We recently covered Afghanistan War Veteran Peter Kiernan, whose current mission is to call attention to the crisis of American Veterans' suicides. Now he's dreamed up a way to exploit a very popular controversy to hopefully benefit more veterans.

By teaming up with a philanthropist to raise the most money possible, Kieman and his staff are demanding transparency from the Trump Campaign, with an incentive that would be hard for any campaign to ignore. Kiernan and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of the social networking site, Linked In, have pledged up to $5 million to benefit Veterans' charities if Donald Trump releases his illusive tax returns. From Medium.com:

In 2012, Donald Trump called President Obama “the least transparent president in the history of this country.”

Then he offered to donate $5 million to charity if President Obama would release “his college records and applications” and his “passport applications and records.”
Now, in 2016, Trump is facing a similar challenge from a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran named Pete Kiernan.

On Crowdpac.com, Kiernan hopes to raise at least $25,000. Then, if Trump releases his tax returns by October 19 (the final debate), Kiernan will donate the money he has raised to non-profit organizations that assist veterans, including Team Rubicon, the Special Ops Warrior Foundation, and the Yellow Ribbon Fund.

Given Trump’s vocal support of veterans, I imagine he will recognize the great good that can come from Kiernan’s proposal.

But taking Trump’s own 2012 offer to President Obama into account, I’d like to assist Kiernan in his campaign. If Kiernan’s campaign hits or exceeds its target, I will match the total amount he reaches with a 5x contribution, up to $5 million.

In other words, if Kiernan raises $200,000 on Crowdpac.com, I’ll contribute $1 million to the campaign. If he raises $1 million, I’ll contribute $5 million.

Let's hope Kiernan and Hoffman succeed, and Trump releases even just the 1040 of a most recent return. There's a good reason that he's not releasing them, we suspect. However, now he's denying millions of dollars of much-needed money to our brave veterans by hiding behind some alleged 'audit' and going against the precedent set by so many Republican candidates before him.