Back in February 2015, Hugh Hewitt and Donald Trump had an extensive discussion about whether Trump would release his tax returns. Trump said, “I would release tax returns” and “I have no objection to certainly showing tax returns” as Hewitt tried to get him to commit to releasing a certain number of years.

In that interview, Trump never mentioned any audits by the IRS — much less an audit of all returns for the past eight years, as Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort claimed on Jake Tapper’s show this weekend. What, did it slip his mind? How easily can you forget that the IRS is auditing your returns for the past eight years?

Or is it even more years? During one of the debates, Trump said, “I’ve been audited every year. Twelve years or something like that.” This was the evening Trump speculated that the IRS was relentlessly targeting him for audits because he was “a strong Christian.”

If Trump felt he would be targeted by the IRS because of his Christian faith, why would he wait until late February 2016 to mention it? He’s not exactly shy about complaining publicly when he feels he’s been treated unfairly.

The simplest explanation is that there is no audit, and Trump is simply withholding his returns because he doesn’t want people to see something in them. There will be a great deal of speculation about what that “something” is; one possibility is that the tax returns would reveal figures suggesting his net worth is much smaller than Trump boasts. Past profiles of Trump have looked at the available financial information and concluded his net worth is significantly lower than Trump’s claim $10 billion. A 2005 assessment from Deutsche Bank, done as part of a real estate development loan, estimated Trump’s net worth was $788 million; at the time Trump was telling the press the figure was $5 billion to $6 billion..