Former adviser says Trump wanted to release tax returns in 2013 to show how little he paid

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images)

Before he fought to keep his tax returns private, President Trump wanted to release them — to show the world how smart he was for lowering his taxable income, a former adviser told CNN.

Sam Nunberg, who served as Trump's political adviser from 2011 to August 2015, said that over lunch in 2013, Trump said he would be fine with his tax returns being released as part of a presidential bid. Nunberg, who did not see the returns himself, told CNN that Trump "thought he could defend the return. I inferred from the conversation that he believed that it was a lower number and he'd look savvy." Another one of Trump's former senior advisers who joined the pair for lunch corroborated Nunberg's account.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.