Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell 20190404

Fortitude, patience and hydration, but im hoping someday soon we get merit badges, too. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Good evening, rachel. Do you know how we know you live in western massachusetts . Hmm . Its not your eastern accent, which really is noack se accent all. You call him richie neal because he is the local congressman up there in massachusetts. He is my congressman, he is. He has a large area in a very small state because there isnt very much of us in massachusetts. He is richie e. Neal but ive always known him as richie neal. Thats how ive always known him. There are questions among democrats who are saying, what is chairman neal doing . He has the right to demand these tax returns and he isnt doing it. You can see it is just a meticulously crafted piece. He has found exactly what tax returns and tax return information he wants, especially beyond the personal returns from the trump businesses. And that surely took quite a while to figure out exactly which trump businesses to go after. What do you make, lawrence, of the fact especially because youve known him for a long time. What do you make of the fact that hes not doing any interviews at all about this strategy or about this request hes now made of the irs . Not only did he not do any interviews leading up to it, but hes not doing any interviews on tv, doesnt appear to be doing any print interviews, either. He is the mother of house chairman. I think he understands the position hes in, i think he understands that he has a unique power. He has a superpower. He has a power that no other chairman in the house has. So i think hes respecting his power, and i think hes treating it as something that shouldnt be shouldnt appear to be a way that hes trying to get attention to himself. What is very, very clear is that the chairman of the ways and Means Committee is not guilty of trying to get attention for himself this year. Exactly. And i would follow him around with a microphone at home or abroad, but we know hes not talking. Its a fascinating day in the news, lawrence. It certainly is. We have two people joining us after the breaking news from the president s tax returns to the Mueller Report. Congressman adam schiff will be our first guest tonight. And congressman Lloyd Doggett is the seniormost member who is available to do an interview tonight about the Committee Chairmans decision to demand copies of Donald Trumps tax returns from the irs. The word powerful almost always comes before the word chairman in congress, but the chairman of the house ways and Means Committee and the chairman of the Senate Finance committee each have a superpower that no other chairmen have as leaders of the taxwriting committees. They have the unique power to demand any tax return they want to see from the irs. And chairman richard neal of the house ways and Means Committee is now exercising that unique power. He has demanded, in writing, President Trumps personal and business tax returns for the last six years, and this may be the single Biggest Development yet in the congressional investigations of the president this year. And it is also a really important moment in the president ial campaign. And thats what im going to talk about at the end of this hour, what the demand for the trump tax returns means for the democratic president ial candidates and how only a few of them were actually ready for this to happen today. And the way for a candidate to have been ready for this was to have released the candidates own tax returns already and most most of the Democratic Candidates for president have not done that yet. Maybe we shouldnt be surprised that the women have done a much, much better job than the men on this issue, the women candidates. And it tells us a lot about who is really ready for this president ial campaign. And i mean ready today. Ready today to deal with whatever was going to happen today. If youre a president ial candidate and you havent already released 10 years of your own tax returns, then you were not ready for what happens today. We will get to that at the end of this hour, the effect of the president s tax returns on the president ial campaign. But first some prosecutors believe that attorney general william barr misrepresented the Mueller Report. He summarized what the attorney general says are the Main Findings of the Mueller Report. The New York Times put it this way. Some of robert s. Muellers investigators have told associates that attorney general william barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than mr. Barr indicated. Now, many of us reading the attorney generals letter inferred that the findings of the Mueller Report were probably more troubling for the president. But the times has new details tonight about the Mueller Report in their story, did etails wev never known before. Quote, the special counsels investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report and some team members believe that mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the fourpage letter of march 24. The democrats have asked for the full report, and they have allowed jerry nadler to use subpoena power to obtain the full, unredacted Mueller Report. Heres jerry nadler this morning in that Judiciary Committee meeting. The constitution holds the president accountable for alleged official misconduct. That