US President Donald Trump lied on tax returns, help us release them : Julian Assange, WikiLeaks

Julian Assange, founder of the online leaking platform WikiLeaks, is seen through the eyepeace of a camera as he is displayed on a screen via a live video connection during a press conference on the platform's 10th anniversary on October 4, 2016 in Berlin. (Photo by Getty Images)

Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has accused US President Donald Trump of breaching a promise to release his tax returns, calling on people with access to the documents to come forward and help disclose them.

“Trump's breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than [former secretary of state Hillary] Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts,” WikiLeaks wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

The statement came after Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway said the president was not going to release his tax records after all.

Conway told ABC earlier in the day that “people did not care” about Trump’s tax record.

“They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: most Americans are — are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like,” she argued.

 WikiLeaks took issue with that statement and said it would release the records if somebody submits them.

“Trump Counselor Kellyanne Conway stated today that Trump will not release his tax returns,” WikiLeaks said on Twitter.  “Send them to: https://wikileaks.org/#submit so we can.”

An online petition demanding the immediate release of “Trump's full tax returns, with all information needed to verify emoluments clause compliance” has 250,323 signatures as of Monday, more than twice the number it needs to be considered by the administration.

US President Donald Trump (Photo by AFP)

Ever since announcing his intention to run for the top job, Trump has resisted pressure to release his tax returns. When he was pressed on the issue by Clinton during the presidential debates, the Manhattan billionaire promised to release the records once ongoing audits were completed.

The surprising rebuke by WikiLeaks came after the website’s apparent siding with Trump in the buildup to his November 8 presidential face-off with Clinton.

Headed by Julian Assange, the organization published thousands of hacked emails and documents belonging to the Democratic Party and its various organizations before the vote, exposing an insider attempt against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s fierce primary opponent.

Among the documents were transcripts from highly-paid private speeches before executives of top corporate banking institutions like Goldman Sachs, where the former first lady admitted that she was “far removed” from the issues of middle class Americans due to the “fortunes” she and her husband and ex-president Bill Clinton “enjoy” while pledging to do “all she could” for the Wall Street to prosper.