In an appearance on NBC s  Meet the Press,  Mike Pence promised to do something that people have clamored for Trump to do for months. It s simple   he plans to release his tax returns. Within the next week. Which is far sooner than anything we can ever expect from The Donald.Of course, despite shaming the hell out of his running mate like this, Pence still had to say that Trump will make good on his promise, too: Donald Trump and I are both going to release our tax returns. I ll release mine in the next week.Donald Trump will be releasing his tax returns at the completion of an audit. What baloney; the audit is an excuse. Trump can release his tax returns despite the audit, he just won t. Richard Nixon, arguably our most dishonest president ever, released his returns under audit. Apparently, though, Trump hiding them and being as opaque as possible is on the advice of an adviser. It s not hard, however, to believe this adviser would tell him,  Don t release any information that makes you look bad in any way.  Yet much of the public is wondering what he s hiding in there, including many in his own party.Both Hillary and her running mate, Tim Kaine, have already released their tax returns, further shaming the Trumpmeister. That s expected, though. One hardly expects one s own running mate to do the same thing.Hillary and Bill Clinton paid an effective tax rate of just over 43 percent. Maybe Trump is worried how much of the world will see how he evades taxes, or that he s lied about being able to get away with paying a very low tax rate. Or both. In that very vein, Trump himself has rather hypocritically said: So you know if you re running, at a minimum, probably you re going to have to show your returns. If you didn t see the tax returns you would think there s almost like something wrong, what s wrong. So what s wrong with the Donald that he won t release his tax returns? He s eating his own words. The fact that his own running mate is willing to do this, while he himself is not, is laughable at best. No doubt they think this will bring some credibility back to their campaign, but it will also make lots of people turn back to Trump and say,  Show us your taxes, now that your own running mate has done it! Of course Pence tried to cover for that, but either he is lying through his teeth and has no intention of releasing his returns next week, or he s about to make Trump look really, really bad.Featured image by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images