job allows for us to measure that for ourselves, not an attorney general summary, not the redacted report, but the full report and the underlying evidence. The attorney general proposes to redact four categories of information from the Mueller Report. Congress is entitled to all of the evidence. This isnt just my opinion, it is also a matter of law. Chairman nadler has now been empowered a Party Line Vote in the committee to issue a subpoena for the full Mueller Report when and if chairman nadler decides that that is necessary. Chairman nadler was asked if there was any room for compromise. Are you willing to negotiate any middle ground in terms of redactions of the no. The committee must see everything. This morning on this network, congressman adam schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he expects Robert Mueller to have to testify to congress. Are you going to call bob mueller to testify . I think its inevitable bob mueller is going to have to testify before congress. I would think that he will probablien needed before more than one committee. Earlier today the New York Times reported the House Intelligence Committee has asked one of the top contractors to President Trumps inaugural to provide it with documents about the event, a person familiar with the situation said on wednesday, opening up a new line of inquiry into the planning and financing of the ceremonies. The committee asked for documents from an interview with Stephanie Winston wolcoff who had been a close friend of the first lady, melania trump, and who had helped plan the celebrations and parties around the inaugural, the person said. Leading off our discussion tonight is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, democratic congressman adam schiff of california. Chairman schiff, thank you very much for joining us on this important night. I know this is not an easy night to make time for this. Can we work backwards from what i just referred to in the New York Times about your committees interest in the Trump Inaugural Committee . What can you tell us about that . Again, our interest is really from a counterintelligence point of view, and that is were foreign parties trying to use the Inauguration Committee as a way of exerting influence over the incoming administration. We know already that foreign contributions which are prohibited were funneled in part to this committee through a straw man. Sam patton has already pled guilty to an offense related to that, a 50,000 contribution to buy tickets to the inauguration on behalf of a russian and a ukranian. And so were deeply interested to know whether this committee, which raised unprecedented sums, tried to raise that money to exert influence. There are other committees like the oversight committee, i think, that may be interested in other issues such as whether the trump Family Organization used the inaugural committee to enrich itself by charging abovemarket rate for hotel rentals or ballroom rentals or whatnot during the inauguration, but our interest is the counterintelligence concern. Let me take you to the breaking news report of the night in the New York Times which seems to be saying that there are at least some members of the mueller team who are telling associates that they believe that attorney general barr and what he has written to congress about the report has, in effect, misrepresented the weight of the report. Well, its been my assumption, and we wont know until we get it and i find it remarkable here we are almost two weeks out and barr is still keeping this report buried. Its been my assumption that a 400page report has an executive summary already. So of course it begged the question why did barr feel the need to release his own summary . This is obviously someone who was hired for the purpose of squelch ing an obstruction of justice that upset the president. Why didnt he release a summary, bob mueller himself, rather than trying to shape it in his own words . It is concerning. The best remedy, of course, is transparency. Let the American People see all of it, and ultimately, thats whats going to happen. Were going to fight this in any way we can, in any way we need to to make sure that the American People get to see the product of bob muellers work without the filter of mr. Trumps handpicked attorney general. Will your committee you also have an interest in seeing the full Mueller Report within your committee. Will your Committee Also subpoena the report, if necessary . Well, there are two investigations that were going on simultaneously, the counterintelligence investigation, which is how this all began. That is an investigation into whether the president or people around him were witting or unwitting agents of russian influence, and then the criminal investigation. It looks like the Mueller Report is predominantly focused on the criminal investigation. Here is who we charged, here is who we didnt charge and heres why. It may not discuss the counterintelligence findings. If it doesnt, of course, thats what were going to be pursuing in the Intelligence Committee, and well use whatever means necessary. Very analogous to chairman neal who is a statutory power to get the tax returns. We have a statutory power in the Intelligence Committee to gain any findings, and were going to tell the fbi to live up to that requirement. Let me ask you something that rachel asked me about, and that is why has the ways and