Following the day when the House select committee held its last public hearing and then formally announced multiple criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, CNN’s Don Lemon suggested Tuesday the former president is about to face a further blow that could be even worse.
The latest setback for the former president will likely come if the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee votes on whether to publicly release years of Donald Trump’s tax returns as expected.
According to a CNN report, “The committee has had access to Trump’s taxes for weeks after winning a lengthy legal battle that began in the spring of 2019. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal requested the first six years of Trump’s taxes as well as tax returns for eight of his businesses back in April of 2019.”
After sharing a montage of Trump promising to release his taxes before and during his presidency, Lemon kicked off his segment by stating, “Promises, promises and then — more excuses. Today, with only two weeks of control left, the Democratic-led house Ways and Means Committee is likely to hold a vote on whether to release several years of the former president’s tax returns.”
Introducing his guest, Russ Buettner of the New York Times, he added, “You saw the clip that we put on there. Promises, promises, promises and as I said, then more excuses. He’s done everything possible to stop people from seeing his tax returns so today could possibly be worse for the former president than even yesterday’s criminal referrals from the January 6 committee.”
“This is something I think that concerns him the most,” Lemon suggested. “His wealth and whether he was accurate about his taxes which will show what he’s actually worth.”
“I think this really goes to the heart of not only his, how he’s presented himself to voters and the public at large, but how he sees himself as well. which is a man of incredible wealth,” Buettner replied. “His tax returns, the twenty-years plus worth that we reviewed showed a very different story.”
The bulk of his money has come from entertainment, from licensing deals that required no real business expertise on his part and from an inheritance from his father,” he added. “The businesses that he has run have kind of suffered or been inconsistent at best. If there’s a report that comes out of this, the returns themselves, I think it will probably show the same thing we found.”
Watch below or at this link.
Image by Matt Johnson/Right Cheer via Flickr and a CC license