Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Sunday that his client's tax returns are not being audited, exposing a lie Trump has used for years to keep his tax records secret. Trump has long said that he would release his tax returns publicly once the audits he claimed were being conducted were completed, beginning as far back as the start of his campaign for president in 2015.

Giuliani made the statement during an appearance on Fox News when he was asked about the Supreme Court ruling last week that Trump is not immune from subpoenas demanding that he turn over financial documents to Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney.

"They have no reason to believe that there is anything wrong with his tax returns," Giuliani told Fox's Maria Bartiromo. "All these tax returns have by and large — maybe not the last one — but all of them have been audited, all of them have either been passed on or settled."

Giuliani says the audits are done — unless they're not.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeated the lie on Thursday, the day the Supreme Court ruling was released.

"You know, the media has been asking this question for four years, and for four years, the President has said the same thing: His taxes are under audit, and when they're no longer under audit, he will release them," McEnany said.

Every president since Richard Nixon has voluntarily released his tax returns save for Trump.

As the New York Times reported last year, Trump's tax returns could show that he pays little or nothing in taxes, or that he doesn't earn as much as he claims to, or even that he has committed tax fraud.

Trump's niece, Mary Trump, alleges in a recently published book that he has inflated his net worth and made use of "fraudulent" schemes to avoid paying taxes.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.