Means Committee remained so publicly quiet and like yourself not doing any interviews about the work hes doing in this committee, particularly this work about trying to obtain the president s tax returns . Have you had any conversation with chairman neal about why hes avoiding interview situations about this . I certainly had conversations with chairman neal on the subject of the tax returns, but im not going to go into those conversations. I havent talked with him about how public facing he wants to be. But i will tell you this looking at the chairmans letter and knowing something about the chairman. This letter, this request, is very carefully written. It presents the strongest possible grounds to obtain those returns, and i think he wants to rely on what that letter says, because he knows thats on the strongest legal footing. And he knows the president is likely to fight this tooth and nail. But this leaves no wiggle room, no discretion for the irs. Theyre going to have to comply. It is squarely within the chairmans authority to ask for these returns, and i think that out of a bbundance of caution a mindful that the president will seek to litigate this, the chairman is probably working conservatively with the advice of the house general counsel to maximize our chances of success. Do you want to see the president these same tax returns in your committee . You know, im deeply concerned with, you know, what the tax returns might shed light on in terms of any conflict of interest, particularly visavis foreign parties. So if the president has investments abroad that are tilting u. S. Policy toward saudi arabia or against other countries or towards turkey because hes got a moscow trump tower there, or any other elicit or financial purpose, then that is a counterintelligence concern for our committee. But that is a different issue than the one that chairman neal is raising, and i will defer to chairman neal on the basis he is seeking the returns, but, of course, that is the concern that we have in our committee. And chairman neal has specified in his written statement about this that he has no intention of sharing the tax returns with any other committees. But there is, within the law, a house process for that if the house passed a resolution authorizing your committee to obtain the tax returns, which is to say, authorizing you. You then could see these tax returns. Is that something you would anticipate asking Speaker Pelosi to put resolutions you would be asking her to pass so you could get a look at these tax returns . Im going to defer to chairman neal on that question because i think hes in the best position to be able to respond to what latitude he may have in terms of release of the tax returns beyond his committee. Ill defer to him on that. I can only speak for the interests of my committee, which is to make sure that u. S. Policy is not driven by some elicit foreign purpose. Now, i do want to say also that what chairman neal is doing is helping to reinforce what had been an inviable norm for decades, and that is that president ial candidates release their returns so the American People can understand whether there are conflicts of interest, and i think the American People have every right to know, for example, did the president push certain provisions for Real Estate Developers in the tax cut bill because it would earn him tens of millions of dollars on his taxes . Or any other issue that is pertinent to the American Peoples interest in a transparent government and knowing that the president is working for them and not on behalf of his own narrow financial interest. And chairman, we now have a whistleblower telling us about the way the security clearance process was overruled within the trump white house, and apparently now, specifically to the benefit of jared kushner. Whats your reaction to those reports . We are supporting the work that chairman cummings is doing to try to get to the bottom of this and find out why there was so many aberrations here, why there was so many overrulings of the professionals in terms of the security clearance process. We also have our own deep interest in this. Jared kushner has probably the broadest possible portfolio of anyone connected to the administration. Hes supposed to develop a mideast peace plan. Hes got jurisdiction over criminal Justice Reform and god knows what else. And hes also entered this administration with buildings that were deeply in debt, like that 666 property. And if he was seeking foreign financing, if foreign parties or sovereign wealth funds or other countries felt like he could be levered because of his financial indebtedness or other reasons, thats of deep concern to us. If those were the considerations that went into the denial or the attempt to deny him a security clearance, then they were overruled because of nepotistic interests of the president , then we want to know about that in the Intelligence Committee. Chairman, we also saw this Security Breach of sorts, im not sure how you would describe it, this weekend with the arrest in florida of someone who gets into the president s basically his weekend home which he also runs as a business. And she gets in there using two chinese passports as her identification. It turns out the secret service, on second thought, ends up arresting her because they believed she was there with malicious intent and, in fact, was in possession of Malicious Software