After getting walloped in Thursday evening’s Republican primary debate by a reinvigorated Marco Rubio, frontrunner Donald Trump told CNN that he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service possibly because of his religious beliefs. “I’m always audited by the IRS,” he said to Chris Cuomo, “which I think is very unfair. I don’t know whether it’s maybe because of religion or because of something else, maybe because I’m doing this.”

Asked by the news anchor to elaborate on the religious aspect, Trump dropped this line: “Well maybe because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian and I feel strongly about it, so maybe there’s a bias.”

In recent days, Trump’s rivals—including former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—have taken to suggesting the frontrunner has avoided releasing his tax returns in order to hide a “bombshell” about his finances. In response, Trump repeatedly said throughout the debate that he cannot release his tax information because of the audit.