Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Briar Woods High School in Ashburn, Virginia. (Getty)
The Donald Trump campaign has just put out a full statement responding to the release of Hillary Clinton’s tax returns.
On Friday, the Clinton campaign released their candidate’s 2015 tax return, encouraging their opponent to do the same. Donald Trump has continuously declined to release his taxes, making him the first presidential candidate since Richard Nixon not to do so.
In a statement released on Friday afternoon, Trump mocked Clinton for releasing the one document no one cares about, shifting focus onto Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.
The statement also makes reference to a frequent talking point of the Bernie Sanders campaign: that Clinton was paid thousands of dollars to give speeches to Wall Street but refuses to release the transcripts. Though Trump has repeatedly criticized Clinton on the email issue, he has in recent weeks been focusing more and more on the idea that Clinton is bought and paid for by Wall Street.
The statement makes no reference, however, to Donald Trump’s own tax returns. Trump has previously said that he will not release them because he is currently being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
Here is the full statement from the Donald Trump campaign, as written by Communications Director Jason Miller:
Hillary Clinton has turned over the only records nobody wants to see from her – the American public wants to see the 33,000 emails she deleted to obstruct an FBI investigation. We want to see the Clinton Foundation records showing how the Clintons sold our uranium to Russia, ripped off Haiti and cut deals with oppressive regimes around the world. We want to see the pay-for-play emails that Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, refuses to turn over. We want to see the transcripts of the secret Wall Street speeches Clinton was paid $10,000 dollars-a-minute to give. We want to see the records the night of Benghazi that explain why Secretary Clinton didn’t send in reinforcements as soon as the attack had begun.
Hillary Clinton is at the center of an international corruption scandal that reveals her use of government authority and influence for personal gain. The records we need to see are those being hidden, deleted, obstructed and stashed away by Hillary Clinton to keep authorities from untangling this corrupt scheme that reaches into the world’s shady corridors of power. Everything she doesn’t want us to see has been digitally shredded or put under lock and key. This document release is nothing more than an attempt at distraction and misdirection by an individual who created and then purged an illegal private email server.