and some of the computer hardware that she had with her. Your reaction to that and what we know about it so far. A couple reactions. First is a concern over the security protocols that she got as far as she did. Second is the concern over the number of cell phones over the thumb drive. We dont know what kind of malware this is. Was there an intention to place the malware in a system in maralago. But a concern that this person looked like they were an amateur for whatever reason. The broader concern, though, is she was a guest or she was somebody attempting to pose as a guest. People can buy a membership. Theyre eager to sell memberships at maralago which means that if a Foreign Intelligence Service did want to penetrate, the far better way to do it would be to buy a membership and have a right to be there. That compound, that country club, maralago, what the president calls his southern white house second only to the white house itself, is going to be an intelligence target for every Foreign Intelligence Agency worth their salt. So we know that those agencies are going to be deeply interested in maralago, and the fact that you can buy your way in and avoid what happened to this woman is of paramount concern. But even as someone not on a guest list, able to get as far as they did, waves a lot of red flags. Chairman adam schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight with your invaluable expertise about this. We really appreciate it. Thanks, lawrence. Thank you. There is no way up. Donald trump has finally been cornered on his tax returns because shall means shall. When people who write laws with the word shall means there is no wiggle room. I knew that when i was a staff on the Senate Finance committee. Thats what the law says about the unique power that the champl of t chairman of the congressional tax committees have, the right to see any tax returns they want to see. The law says if the chairman of any of those committees requests a tax return or any information about a tax return, then the secretary of the treasury has no choice but to order the irs to turn over that tax return. Heres what the law actually says. The secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request. And so tonight at 6 00 p. M. , chairman richard neal of the house ways and Means Committee sent this letter demanding six years of President Trumps personal tax returns and his business tax returns and all information about those tax returns in possession of the irs, including whether any of those tax returns have been audited, something the president has always claimed as his reason for not releasing his tax returns. Chairman richard neal and his staff have been working for months on this letter to make sure they were asking for exactly what they need to get a full picture of Donald Trumps Tax Compliance and to make sure they were following the letter of the law in making this request. Every member of the house ways and Means Committee knew that at some point, this day was coming. And so our next guest, Senior Member of the committee, Lloyd Doggett, asked the treasury secretary about this last month. Have you received any instruction or guidance of any kind about how to handle congressional requests for President Trumps tax returns . Based on the request, well examine it and we will follow the law. We will protect the president as we would protect any individual taxpayer under their rights. Joining us now, member of the house ways and Means Committee, congressman Lloyd Doggett of texas. He is the seniormost Committee Member available for interviews tonight. Congressman, i want you to look back at the exchange we just showed with the treasury secretary and reflect back on what you think his answer means now that chairman neal has sent the letter. Well, lawrence, thank you. Finally, after two years, six motions that i made that the republicans covered up for trump, and now three months into the session, we have the beginning of the beginning. I think what the treasury secretary was saying in a bit of double talk, mumbojumbo was the interest on the word protect. The interest should be on the word shall and providing these returns as required by a near 100yearold statute of which youre very permanently familiar and youve described it so well tonight. The secretary, it would appear, and President Trump tonight in his initial comments, he obviously continues to think hes above the law here as everywhere else, and if he chooses to obstruct the secretary and the irs from performing their ministerial duty, we need to move forward immediately to seek legal action to get these returns. Some reports have referred to the law that controls this as an obscure law. Which i guess it is to most members of the news media, but for you, a member of the ways and Means Committee, any member of the finance committee, any member of the staff of those committees knows this power exists. Theyve seen versions of this power used. When i was in the Senate Finance committee, service not actually used for any individual the way it is now, any targeted individual, but more for a kind of tax return that the committee was interested in seeing for compliance reasons. How does it work . We would sometimes ask the irs just for tax returns that are taking a certain kind of deduction, and we didnt even have to see the names on them, necessarily. But that power has always been there. This is the first