to block Democratic attempts to force the release of his tax returns, Trump told reporters at a post-midterm press conference that he “would have an open mind to it” when the audit was finished.


Trump in 2016 broke a decades-long precedent for presidential nominees by not making his tax returns available, claiming then that they were under audit by the IRS and that he would only release them once the audit was completed. While not required by law, presidential candidates typically make their tax returns available as a matter of transparency so that voters are able to examine a candidate's business dealings and financial status.

“I do not want to do it during the audit. And no lawyer even from the other side, they say often — not always — but when you are under audit, you do not subject it to that,” Trump said. “You get [the audit] done, and then you release it.”

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But Trump on Wednesday warned that because of the vast reaches of the Trump Organization, voters wouldn’t understand how to parse through his tax returns if they were released.

“It is big. And it is complex. And it is probably feet high,” Trump said of his returns. “It is a very complex instrument. And I think that people would not understand it.”

Democrats in Congress have tried previously, to no avail, to compel Trump to turn over his tax returns, though now that Democrats will have control of the House beginning in January, they will have subpoena power that they could use to force the president to release his tax returns.

Trump has countered that he will respond to stepped-up Democratic oversight with retaliatory investigations launched from the GOP-controlled Senate.