Judy: Newly released information
from a congressional
investigation shows that the irs
did not pursue timely mandatory
audits of former president trump
during his term in office as is
required.
William Bryan -- William
brangham has more on what we're
learning about why irs oversight
didn't take place.
William: Judy, the new report
comes after Democrats on the
house ways and means committee
engaged in a years-long legal
battle with the irs to obtain
the former president's tax
records.
The supreme court cleared the
way for access last month.
The report doesn't yet include
the raw returns, but data shows
trump paid as little as 750
dollars in federal income tax
while running for president in
2016.
But once his income started
increasing while in the white
house, he paid the federal
government nearly a million
dollars in taxes.
He paid no federal income tax
his final year in office.
The committee will publicly
release six years of trump's tax
returns in the next few days.
Joining me now to discuss is
Russ Buettner from the New York
Times.
He has spent the last several
years investigating trump's
financial dealings.
Great to have you back on the
newshour.
What is this summary report,
what does it tell us about the
president's finances?
>> There are two things.
It is a continuation of what we
have reported in the past, that
every year he logs generally
very high business losses
overall, for him to pay income
tax is extraordinarily rare.
And also just that these audits,
this audit function early just
has not worked, as you alluded
to their, and in exploring his
vulnerabilities financially, the
places where he can be subject
to manipulation and also ways
that money could be sent to him
through business transactions,
apparent business transactions
that didn't really have any
business purpose.
That's a couple of things that
were sort of alarming that has
not been looked at and beyond a
doubt, the most financially
complicated and at times
vulnerable president we have had
in a long time.
William: The white house took
the irs to task for not doing
this.
It is the irs responsibility to
do that, correct?
They are supposed to do that
with every sitting president?
Russ: My understanding is there
is a regulation that is not a
law, but it does show the need
to make sure this is done.
William: As you mention, a few
years ago you and your
colleagues did a deep, in-depth
investigation into president
trump and his finances during
the 1980's and 1990's, during
the period when he was promoting
himself as the great real estate
developer.
Your review showed that he lost
nearly a billion dollars.
This report that came out this
week, does that dovetail with
what you're reporting back then
found?
Russ: Yes, if you look at his
businesses and his financial
records up close, what you see
are the businesses that he
controls are generally the
lowest performing assets that he
has in his portfolio.
Things that have done the best
for him are the assets he
received through his father,
which over his life totaled
about a half million dollars in
today's money.
And also the money he received
from being on "The apprentice"
which was free of any business
expertise.
That totals almost another half
billion dollars over the course
of his life.
That has basically underwritten
a basket of businesses that
overall do not consistently
perform very well and offered
him huge tax write offs almost
every year.
William: The most recent report
showed that Donald Trump came
into office suffering the same
kinds of losses that you were
documenting back tearing the
80's and 90's, but while
president his income did spike
up for a year or two.
Do we have any understanding of
where those earnings and profits
came from?
Russ: There was a blip in 2018
where he reported $22 million in
positive, taxable income for
him.
It came from the sale of some
assets.
Part of that we are looking
into, it appears it may have
been part of his enterra tents
-- inheritance that was sold off
that year.
So we are examining that.
After that blip, it was not like
the businesses starting
performing well, it was a
one-time big pay day from the
sale of a couple of assets and
then returned back to his
historic pattern of not
reporting taxable income.
William: We know he did not do
what most modern presidents do,
which is to give their tax
returns over for public
scrutiny.
We may get those from congress,
but I wonder if you could step
back, what is the public
interest in knowing what a
president or presidential
candidate's tax returns -- what
does that really tell us that is
in the public interest?
Russ: There are a few things.
Did try to mention this earlier,
if a president is in need of
money, that makes him vulnerable
to manipulation.
We see times in president
trump's career when he has not
been able to make payroll.
That came up recently in the
criminal trial of his company in
Manhattan.
He would have to come up with
several million dollars to
support that.
We saw that in his tax returns
over the years.
That is the sort of thing, that
vulnerability is something for
law enforcement authorities to
be aware of.
Also, there are a lot of ways we
have these cash-based,
hospitality businesses that
money could be sent to him in a
way that appeared to be a
business transaction but had no
legitimacy.
For example, if he wanted to
rent 100 hotel rooms and one of
his properties for a weekend,
you could easily get him
$100,000 or $200,000 and not use
those rooms.
That is basically just a large
pot of money you have given the
president of the United States
that would not show up at all on
financial disclosure forms and
would not show up on a tax
return unless someone looked at
an audit to see that those
appear to be legitimate.
Those are things how public
ramifications that currently we
have no other system to capture
or highlight.
William: Thank you so much again
for being here.
Russ: Thank you for having me.