time weve seen it used basically in an aggressive way against a sitting president who is probably very likely to try to resist this in court. This is a president , of course, with a history of questionable tax activities, a president who deviated from other candidates in refusing to disclose his returns. You have described the statute and the practice and the frequent use of article 6103 very particularly. I would bring to your attention, and i know youre familiar with it, the role that it played with richard nixon. The irs appraised him in their initial public audit. Then when we actually got the returns, my people on the committee and yours in finance, it turned out the house did a pretty awful job and the president ended up having to pay half a Million Dollars in taxes in order to demonstrate that he was not a crook. One of the things chairman neal pointed out in the informational handout that he gave to the media today along with the letter was that the Senate Finance committee demands tax returns for the people who get confirmed to positions of treasury. Its routine that the Committee Staff there and chairman take a look at tax returns for lower ranking people than the president. Absolutely. Secretary mnuchin, other people within the Treasury Department and elsewhere, had to produce tax returns. While i differ with the chairman about the scope as to time and the breadth of the returns that are requested, i think hes prepared a very informed request that there is no legal justification in denying this narrow request in producing this six years of returns. Weve really, after all this time, just reached the beginning of the beginning. And we all remember donald trump saying on the campaign trail that he would release his tax returns, but there was an audit going on. We have no evidence that there was actually an audit going on. Chairman neal is going find out whether there was an audit. Exactly. It is traditionally, as you know, for the president and the Vice President , to automatically be audited by the irs, thats a point the chairman makes in his letter, and one of the things we want to find out is, is that audit actually happening . Or has he ordered the irs not to audit him . Thats exactly right. We need to know about that audit. We need to know like the nixon case how well did the irs do their job . This is all about confidence in our tax system. Its essential americans have that confidence and part of that is assuring that the most powerful person in the country is complying with our tax laws. So i think we should at least hold him to the nixon standard. As you know, earlier this year we approved the for the people act here in the house. We want to require this for ten years and all principal businesses of everyone who runs for president. Its not aimed at any person or any party, it is designed to ensure integrity in our highest office, something that were really short of in the Trump Administration. And, congressman, talk about what it would mean to turn a tradition, the tradition of voluntary disclosure for president ial candidates and president s of their tax returns, turn that into a law. Well, i think it confirms the best practice of people of candidates of both parties. And all weve had from President Trump lies and deceit. We have to get the facts. I know hes not a factbased president or realitybased president , but on this issue, on the administration of our tax laws, how hes benefited in changes of the tax laws and rulings by his administration, how the irs is performing its function, those are vital things for the operation of our government and particularly in the jurisdiction of the ways and Means Committee. Congressman doggett, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know youve been pushing for the issue of the trump tax returns longer than anyone else on the committee. You were doing it in that lonely position of the minority and the republicans were shutting you up every time you brought it up. Indeed. Thank you. Thank you. When we come back later in this hour, im going to talk to you about what Lloyd Doggett was just talking about, which is the democrats attempt to make it a law that all president ial candidates release 10 years of tax returns, and just how important that is for the president ial campaign tonight. Well tell you who has already complied with that among the Democratic Candidates, and well talk about some of the people who have not and why it has become more important than ever now that chairman richard neal of the house ways and Means Committee as demanded to see Donald Trumps tax returns. Also when we come back, were going to have the experts that we need tonight, the experts on donald trump taxes, donald trump businesses, the people who know more about it than anyone else, they will join us to cover this breaking news about the trump tax returns and more. S and more what would i say to somebody keep being you. . Keep loving. Keep aspiring. Keep striving. 