Get more into what youre into. Get ready to watch with xfinity x1 or the Xfinity Stream app. Xfinity watchathon week. Free starting april 8th. Boop we begin tonight keeping them honest with President Trump retaining Legal Council and willing to fight to the Supreme Court so no one can see his turns which is not what tax he seemed to say he would do. Will you release any of your tax returns . For the public to scrutinize . Were working on that right now. I have very big returns, as you you know. I have big returns, well be working on that over the next period of time, absolutely. That was in january 2016. We know what the president meant how about never . Is never good enough for you. Except candidate trump said he was being audited and that somehow made it impossible to release his returns, which is not true. And weve seen no evidence of an audit. Theres no law saying a candidate has to release his or her tax returns yet every president ial nominee since gerald ford released their forms in one way or another. Some like ford only gave a summary. Some put out more years than others. Its a custom they followed to reassure voters that the president of the United States would be acting in the Public Interest not the private gain. Now the democrats are in control of the house and decided they should see the president s returns. So wednesday the chairman of the house ways and kmeens committee sent the irs a request for the president s last six tax returns. Today we learned the president hired legal counsel. His attorney in a letter to the Treasury Department calling it a transparent effort by one Political Party to harass an official from the other party because they dislike his politics and speech. He goes on to say even when ways and means can identify some legitimate Committee Purpose it cannot request tax returns and return information to punish taxpayers for their speech or politics. Thats a part of a densely packed, multiprong legal argument. Which well talk about more in a minute. The president also weighed in about his taxes. Nothing whatsoever. Ive nothing to say about it. I got elected. They elected me. Now they keep going. Im under audit. When youre under audit, you dont do it. Im under audit. Other people are under audit and nobody would do it if youre going through an audit. I always go through audits, they audit me all the time. Thats the president making a less coherent version of the explanation he first began using more than three years ago, namely id love to do it but as far as my return id love to file it, except many years ive been audited many years. 12 years or Something Like that. Every year they audit me, audit me, audit me. I have friends that are very wealthy people, they never get audited. I get audited every year. I will give my return but im being audited for two or three years so i cant do it until the audit is finished. Obviously. I think people understand that. He says nobody gets audited not even his wealthy friends but he also says he always gets audited every year for 12 years then he says its two or three or something. He suggests by being audited that precludes your taxes being shown, it doesnt. Richard nixon disclosed his taxes during an audit. President trump has never produced any official evidence he is being audited not to his attorney michael cohen. Who was asked about it during his congressional testimony. Mr. Cohen, do you know whether President Trumps tax returns were really under audit by the irs in 2016 . I dont know the answer. I asked for a copy of the audit so that i could use it in terms of my statements to the press. And i was never able to obtain one. So possibility one, there is or was an audit or audits, but the president didnt want to show one of his closest advisers the evidence of it, or possibly two theres no audit and the president doesnt want to show anyone his taxes which is understandable for a host of possible reasons, they could show hes worth less than he claims or he doesnt give much to charities as his actions with the now defunct foundation suggests or he could be engaged in shady tax schemes. A massive report last october. We dont know. Thats exactly the reason candidates release their returns its called transparency. More on the president s determination to fight this jim acosta joins us from the white house. Talk about how the president is reacting to all of this. Reporter you heard the president say again that was a good audit of his recent record on this answer to this question. He said again hes under audit and he has no plans of doing this, we talked to people at the white house, i talked to one Administration Official earlier today who said theyre prepared to take this to the Supreme Court. In the words of the official well see you in the year 2023. That was a reference to just how long this court fight could take. This official said this is a hill and the trump people are willing to die on it. Thats how strongly they feel about this. They feel members of congress have zero right in the words of this official to see the president s tax returns and they dont want to set a precedence for future occupants of the oval office. By fighting it this hard theyre of course perhaps setting another precedent, you may never be able to dislodge a future candidate from his or her tax returns if they dont want to give them up. Have his attorneys been preparing for a legal fight . Its not like it was hard to predict. Reporter right we were asking at the News Conference after the midterms. Officials inside the white house have been seeing it coming from for a long time now and have been preparing for this for months according to the sources were talking to. They hired a legal team that specializes in this. Theyre not looking at this as a tax issue, theyre looking at it as a constitutional issue. They feel the president has a constitutional right to keep his tax returns secret from the American People and theyre