Dear Convention delegates: From the very beginning of the primaries, mistrust of the political establishment has driven a rebellion at the ballot box. It gave major impetus to the astonishing success of Senator Sanders, and fueled the string of victories by Donald Trump, who stressed his “authenticity” How ironic, then, that the Republican presumptive nominee, confronted by repeated calls for release of his tax returns, has taken refuge behind a claim, broadly dismissed as specious by legal experts, that an audit prevents it. Trump himself has emphasized the corruptive effect of large infusions of money to politicians, pointing to the exorbitant fees Wall Street paid to Hillary Clinton, ostensibly for her speeches, and challenged her to make the texts of the speeches pubic so voters might judge whether the fees were actually disguised influence peddling. Even more troubling are the huge sums contributed to the Clinton Foundation, impeachable not only because of conflict-of-interest issues but also because the route of those contributions accommodate money laundering. Trump, quite appropriately, has also shone a bright light on his Democratic counterpart’s proclivity for clandestine conduct. Why then, has he not been forthcoming when it comes to his tax returns? He assures us that they contain no surprises and expects us to “take [his] word.” But isn’t this an echo of Hillary Clinton’s assurances that there were no classified documents sent over her private server, her refusal to provide the text of her speeches, and her indignation at being asked to divulge details she has fought to keep under wraps? Transparency is even more important in this election than in previous four decades, when release of a candidate’s tax returns became perfunctory. The voters have every right to insist on the same full disclosure of tax returns with which presidential candidates over that long period complied, and the Republican Party has a right to demand that disclosure before awarding its nomination. The absence of those records will both blunt the Republican candidate’s proper attack on the Clinton secrecy and increase the vulnerability of all 2016 Republican candidates. Moreover, having never run for public office before, Trump has never been vetted as a candidate for office, even for a US House seat. Trump states that he will make his tax records public once the audit is over—quite possibly, after the election. Is this an acceptable standard for future elections? Meanwhile, the possibility that the Trump information will be leaked by Mr. Obama’s IRS will hang over the campaign, permitting the Democrats to insinuate, once again, that the GOP protects the rich and extorts the middle class; then to disclose the leak to the media in the last week of the campaign for maximum impact. What we request here is simply a condition to be met by any presidential candidate: full disclosure, before Republican Party nomination, of federal tax filings, a practice accepted as normal by candidates of both parties for almost half a century. If our candidate has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. If there is something that will not satisfy public scrutiny, he, the Party, and the nation will suffer. We, the undersigned, beg you, as delegates, not to certify a pig in a poke. Your due diligence as delegates requires that you demand full financial disclosure, including tax returns, as a condition for placing a candidate’s name in nomination, and that you favor a ruling allowing abstentions by delegates otherwise bound by state provisions. Sincerely yours, John Ennis, Vermont Sam Ennis, Vermont Frank Gado, Vermont John MacGovern, Vermont Mark Shepard, Virginia