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Ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. You know reliable support when you have it, and that dependability is what we want to give our customers. At comcast, its my job to constantly monitor our network. Prevent problems, and to help provide the most Reliable Service possible. My name is tanya, i work in the Network Operations center for comcast. We are working to make things simple, easy and awesome. If i decide to run for office, ill produce my tax returns, absolutely. Big surprise. He wasnt telling the truth. But now hes president of the United States and the chairman of the house ways and Means Committee, richard neal, is exercising his legal right under the law to demand Donald Trumps tax returns from the irs. Joining us now is tim obriabrih. Hes one of the very first people who has actually seen a donald trump tax return. Hell tell us about that in a minute. And jared k. Johnson is a tax writer for the New York Times and hes the author of worse than you think what the Trump Administration is doing for america. And the coauthor of the book russian roulette. All three of our guests have written books about the trump businesses, both foreign and domestic. Tim, let me start with you. Youre the one were all jealous of. You had a chance to see a trump tax return within a lawsuit where he was suing you. He was failing in his lawsuit against you, which you won, because he didnt like that you wrote a book saying hes not as rich as he says he is, which i think everyone is not surprised to have discovered. Knowing what you know about the trump businesses and how inside you were able to get them using the discovery and subpoena power within your lawsuit that donald trump made the mistake of starting, what does donald trump have to fear in what chairman richie neal is going to be reading in his tax returns . I think there is four broad areas hes worried about, and for him its sort of the financial equivalent of getting open heart surgery. I think hed love to avoid this at any cost. Two of the things, how authentically philanthropic he is. I think we already know the answer to that one, but thats going to come out in his returns, and how absolutely robust his business is. Some of that will come out in returns. But i think the thing germane t getting overseas. If hes getting money from places like china or the middle east or russia that hes used to finance his business activities, that raises obvious questions about whether or not hes making independent calls on all sorts of issues that involve both governments and banks and active players in all of those regions. And i think hes going to do everything he can to keep that information from coming out. David k. Johnston, as a pulitzer prizewinning tax reporter, you know what all of us have to fear looking at our tax returns no matter how we file. But you also attained a portion of a trump tax return that we all remember that i believe was the two summary pages of the return. Im going to put up on the screen everything that chairman neal is asking for on the business side. Hes asking for eight different entities and all of both not just their returns, but all underlying documents the irs might have in terms of auditing any of these entities, the donald j. Trump revokable trust, the djt holdings llc, djt Holdings Managing member llc, Dttm Operations llc, Dttm Operations managing member corp, lfb Acquisition Member corp, lfb Acquisition Llc and Lamington Farm Club llc did doing business as Trump National golf clubb clubbedminster. That has a lot of businesses that ive never heard of, so they had to do a lot of research as to where the trump money is. It tells me the joint committee of taxation has done serious work in terms of what they want to look at. There are no requests for gift tax returns, if he made gifts to his children or grandchildren. If they did, im sure theyll come up. Tim is exactly spot on, and in addition, once they have the returns, they can look at things like was he consistent in his accounting rules . Did he take reductions he was not entitled to . Was there selfdealing among his various entities to deflate his taxes . And david coren, youve studied Donald Trumps business interests in russia. Presumably that will be an area where the ways and Means Committee staff will be trying to find what secrets might lurk in that area of Donald Trumps life. As tim said, there are all sorts of overseas actions that hes been engaged with over the years. Many of them we may not even know about, that may turn up in the tax returns. There are all sorts of clever ways to use llcs in offshore companies to keep that out of your personal returns, which is why its very interesting theyre going after some of those businesses. Donald trump, if you look at his Financial Disclosure forms, has hundreds of llcs and we dont have a lot of their paperwork. A lot of them are incorporated in delaware and other places. So his business empire, if it is an empire, his Business Network would still need a good team of forensic accountants to go through, but youve got to start with the tax returns. Thats where you have to start, which is why every candidate has handed out their tax returns, every president ial candidate since nixon, and its a violation of this norm. I think its so highly symbolic of trump literally giving a middle finger to the way we do business in politics in this country, and i think its going to be could be a fight over whether the democrats and Congress Actually get their hands on this. Well see what happens. And tim, during the campaign when the news media was asking for tax returns, tax returns, tax returns, there was never any real specificity in it, and i was sitting here thinking the personal tax returns for donald trump will be the least interesting tax documents you can get from him. You want to