prepared to fight it to the Supreme Court. If President Trump is not reelected in 2020, there is the possibility if you listen to what this Administration Official said to me earlier today that this court battle could go on longer than President Trump would be in office. Thank you, jim. Last night Maggie Haberman broke the news the president wanted priority action on his pick for the irs council. He wanted to give it higher priority than even the confirmation of the attorney general nominee william war. Maggie is back with us tonight. And with us is susan craig, one of three names on the by line of the trump tax story we mentioned earlier. Former federal prosecutor and cnn legal analyst shan wu is with us as well. Maggie, how did President Trump going from making the release of his taxes to a Campaign Promise to a vow to fight it to the Supreme Court . I think the same way he handles everything, anderson that he changes his mind about when it doesnt sound as good for him from one moment to the next. I think its no surprise that hes not releasing his tax returns despite having said he wants to, he has claimed theyre under audit, we have no independent verification of that. We may not know that for quite some time. And what we have seen repeatedly is his legal team invoke his idea he doesnt lose his rights as a private citizen because hes president. In the case of the obstruction of justice into the president suggested he was voicing his opinions on twitter when he did things that could touch on the investigation. Theyre making the same point now, as a citizen hes being penalized their argument is for speaking his mind politically and this is a political attack. I think this fight could go on for a long time and indeed could go to the Supreme Court. You were part of this incredible reporting by the new york times, broad investigation of the president s tax history. In terms of what you learned, does it give you any indication why he would be reluctant to release his returns. I think bottom line, theres something he wants to hide. Theres something he doesnt want us to see. Or he wouldch theres a lot of things you can think about. You can think about if we were to get his schedules you would find thing like where are the origins of his income, where are they coming from. Which businesses and also which countries theyre coming from. Theres a lot that could be in there that he doesnt want us to see and hes a public official with a business and the hidden hand is in there somewhere. You made the point that tax returns are often kind of the person making their best case to the u. S. Government. Its not as if theres a line that says this is where were committing fraud. Theres not. I think theres a starting point but i think theres a lot packed into tax returns that you can see. We did an investigation in 2018 and we learned a lot from we had in that case a lot of fred trumps, his fathers tax returns. And you could see where his money was coming from in that case, he was a pretty steady eddie guy in queens and doing a lot of building and had it was fairly predictable. But that was just that was also, you know, i think an important data point and with donald trump we dont know where that income is coming from. Is it foreign . Hes had a lot of iterations in his career, failed casino guy, tv personalty, now hes involved in golf courses and other resort stuff. Also is there foreign income in there . I think a lot well see from the schedules and the back documents that we havent so far seen, theres been pages here and there that have come out, its going to be where exactly is the revenue coming from . The ways and Means Committee wants the tax returns, the president s attorneys say, no, theyre going to fight it. According to the coat they should provide the returns. No question about it . Yeah, no question about it. The statute says they shall turn them over. There is no aspect that the ways and Means Committee needs to bring forward to show any proof that they have a right to them. I think theres good case that the committee does have a right to them, given the reporting done that you just discussed regarding the new york times. But also the concerns regarding russia. So i think theres plenty of good reason for them to get it. But there is nothing on the face of the statute that requires any showing. In the letter from the president s attorneys theyre arguing the ways and means has no legitimate purpose for requesting the returns and said this is an attack on the president to punish him for his speech and politics. Its a weak letter, anderson. Its like a grab bag of legal arguments in there. They start with saying theres no legitimate purpose and say even if its legitimate, its pretextual. If you dont buy that we also think theyre punishing him for his unpopular views. And then at the end they throw in the idea this is an attack on the constitution because its a violation of the separation of powers. When you have lawyers making grab bag worth of arguments like that, they have a sense they dont have a single penetrating strong legal argument so theyre throwing everything out there in a shotgun style, it looks weak. In terms of how long this could go on for, if it does go to the Supreme Court, is one talking years . Theoretically possible, although i would look at it more optimistically in terms of speed, because these are purely legal arguments and can probably be disposed of in like legal posture, summary judgment, et cetera. You wouldnt have to go to trial on this, and realistically, one of the problems is how would you show that . Youd have to try to get evidence that maybe thered be talk or emails that this is really fake, this is not a real reason. Its not a factual case, its a legal issue. And i think itll be quickly disposed of legally. Maggie, again the idea hes under audit, theres no evidence and even if you are under audit, you can have people look at your tax returns . Of course. Look, we have no way of knowing hes under audit. Maybe he is, maybe he isnt. Theres no way to independently verify that. But yes, if you want to show your tax returns, you show them. This is another norm you have seen this president shatter. When you think of senator mitt romney in 2012 as a president ial candidate he had a complicated business filing and it took a long time to get around to being willing to show his taxes. Even he did it, and it hurt him. There was a political cost to it, but its what president s and president ial candidates have done for decades. Donald trump decided he was not going to do that and he has resisted it consistently. I agree with sue its not a surprise. I do agree if he wanted us to see what was in there, hed show us. It might be nothing nefarious, it might be embarrassing. But theres a reason theyve shown them, so voting people that votes people into office know what conflicts are. Embarrassing like hes not as rich as can we just say why doesnt he release the note from the irs, the letter from the irs saying hes under audit. These things are simple. The irs is also thats one way through this. But theres also now subpoenas out to deutsch bank and his Accounting Firm. Explain the importance of the Accounting Firm. Its significant because theres an Accounting Firm that he deals with that has a subpoena, he deals with the office out in long island. And theyve been doing his taxes from the beginning . From the beginning. And they were dealing with a firm they bought, they were doing fred trumps returns. This is a firm thats been dealing with donald trump since he was born. The amount of information they have about him is huge. Its really important in all of this to understand that tax returns are one piece of this puzzle. Youve also got you know, theres potential to get bank records and general ledgers and other things to piece together whats going on with trump and his finances. If you cant get it through the irs, theres other avenues, including deutsch, his main bank. Significant bank on wall street hes doing business with. And the Accounting Firm. And potentially other areas. But its like air around a balloon. And i think the irs has the Accounting Firm said what theyre going to do . Its been represented that theyll respond to the subpoena. I think theres probably going to be potential lawyers involved in potential litigation on that. But theyve or theyve been told that theyre going to be getting a subpoena. Thats the one im watching to see exactly how that goes. Phil, just in terms of from the irss standpoint, they have the counsel now that the president picked. What sort of influence does that person have in deciding whether or not the irs turns this over and how significant do you think these returns are . Is this just something democrats are grabbing at that you dont think will show something of significance . Or is this really critical . Sure. So first question, ive heard a lot of folks talking about Michael Desmond and chuck ring. I happen to know them and respect them both as attorneys. I think they were good picks, both of them. I dont see them as simply trumps men. I think they will be thinking through this question as carefully as they can. But is this significant . Yes. I think it is. I think its important to the ways and Means Committees exercising proper oversight over the executive branch, both the irs in terms of how it operates and the president. So i think its a significant issue. Not just in terms of the information that is there, but in terms of the operation of our government. When a statute says shall, its important that the executive branch operate in the way to enforce that law. If it does not, i think we have a real problem. Shan, im wondering what you make of the reporting by the times, yesterday maggie and others, that as far as the president s push to have the chief council confirmed prioritized. Does that concern you . It concerns me. Its certainly unseemly, wanting to prioritize that nomination over the attorney general seems like theres a reason and tells us what the president is more concerned over. I also think it opens him up potentially to more of the suspicions about his obstructionist tactics. Now hes put that forward thats his priority. I think he and his legal team have to be careful about what hes doing about that. If he makes public tweets about the right thing to do all paths lead back to the Mueller Report but we dont know the details that did not exonerate him in the obstruction action. I think his legal team would do well to say be quiet about this, we dont know what theyre looking at. You dont want to do the same things again. He actually did say, i have nothing to say about this, and then talked about an audit. It was interesting. He wasnt adding new things to the mix. He was not. I think this is not a topic hes eager to spend much time talking about, although who knows how long that will last. He tends to be quiet and then talk about these things later. But i think his lawyers have said hed do more harm than good in this case. Theyve said that before to him too. Hes not always abided by it. I think this is something thats caused him a lot of anxiety for a long time. Part of why we didnt think he would ultimately run for president is that he was not going to want to do financial disclosures. He did do those. And that he wasnt going to want to release his taxes and he didnt do that. Great to have you all, thank you. Coming up joe biden jokes about touching. Well look at the latest of what he said. Well show you that. Later the president s border visit. His claim the country is full. Reaction from the mayor of the town he visited today ahead on 360. Aritin. 0 outdoor and indoor allergens. Like those from pollen, pets and dust. Because new memories start with dusting off old ones. Feel the clarity and live claritin clear. I was tired of having my calls dropped, and then id heard