Badger of Honor

   "I don't see it as journalism, I see it as badgering," So said Kellyanne Conway, the most recent campaign manager for Republican nominee Donald Trump, on the persistent questions about the candidate's claims of charity donations and his refusal to release his tax returns.
   Yes, Ms Conway, you may well call the persistent questioning "badgering," but that's part of journalism's job, to pursue truth and documentation of questionable claims made by those seeking public office.
   To criticize journalists for doing their jobs will be taken as proof that they are good at their jobs.
   So it will be no surprise if reporters start wearing badger-shaped lapel pins, and competing with each other to become known as "badger in chief."
   
   The same accusation of "badgering" could be made about questioning of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's emails, despite Bernie Sanders' comment that "Nobody cares about your damn emails."
   But the reality is that journalists are reporting questions brought up by political opponents, in addition to the basic issue of whether a private computer server was appropriate. As it turns out, many members of Congress also had private email servers through which they received and sent material that may have been marked "Confidential."
   Perhaps these private systems were set up for a good reason, considering the questionable security of government systems.
   
   Nevertheless, the questions about Trump's tax returns and so-called charity donations, which were in fact donations from others, dealt with money allegedly funneled through the Trump Foundation. Donations for which Trump claimed credit. The issue can be settled quite easily if he released his tax returns that documented the amounts and the recipients of donations.
   But that would mean possible proof that Trump has paid little or no federal income tax for several years, even as he talks up the benefits of even more tax deductions. Could it be he's looking for ways to have the IRS pay him?
   As for Trump's claims that he cannot release the tax returns because they are still under audit, consider this: We only have his word that they are under audit. The IRS will neither confirm nor deny this, but will only say that the candidate can divulge his data anytime he wishes.
   How about proof that the returns are, in fact, under audit? That can be shown simply by exhibiting the letter from the IRS that his returns are being audited.
   At bottom, however, is his claim that he is audited every year. Really? Every year? For at least the past ten years? Does it take that long to audit even his extremely complicated tax return?
   An even better question is this: What's he hiding, and why?