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Koster suspends debate negotiations over lack of tax info from Greitens

ST. LOUIS – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster has suspended debate negotiations with Republican candidate Eric Greitens until Greitens releases tax returns from the last four filing years.

In a letter sent from the Koster campaign to Greitens’ campaign manager Austin Chambers, Koster campaign manager Andrew Whalen explains that Koster has released his income returns from 2012 to 2015, and now they want Greitens to do the same.

“Your campaign and Mr. Greitens have repeatedly accused your opponents of financial conflicts, improper tax behavior, and lying,” Whalen writes. “It is time for your candidate to live up to the standards of transparency he places upon everybody else.”

The full letter can be read below. The story continues after the jump.

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Koster released his own tax returns last week, which uncovered only his salary as attorney general totaling $113,666 last year. The Koster campaign has also criticized Greitens for taking $700,000 over fives years from his charity, The Mission Continues.

The first, and now possibly only, debate between the two came last week at a forum in Branson, yet three third party candidates also took part in the proceedings. Koster has continued to gain a lead on Greitens in polls commissioned by The Missouri Times.

Responses

After this story was initially published, the Greitens campaign responded to the letter with their own letter. Chambers alleged that Koster was attempting to hide from more debates “in a desperate attempt to change the subject and distract from Chris Koster’s failure to protect victims of rape”

“You’re looking for an excuse to hide from the people – and it won’t work,” Chambers wrote. “We believe the voters deserve to see more debates, not fewer. The voters should know the truth about Koster’s extreme liberal agenda and his pay-to-play schemes.”

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The “failure to protect victims of rape” attack line references a kerfuffle the two campaigns had last week regarding the interpretation of a bill that Koster voted against while he was in the Senate. The incident began when a Greitens advocate used in an ad campaign was found to have shared memes interpreted as Islamophobic and sexist.

Following Chambers’ response, the Missouri Democratic Party was quick to point out a timeline that showed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s unsuccessful efforts in obtaining Greitens tax returns since August. Kristin Sosanie, a spokeswoman for the MDP called it “a troubling picture of the twisting and turning Team Greitens continues to do as they avoid releasing their candidate’s tax returns:”

“Greitens consistently says one thing and does another,” Sosanie said. “What exactly is Eric Greitens hiding?”

Tax returns have become a common theme in the 2016 election. Koster’s request of Greitens mirrors a national effort to get Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to release his own personal income tax returns. Like Greitens, Trump has not yet released those documents.