Despite the overwhelming importance of the issue to voters, most media interviewers still give Trump a pass. They either don’t ask him about the tax returns, or they don’t press him to produce an official audit letter from the Internal Revenue Service or explain why he cannot release his returns to the public despite the audit. Interviewers also avoid asking pesky questions, such as:

How much in charitable donations did you claim in the past year? Past five years? More than $1 million? $10 million? What percentage of your income comes from foreign-based companies? From companies that moved jobs overseas? On average, what percentage of tax did you pay over the past few years? To the nearest million dollars, how much in tax did you pay? If you have been audited “ every year ,” have you been assessed for any back taxes, penalties or fines? What tax laws did you fail to follow that led to the assessments?

Even if one believes he is under an actual audit and that there is some reason he cannot release the returns themselves (by the way, his refusal to release his returns provides more evidence that he puts his own finances ahead of the interests of voters), he surely can answer some basic questions like these.

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Candidly, too many interviewers are wary of simply getting a “None of your business!” response. They should not be, for their job is not to make Trump feel comfortable, although clearly that is the mission of many at Fox Non-News). They should follow up with: Isn’t it the American people’s business? It is, of course, their business and a justifiable concern since, until the race, he has never had to publicly disclose verifiable documents about his finances, the sources of his finances and the tax he has paid on his billions.

Trump is quite skillful in putting out a steady stream of outrageous comments (about Vince Foster, Bill Clinton, the JFK assassination) to distract the media. It is not clear why it is in the public’s interest to have him queried as to where his information comes from (the National Enquirer!) on these claims, but not to ask him about information entirely within Trump’s control.

As for Clinton, as soon as she picks one, her VP can be dispensed to respond to all of Trump’s nuttiness, alleviating Clinton of the need to respond to every conspiracy theory Trump raises or re-raises. (He must be short on material if he is going back to Vince Foster’s suicide in the 1990s, an event that younger voters likely have no firsthand recognition of and that only fever-swamp right-wingers — presumably in his camp already — think is attributable to Clinton or her husband.) Clinton would be wise, however, personally to keep pounding on the tax returns in speeches and interviews. It’s a topic on which Trump has to play defense — and has no compelling defense. And it is a topic that cuts across party and on which the vast majority of voters agree with her.

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