Donald Trump's critical week closes with chaotic end
It was a chaotic end of the week for Donald Trump after what seemed like a promising start.
Just days after a positive meeting with GOP leaders, there is now a series of new concerns over his taxes, his honesty, even his former butler.
On Saturday morning, Hillary Clinton's campaign released a new ad attacking Trump for his refusal to release his income tax returns, citing that every major presidential nominee has done so for the past 40 years.
CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman reports it was a critical week for Trump. He emerged from his meetings in Washington with some establishment Republicans warming up to him, and he's also nearing a deal to harness the Republican National Committee's vast fundraising infrastructure, but now he's trying to bat away a number of distractions that underscore the unpredictability of the presumptive GOP nominee.
Under fire for not releasing his tax returns, Trump refused to disclose his effective tax rate and rejected the idea that voters have a right to see his returns.
"I don't think they do," he told ABC News. "When the audit ends, I'm going to present them. That should be before the election. I hope it's before the election."
Trump has maintained that he can't follow tradition and release his tax returns like all nominees have done since 1976 because the most recent years are under IRS audit.
The presumptive Republican nominee boasted that he pays the lowest rate possible and that voters wouldn't learn anything. But the documents would spell out how much he pays in taxes and shine a light on the billionaire businessman's wealth, charitable giving and companies.
"If he doesn't release his tax returns, I don't know if anyone cares," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told Fox News.
While Priebus is rushing to Trump's defense, others - from former Republican nominee Mitt Romney to Clinton - have asked what he's hiding.
Meanwhile, Trump is also fighting back against a report that he posed as his own publicist under the pseudonyms John Barron or John Miller, like in a 1991 audio recording obtained by The Washington Post when his love life made for tabloid headlines.
"Actresses, people that you write about just call to see if they can go out with him and things," the man who identified himself as Miller in the recording said about Trump.
The Washington Post said that Trump had admitted he was Miller and called it a "joke gone awry," but pressed on Friday he adamantly denied it.
"I don't know anything about it," he told ABC. "You're telling me about it for the first time, and it doesn't sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice."
On Friday afternoon, Washington Post reporters were 44 minutes into a phone interview with Trump to talk about his finances, and they asked him a question about Miller. They said, "Did you ever employ someone named John Miller as a spokesperson?"
The phone went silent, then dead. When the reporters called back and reached Trump's secretary, she said, "I heard you got disconnected. He can't take the call now. I don't know what happened."
Also, Trump's former butler is under investigation by the Secret Service.
Anthony Senecal, who worked at Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, is coming under scrutiny for several violent and racist postings he made on his Facebook page.
They suggest President Obama should be hanged for treason. The Trump campaign is condemning what it calls "horrible remarks" and said the 74-year-old Senecal has not worked for Trump in seven years.