Trump: ‘Who paid for’ rallies seeking release of tax returns?
CHICAGO — President Donald Trump says “someone should look into who paid” for the rallies around the country Saturday that urged him to release his tax returns.
Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday: “I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”
Mr. Trump was the first major-party nominee in more than 40 years not to release his returns and he reneged on a campaign commitment to release them. He said they were being audited.
“Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over,” he tweeted.
Thousands of sign-waving, chanting protesters marched Saturday through streets across America, demanding that the president release his tax returns so the public can examine his business ties and determine whether he has links to foreign powers.
The demonstrations came on the date taxpayers traditionally have to file their returns by and just days before this year’s filing deadline Tuesday. The tax day protests in more than a dozen cities were largely peaceful, though occasionally demonstrators and some pro-Trump groups taunted each other in face-to-face exchanges.
In Berkeley, Calif., police arrested at least 20 people at unrelated gatherings of about 200 pro- and antiTrump people in a park after fist fighting erupted. Officers confiscated knives and makeshift weapons.
Mr. Trump has said that voters don’t care about his tax returns.
But many demonstrators said they hoped Saturday’s marches would convince Mr. Trump otherwise.
One of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics in the House spoke to protesters at the U.S. Capitol just before they set off on a march to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California said there’s nothing to prevent Mr. Trump from releasing his income taxes.
“If he thinks he can get away with playing king, he’s got another thought coming,” Ms. Waters said.
Mr. Trump’s break with precedent has raised questions about possible conflicts of interest.
The president’s comments came amid several developments in Washington politics.
Export-Import bank
Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Garrett, a former Republican congressman from New Jersey and a vocal critic of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, to serve as its president and reshape the agency that helps finance U.S. exports.
He also nominated Spencer T. Bachus III of Alabama, a former House member known as a pragmatic moderate, to serve as a member of the bank’s board of directors.
EPA, Labor targeted
The Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as the primary target in the 168 suggestions on how to ease permitting and trim regulations with the aim of boosting domestic manufacturing submitted to the government by industry leaders, with the Labor Department in second place, according to a Commerce Department analysis.
HB2 lawsuit dropped
The Trump administration on Friday dropped a federal lawsuit that challenged North Carolina’s House Bill 2 — known as the “bathroom bill — citing the repeal last month of the controversial law as its impetus.
NRA forum speech
Mr. Trump will speak at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention April 28, becoming the first U.S. president to address the gun-rights group since Ronald Reagan in 1983.