Rachel Maddow Shares What She Says Are President Trump's Tax Returns

MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" released what it says is a small portion of President Trump's 2005 tax returns on air, after a huge social media wind-up announcing the publication. As the White House confirmed before the broadcast, the documents show that the president made $150 million in that year and paid $38 million.

The White House did not confirm or deny the veracity of the returns themselves, however. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Maddow noted at the top of the show that the most important part of her announcement Tuesday night might not be the returns itself, but that a completely anonymous source released them.

David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter, biographer of the president and editor of DC Report, who first obtained the documents, appeared on the show to share what he found. He said the pages turned up in his mailbox and that he doesn't know what they show.

Johnston argued that the returns show that some of Trump's proposals for taxes would decrease his own payments to the government. He also said that the rich are not burdened by taxes, as is often claimed.

Missing from the tax returns published is a lot of interesting information. This includes where Trump gets income from and who he pays interest to — which would tell us who the president owes money to.

Trump's tax returns, much requested but never released, were the subject of many pre- and post-election arguments. Since every presidential candidate in the modern era except for Trump had released their tax returns publicly, many found his withholding suspicious.

Here's a photo of the Trump tax returns that @maddow just displayed.

There's a stamp that reads "Client Copy." pic.twitter.com/GxmHGQDmd0
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 15, 2017

Trump has repeatedly said he would release his tax returns, but said he was putting it off until an IRS audit was finished. However, there's no legal reason why an audit would prevent the returns' release.

The New York Times published a single page of Trump's taxes in October from 1995. However, tax information from any period of Trump's life could potentially be of widespread interest.

Some speculated after that release that Trump may not have paid taxes for 18 years. If these new documents are legitimate, it's clear that the speculation was incorrect.

In response to the rumors enflamed by Maddow on Twitter, the White House preemptively announced his tax information. It said the president paid no more tax than he was legally required to and specified that his payment was $38 million on $150 million of income. However, it was not clear what year the White House statement referred to.

It also called the show "desperate for ratings" for pushing a story about decade-old tax returns. It also said that the returns were "illegally published."

Maddow denied that her publication of the documents was illegal, saying that the First Amendment protected the relevant form of journalism. However, whoever leaked the documents may have committed a crime.

Johnston even suggested that Trump may have leaked the documents himself, though he did not have any evidence for this theory.

Maddow's first tweet on the matter urged curious hordes to tune in it at 9 p.m. Eastern:

Many pointed out at the time that the wording is ambiguous. "Trump" could refer to any of Trump's family members, including his children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, or Ivanka Trump.

These tweets were followed by this:

Maddow's colleague, Lawrence O'Donnell, touted her announcement adding "This is the night we've been waiting for."

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Photo credit: Paul Shultz