Donald Trump: Why No Financial Records Yet?

Three weeks after the president coughed up his birth certificate, Trump still refuses to show us the money

President Barack Obama showed you his, Donald Trump — isn't it about time that you showed him — and the rest of the country — yours?

Wednesday marks a very special anniversary in Trump's as-yet-unannounced — yet very much talked about — presidential run. Three weeks ago, Obama capitulated to the birthers (Trump included) and released his long-form birth certificate, ending an argument that never should have existed in the first place.

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Today also marks the three-week anniversary of Trump's first broken promise to the people whose votes he hopes to attract in the sham candidacy he's done a quarter-ass job of conducting.

The real-estate mogul and "Celebrity Apprentice" honcho hectored the president through the nation's airwaves throughout April, demanding that he provide evidence of his citizenship. In response to Trump's increasingly irrational finger-pointing, George Stephanopoulos, during an interview on "Good Morning America," asked a very straightforward question: When would Trump, who's been through several bankruptcies, be releasing his financial records, so that the public could examine the perhaps-inconvenient corners of Trump's past?

"Maybe I'll let them [look at] the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate." Trump replied.

That turned out to be a colossal "maybe." Obama furnished the goods on April 27, and the nation is still waiting for Trump to make good on his end of the deal.

Sure, Trump's a busy guy, with all the mouth-running he does, but really — is he that busy? Compared to the guy he's been needlessy hounding, anyway?

In the three weeks since Obama satisfied a burden of proof that was never his to begin with, he's gone on to verbally humiliate Trump during the White House Correspondents' Dinner and, perhaps just as importantly, oversee the killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

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And Trump? Well, he's been busy moving goalposts. First he shifted the argument to Obama's academic credentials. (What's next — a subpoena demanding the president's dental records, to find out if he really flosses regularly?) Then he budged off of his initial vow to disclose his financial records, claiming that he'll now wait until "the appropriate time" to reveal if his money really is where his mouth has been saying it is.

"If I announce, I will have to release very detailed information about my wealth," Trump hedged. "That is certainly something I'd be thinking about doing anyway. But before I do anything I have to make the decision in June and the first thing I'm going to be releasing will be financials."

Given Trump's already established record of backtracking, his promises to someday — possibly, when the time is just right — show us the money are starting to sound as suspect as that orange monstrosity that's perched on his head.

Trump can ramble about the appropriate time all he wants (and this would seem to be one of the very few times that the Donald has been even remotely concerned about appropriateness), but try as he might, he can't shove his initial promise back into his mouth.

It's been three weeks, and the ball is firmly in Trump's court. If he has any other balls to speak of, he'll put up or shut up — and if he can't delver the goods, drop out.
 

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