pages of previously-confidential financial records that really describe the inner workings of fred trump s real estate empire. it really is amazing reporting that you and your team did. so was this legal? so, you know, there are parts of it, right, that are perfectly legal, like putting donald trump on his payroll, right, and paying him a salary. but what we also described in this story is that the amount of money that fred trump passed on to donald trump through gifts and inheritance was really significantly inflated by a series of tax schemes that some of the leading gift and the estate tax experts that we spoke to and presented our findings too said this this really crosses the line into illegality. you know, i think jeff toobin is
fines for tax fraud, and the new york state tax department is now reviewing your reporting, the new york times reporting, and in a statement they said they re vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation. so what other potential consequences for the president? well, i mean i think part of it is we it is very difficult to know how first of all just to step back for a moment, you know, we document in our year and a half of reporting 295 different revenue streams that fred trump created to benefit donald trump, and donald trump is really quite embedded in a web of trusts and partnerships, family companies, and it is hard to know until we see we re able to obtain donald trump s
a w-2 at the end of the year, there s really not much you can do to cheat on your taxes. it just isn t possible. however, if you own businesses as the trump family did, you have essentially carte blanche to cheat the irs and the irs is never going to come back to you. the one risk that the trumps run as a result of this story is that if congress, particularly the house of representatives goes to the democrats and the democrats have oversight possibilities, they could subpoena the irs to get all of these tax returns and expose what really went on here, although the new york times seems to have done a magnificent job from a journalistic perspective. but subpoena power is something not even the new york times has. amazing reporting. let s turn to the kavanaugh confirmation process, david swerdlick. i m going to play some climbs from the first confirmation hearing that judge kavanaugh had and then the one that followed professor ford s testimony.
personal tax returns, to see how that how that money ultimately got reported in donald trump s personal tax returns. that s something that this story doesn t do because we didn t get donald trump s personal tax returns. what we did get is we got over 200 tax returns that are pertaining to fred trump s business empire and to various trump family partnerships and trusts, and those tax returns for the first time actually give us a window into precisely how much money flowed from fred trump to donald and his siblings. the president, as you know, he always portrays himself as a self-made man. how does your reporting contradict that? how involved was the president s father, fred trump, in crafting that image? he was they were a kind of
tax schemes and, quote, outright fraud that greatly increased the wealth he received from his father s real estate empire. the report totally contradicts mr. trump s claims of being a self-made billionaire. i ll get reaction from the senate intelligence committee member, senator abc ngus king a our correspondents an analysts are standing by. first, let s go to kara. tell us about the bombshell report in the new york times. reporter: the new york times is reporting that donald trump was involved in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including allegations of outright fraud, that the new york times said they reviewed confidential tax returns, financial statements and spoke with several people that worked with donald trump s father as part of their investigation. they said that they found that trump and his siblings helped to reduce their taxes by setting up sham corporations to disguise millions of dollars in gifts they received. they say they also found that