US President Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen says his former client did not want to release his tax returns before the 2016 election because he feared public scrutiny would lead to an audit.
"What he didn't want is to have an entire group of think tanks that are tax experts run through his tax return and start ripping it to pieces, and then he'll end up in an audit and he'll ultimately have taxable consequences," Cohen told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee.
Cohen said he'd seen the tax returns, but didn't go through them closely.
Trump broke with decades of tradition for US presidential candidates by refusing to release his income tax filings during the campaign. He has said he won't release them because he is being audited.
Cohen says he asked Trump for paperwork about the audit to prepare Trump's response to reporters about the issue, but never received documentation.
Cohen also warned Republicans in Congress against defending a president he had protected for years, saying they also risked a fall from grace.
He is due to begin a three-year sentence in May for lying to Congress, tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. The sentence was reached in a plea agreement with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign for possible collusion with Russia.
"I'm responsible for your silliness because I did the same thing that you're doing now for 10 years," Cohen said.
"The more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering."
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