see where the money was coming from before it went to the personal return. Because all of those business entities that the ways and Means Committee has listed, they are all presumably obtaining external sources of income that they are then delivering to the trump personal tax return. And the trump personal tax return wont show you where the money originated. Thats correct. And yes, as david pointed out, he has hundreds of llcs. He parks debt in the llcs. He uses them to make payments. We saw that with the Stormy Daniels payment. I also think the Congress Really has to be vigilant about the years that they request. I think the middle of the 2000s, 2003 to around 2007, a lot of cash came into trumps business that wasnt coming into the business before, and it wasnt the inheritance from his father. I think there are very germane questions about when he was on a buying spree, when he bought a golf club. There is a lot of question about where the money came to finance these things. And thats going back about 14 years or so. I would Hope Congress gets more aggressive about the time frame theyre looking at here. And david k. Johnston, i think tax experts all know why chairman neal picked six years as the window. Its a very conservative way of forming the request. Its generally the amount of time that the irs recommends that we all hold on to our tax information, because were subject to possible audit and review of returns. But we arent subject to the review of returns by the irs that are 15 years old. So it seems to me that chairman neal is trying to stay within what is the kind of statutory zone thats considered reasonable in current tax law. Well, normally the irs keeps tax returns for six years. And when we had paper returns, they then had them pulped. Donald trump has probably been filing electronic returns since the years suggested by tim, and what theyll be asking down the road is, what Additional Information do you have . Youve pointed out something, lawrence, that i think will turn out to be very important. The law doesnt just say tax returns, it says tax information. That means any books or records they have. It could mean the tax returns of other people that interact with donald trump or other businesses that interact with donald trump, which will tell you whether the other party and trump reported a transaction the same way. David coren, chairman neal in his letter was careful to frame this in a way that vacuums out of the irs basically every document in the last six years that has anything to do with donald trump or these businesses. And i like to start with something very simple, and i think his letter does address this. Donald trump, as you pointed out in the video clip at the beginning, said he would release his taxes if he ran for president. Of course he didnt. His reason, his excuse, hes under audit. I dont think that really makes a difference, because the tax returns are filed, the irs has them. Why would that be a reason not to . But we dont know. Trump has made it a steadfast point to refuse to release even information indicating he was under audit. And he doesnt say what years are under audit. His returns from 10 years ago, eight years ago, seven years ago, five years ago. We dont know, so i think it would be very interesting just to see to what degree that excuse has any truth to it whatsoever, if any truth. So there is a lot here, a lot we can learn, and i think, as i said a moment ago, thats really going to not be good for donald trump, so it will lead to this big fight that could take us all the way up to the next election. And tim, the first round of this has a deadline of april 10. Thats what richie neal put in his letter saying he needs to have this information by april 10. Its easy for the irs if theyre going to comply. They could comply with this in a matter of a few days. And so april 10 is a perfectly reasonable deadline but april 10 might be the beginning of what becomes a legal fight over this. I think there absolutely is going to be a legal fight. Theyre not going to hit that deadline, and it reminds me that were in a very different era. When Nelson Rockefeller was getting approved to be Vice President , he sat for the congress for two days, and they went through all of his finances, including his tax returns. And he had vastly more complex holdings than donald trump has, and he was expected to sit in front of congress and answer questions about whether he was financially conflicted. And trump is just flouting that process. Its a Good Government issue. This isnt partisan politics or idealogies, whether or not the people running the country are or are not conflicted. There is no law on the side of donald trump on this one. The people we needed to talk to, thank you very much. Really appreciate you joining us tonight. When we come back, every democrat running for president now needs to be able to speak up about Donald Trumps tax returns and Donald Trumps need to get out of the way of the irs complying with richie neals demand for those tax returns. 