WikiLeaks has requested that someone send it Donald Trump's tax returns so they can finally be made public.

The call came soon after spokesperson for the Trump camp Kellyanne Conway appeared to suggest that the new president's tax history will never be released. Mr Trump had previously said that he could release the documents, but that he was waiting for them to be "audited".

Ms Conway's statement broke with a 40-year tradition and suggested that Mr Trump will continue to be far more opaque about his tax and business dealings than any US president before.

Kellyanne Conway says President Trump will not release his tax returns

The statement came after a petition asking that Mr Trump release his tax returns was signed by hundreds of thousands of people.

Breaking the promise to release the returns appears to have irritated WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, which had mostly released damaging information about Hillary Clinton throughout the electoral campaign. Now it has suggested that Mr Trump's lack of transparency about his tax returns is worse than the behaviour of Ms Clinton.

“Trump’s breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts," the WikiLeaks account – which is understood to be run primarily by Julian Assange – tweeted.

It then tweeted again to ask someone to send the returns to it so that they could be published.

WikiLeaks posted a range of information throughout the election campaign, the most high-profile of which were emails sent by Clinton campaign manager John Podesta.

Mr Trump tweeted approvingly about Julian Assange after those releases, in what appeared to be an admission of warming relations between the two men.

Ms Conway said that the American public didn't care whether or not Mr Trump released his tax returns, despite numerous polls showing otherwise.

Every president since 1976 has released the information, but Ms Conway said she does not believe Americans care whether Mr Trump follows suit.