‘He’s Still Under Audit’: Constituents Loudly Boo Tom Cotton Over Trump Tax Return Answer

Things got a bit feisty at an Arkansas town hall on Monday afternoon.

With Tax Day fast approaching, and nationwide protests having already taken place this past weekend over the issue, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) was confronted by constituent over President Donald Trump’s refusal to publicly release any of his tax returns.

At a hall in Little Rock, the voter wanted to know if Cotton would take the initiative to call on Trump to make the returns public “so that we can see what kinds of connections he has” with different countries as well as what tax proposals would personally benefit him and his family. (The man also noted that Trump has flip-flopped on the reasons why he won’t release them, switching from them being under audit to the election happening and he no longer needs to.)

“As far as I’m aware, the president says he’s still under audit,” Cotton responded. “And he says he’s going to release them when he’s not.”

.@SenTomCotton booed by town hall crowd for answering question about Trump's taxes by saying he's still under audit: https://t.co/3IDL61RtZm pic.twitter.com/nLpH1JNO2F

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 17, 2017

As you can imagine, the town hall attendees were none too pleased with that answer, and vociferously booed the Arkansas lawmaker.

After letting the jeers subside, Cotton added that this was a central issue of the campaign and Trump won election despite not releasing his returns, essentially claiming that it is unnecessary at this point.

During Monday’s White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also claimed that the president’s 2016 tax returns were already under audit — despite not actually being due to be filed until tomorrow — and that nothing would be released until the audit was over. When asked by a reporter if that meant we could see the returns sometime in the future, Spicer said he’d have to get back to him on that.

Chants of "lock him up" from displeased constituents here in Little Rock, AR when Senator Cotton compliments Trump's foreign policy pic.twitter.com/1FhJYzreXS

— Josh Haskell (@joshbhaskell) April 17, 2017

Elsewhere in the town hall, the crowd broke out into a “lock him up” chant, obviously referencing the ubiquitous “lock her up” rally cries aimed at Hillary Clinton during Trump’s campaign stops.