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Along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. That is quite the family. Quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. A lot of colleges. You get any Financial Advice . Yeah, but im pretty sure its the same plan they sold me before. Well your situations totally changed now. Right, right. How bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here . That would be great. That would be great. That okay with you, jake . Get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from Td Ameritrade investment management. I swibecause they let metual, customize my insurance. And as a fitness junkie, i customize everything, like my bike, and my calves. Liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Donald trump is the only person elocated president since the 70s that did not release a tax return. This is a major issue for democratic candidate for president and that became an even more important issue today after richard neal issued his legal demand for the trump tax returns. Many of the democratic president ial candidates have been planning their president ial campaigns since the day after donald trump was elected. They have had time get ready for this moment. And most of them have completely failed when it comes to releasing their tax returns and showing that contrast with donald trump. Senator Elizabeth Warren released ten years of tax returns last year. Senator Amy Klobuchar has released 12 years of tax ririturns. Gillibrand has released 12 years and was the first to release this years tax returns. The tax returns due on april 15th. The governor of washington is the only man running for bhooz has released 12 years of tax returns. Im willing to cut every candidate some slack to not release this years tax return until april 15th when it is due 12 days from now. Thats how much slack you get from that one tax return. But president obama released his tax return publicly by the filing deadline of april 15th. It was very important to him to show tax filers he was going through exactly what they were going through and to prove it by releasing his return. Voters should accept no excuse on this. Buttigieg is one of the newest in the field. So maybe its understandable he hasnt released them yet but he should have anticipated this and he should have been ready to do it. Heres what he said monday night. So will you be releasing ten years of tax returns . It might take work to dig up the last ten years but its not pretty complicated. Pretty thin file. How about your 2018 tax return . Would you be ready to file that by april 15th . I got toed a mutt i havent got aaround to putting that in just yet and obviously i want to practice what i preach. So how much time do you want to give to your candidate to practice what he preaches . Bernie sanders said he would be releasing his tax returns soon. Did you think that meant more than five weeks . On sunday Bernie Sanders said something strange about releasing his tax returns. We have it all done and its just the question of dotting the is and crossing the ts. Yes, we will. Right. It makes sense if Bernie Sanders is talking only about his current tax return that has to be filed in the next 12 days. But its the officials position as expressed in the very first bill in the house of representatives this year that they should release ten years of tax returns. And you are not allowed to go back and dot the is and cross the ts in your tax return from 10 years ago or nine or ten or seven years ago, like senator Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders should have had ten years of tax returns ready to be released last year. The one tax return weve seen from senator sanders, 2014, is an incredibly simple, noncontroversial tax return. A typical tax return for a United States senator who is not rich. I would assume all of his tax returns are equally simple. This seems like a completely unnecessary political error being made by the Sanders Campaign. But that Campaign Like all of the campaigns have released exactly how much money they have raised in the first three months of this year the campaigns all did that because there is a law that rekwurs them to do it. Thats why we need a law requiring them to release their tax returns. The Sanders Campaign raised more money than any other campaign. 18. 2 million in the First Quarter of this year. That money came from 525,000 contributors. Accounting for that money and filing the fec report is much more complicated and time consuming when you have 525,000 different sources of income and added into a total income, which in this case is over 18 million. They approached that with the highest degree of competence and professionalism. And every person who contributed. And that same president ial campaign, those campaigns who do that are all capable of doing that. They should be able to make sure that their candidates tax returns are filed on time and publicly released as quickly as possible. The campaigns cant pay do that. But they can make sure the candidates are getting that done. Even though there is no law that forces them to do that. On sunday Bernie Sanders added something about President Trump after he said that he Bernie Sanders said he would be releasing his tax returns after dotting the is and crossing the ts. By the way, let me challenge President Trump to do the same. Trust me we do not have investments investments russia or saudi arabia or can anyplace else. But no democratic candidate for president can challenge President Trump about releasing his tax returns until that candidate has released ten years of his own tax returns. The time for excuses for this is over. In fact t was over a long time ago. Thats tonights last word. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts right now