On a day that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry continued to release a stream of documents about his military record, his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, reiterated Thursday that she would not release her tax returns because the law did not compel her to do so.
After touring the William O. Douglas Outdoor Classroom in Franklin Canyon Park with a group of schoolchildren from Silver Lake to celebrate Earth Day, Heinz Kerry told reporters that she had filed a 100-page financial disclosure form with the Senate, fulfilling her legal obligation.
"I do that because I am married to a senator. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to do it," she said.
"I abide by the law. But what I have and what I received is not just mine, it is also my children's, and I don't know that I have the right to make public what is theirs."
The Kerrys file separate tax returns. While Heinz Kerry, as a potential first lady, is not required to release hers, presidential candidates and their wives (or husbands, in the case of 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro) customarily do so.
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, voluntarily released his 2003 returns last week, as did President Bush and his wife, First Lady Laura Bush.
The Kerry campaign has been pressured this week to release documents pertaining to the candidate's military service, as well as his contacts with lobbyists. Questions about the conditions under which he earned three Purple Heart medals during the Vietnam War were raised, mostly in conservative news and talk outlets.
Kerry responded by releasing hundreds of pages of documents Wednesday, and more on Thursday.
On Thursday, the Kerry campaign posted further files documenting his war record, including numerous pages showing citations and combat history from the division in which Kerry served as leader of a Navy swift boat on the Mekong Delta.
Also included among the 200 pages available on the candidate's website were "after-action reports" from Kerry's service as his boat made routine patrol missions along sniper-infested waters.
Those documents, said the campaign, were made public years ago by the Naval Historical Center in Washington. Kerry aides said they would continue to post documents as they became available.
Interest in Heinz Kerry's tax returns is intense because of the size of her fortune and her influence as a philanthropist. Heinz Kerry, 65, is the widow of Pennsylvania Republican Sen. John Heinz, who was heir to the Heinz condiment fortune. When Heinz died in a plane crash in 1991, she inherited an estimated $500 million.
