“There’s nothing to learn from them,” Donald Trump told The Associated Press when asked if he would release his tax returns. | Getty Trump: I don't plan to release my tax returns before November

Donald Trump has no plans to release his tax returns before November. And to hear at least one of the presumptive nominee's surrogates tell it, he has nothing to hide.

Despite pressure from his now-vanquished Republican rivals and even 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Trump has refused to oblige.


“There’s nothing to learn from them,” the presumptive nominee told The Associated Press in an interview conducted Tuesday and published Wednesday.

The real estate mogul has said voters aren’t interested in his tax returns but that he would release them after the conclusion of an audit.

Trump surrogate Tana Goertz, who also co-chairs his Iowa campaign, rejected the notion that the candidate's supporters would care, remarking that they are more concerned about economic and security issues.

"We all know he's rich. That is not a secret. He has the best attorneys, he has the best lawyers, he has got the best accountants, the best of everything. And do you think he would hide for one second money?" she remarked during a segment on CNN. "I've been with him firsthand when we've handed over hundreds of thousands of dollars to various charities. That is not a secret. He would not be hiding that. There's nothing to hide. I can't believe we're still talking about his tax returns."

Goertz remarked that Trump is in a "multi-year audit" as explanation for his not having released them.

Prominent New York investor and fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci appeared on Fox News later Wednesday, explaining that Trump’s reluctance has to do with three things, namely “the complication of the return, the fact that he's under an audit, he feels that he doesn't want to give out that information to the general public and have a whole nightmare situation with opposition research trying to pick holes through the return.”

The message coming from Trump's surrogates has not always been so clear: Ben Carson said last week that he believed Trump would release his tax returns before the general election.