A plan for a national march on Tax Day to demand President Donald Trump's tax returns is gaining momentum in Denver and around the country.
The president said throughout campaign season that he could not release his tax documents because he was under audit. On Sunday, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said they wouldn't be released because "people didn't care," pointing to the fact that Trump won the election as evidence.
In response, literally one guy on Twitter suggested that a popular protest on Tax Day would disprove that point. Twenty-thousand retweets later, plans for events are springing up around the country.
In Denver, a Tax Day protest event has 3,600 people planning to go and 12,000 interested as of Jan. 26, about 11 weeks ahead of the April 15 march. (Here's its Facebook page.) It's looking like this may be the largest upcoming march on Denver, although changes to immigration enforcement could prompt a larger response before then too.
The Tax Day organizers say they want to follow the same marching route as the Women's March on Denver and are applying for appropriate permits. They've raised $3,500 on a GoFundMe page for the event so far, with a goal of $25,000, promising to give any surplus money "to charity."
We've reached out to the organizers for more information.
Other events attracting sizable crowds include a planned protest this Friday demanding greater constituent access to Sen. Cory Gardner, as well as another Friday protest regarding purported Denver Police Department surveillance tactics.
Why march?
The common argument for Trump releasing the returns is that it will reveal much more information about his businesses and the relationships that could affect his decisions as president.
Here's how the New York Times editorial board summed it up:
Releasing the returns would provide important insight into Mr. Trump’s finances and businesses. They would reveal if he is as wealthy as he claims to be, what his effective income tax rate is (he said during the campaign that not paying taxes meant he was smart) and how much he gives to charity. The documents would also identify the sources of his income and debt, helping to answer questions about his links to businessmen, banks and governments in places like Russia and the Middle East, and putting a spotlight on potential conflicts of interest.
PolitiFact and FactCheck report that every presidential nominee since at least 1976 has released tax returns, except Gerald Ford, who released tax summary data but not his full returns.
By the way – Conway later returned to the claim that Trump can not release his tax returns because he is being audited by the IRS. As lots of people have pointed out, there's no law that says you can't release returns while under audit – after all, Richard Nixon did.
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