Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., became the first 2020 presidential candidate to disclose her 2018 income tax return, commenting Wednesday she thinks Americans have the right to know that politicians and candidates are working for them and nobody else, particularly since President Donald Trump has never released his own returns.
"I think transparency is so important in government," she told CNN's "New Day," shortly after disclosing the returns through a video on her YouTube channel. "When I first ran, I posted my earmarked requests and financial disclosure and schedule."
The results show Gillibrand reported earnings of about $218,000 by bringing in $167,634 from her congressional salary and another $50,000 from a book deal, while her husband, Jonathan Gillibrand, did not report any income.
Gillibrand announced her candidacy Sunday in front of Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City, and told CNN Wednesday she picked that spot because she thinks Trump is "tearing apart the moral fabric of our country" and his Manhattan property "represents greed and division and vanity and all things that is not who we are on our best days."
She also addressed former Vice President Joe Biden's regrets about his part in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings that undermined Anita Hill's credibility 30 years ago.
"We know the Anita Hill hearings were deeply flawed," Gillibrand said. "There were a lot of corroborating witnesses that weren't even interviewed and which is why when we had the most recent [Brett] Kavanaugh hearings we were so focused on all these corroborating witnesses that the committee would not allow to testify."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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