on their shoulders, by the fact that they're losing elections. i don't think the people, the base, the 31%, has left him just yet. >> simone, good to see you as always, my friend. -- by the way, someone is going to sit down tomorrow with the january six committee chair, benny thompson, for an exclusive interview to discuss the committee's final report we will see tomorrow. the criminal referrals of donald trump. be sure to tune in tomorrow night to watch the interview start part of our special coverage here on msnbc, beginning at eight p. m. eastern. that is it for all in on this tuesday night. i find alex wagner it joining right now. alex wagner's night, starts right now. good evening. >> hi, ali. right now. good evening. >> hi, ali. i want a six-part series with symone sanders. >> right. she knows a lot about a lot of useful things. >> and the two of them together, first of all, bennie thompson has a lot of information and

occasionally disposes it. if anyone is going to get it out of him is symone sanders. that's must-see tv. >> thank you. looking forward to it. >> thank you, ali. thank you for joining us this hour. i am not a crook, if any line is associated with president richard nixon, it's that one. but that line wasn't about the world's biggest scandal. it wasn't even about watergate. nixon didn't say that line at the white house. he said it add disney world. richard nixon was famously a huge disney fan. the nixon presidential library says he still holds the record for the most visits to disneyland of any president. which is not a record you might not associate with richard nixon. in fact, nixon was so into disney that he and his family were the first guests ever to ride the disney monorail. his daughters got to cut the ribbon and everything but this

trip, i am not a crook trip, the year that agnew resigned. and the night before the massacre when nixon had two quit on the single night. the associated press held a conference at the brand-new contemporary resort at disney world in orlando. nixon flew down to do an organized q&a in a disney world conference room that was filled with 400 members of the associated press as managing editors. this was clearly going to be a tough crowd, nixon knew this. and he did it so he could show he was clean torsion declare his innocence. but it was not watergate or the agnew scandal that prompted nixon to famously declare i am not a crook. it was his taxes. >> i want to say this to the television audience. i've made my mistakes but in all

of my years of public life, i have never profited, never profited from public service. i earned every cent. in all of my careers in public life, i have never obstructed justice, and i think, too, that i can say, that in my years of public life, that i welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. well, i'm not a crook. i've earned everything i've got. >> the crux of nixon's tax scandal was that when he left the white house after being eisenhower's vice president, he took all of his vice presidential records with him. nixon then donated those records back to the national archives, year after year, so he could write the donations off of his income taxes for a grand total somewhere in the ballpark of $500,000. as much as we all associate nixon with watergate, his tax scandal was a huge deal at the time. it was so big that it basically forced 96 ton release some of

his tax returns to you. congress didn't trust him and they ended up ordering the irs to show them even more. and that's how we got nixon's tax scandal. to avoid scandals like that, every president since nixon has voluntarily released his tax returns, every president, except donald trump. >> will you release any of your tax returns for the public to scrutinize? >> well, we're working ones that you know, i have everything all approved and very beautiful. we'll be working on that over the next period of time, chuck, absolutely. >> what's a period of time? >> this is not like a normal tax return. >> this is not a normal tax return. sure wasn't, january 2016. trump said he'd make his big and beautiful tax returns public. but of course, he never did. the very next year, trump started claiming his taxes were under audit by the irs and somehow that meant they couldn't be released.

that was his line and he stuck to it. we've gotten major peeks over the last seven years exactly what trump is willing to disclose. thanks to the pulitzer prize winning organization about taxes and "the new york times." and we'll be speaking to susanne craig in just a second. but we the public were never gotten transparency into former president donald trump's background. tonight that changed. way back in 2019, the house ways and means committee subpoenaed six years of trump's tax returns from the irs. they actually used the same legal mechanism that congress used back in the 1970s to get the rest of president nixon's taxes. but rather than complying as nixon did, trump started a more than three-year long legal battle which went all the way up to the supreme court. just last month, the court ruled on the side of the committee. what's really amazing here is how down to the wire this all

was. trump tried to pull the typical delay, delay, delay move. and it almost worked because in a week and a half, republicans take control of the house, and they would have almost certainly put the kibosh on the entire thing. but tonight, just over an hour ago, the house ways and means committee voted along party lines to release trump's returns from 2015 to 20. the actual process of releasing them may take a few days. the committee's going to put out a report with its analysis but also trump's tax returns from 2015 to 2020 which trump said are big and they are beautiful, or so he says. they just have to redact all of the social security numbers and personally identifiable information first. because that is how much detail, we the public, are going to be getting here. so nitty-gritty that the committee has to redact the social security numbers. now, i know we're in the throes of ginormus trump matters.

today is the meat in the sandwich of the january 6th committee and tomorrow when they release their full report. but i mean, after seven years, the country is finally going to see trump's taxes. moments ago, democrats from the committee addressed the media to explain their vote. from that, we've gotten a huge revelation about trump's taxes. the reason the committee wanted trump's taxes in the first place is to make sure the irs was handling them properly. after the nixon tax scandal, congress passed a law requiring all presidents have their taxes undergo audit by the irs. we now know that when president trump became president trump that somehow -- that audit didn't happen. >> and the case of the trump years, there was only one time when the mandatory audit was triggered and that was when chairman neal wrote a letter. but actually, none of the examinations during those years were ever completed.

and then in 2018, 2019, and 2020, the start of this examination wasn't even begun until after trump left office. >> joining us now is congressman dan kildee, democrat who sits on the ways and means committee. congressman, thanks for making time for us tonight. i know you were behind closed doors up until a few minutes ago. what can you tell me about the timing of this audit that all presidents are supposed to undergo? >> well, part of the problem is the fact it's a policy of the irs and not codified in law, it's up to the irs to determine when and how they will conduct this sort of an audit. what we know now, of course, after examining all of these documents, is that the audits were never completed when it came to president trump. and as representative chu just

noted on air, it wasn't until chairman neal sent a question for the documents to get access to documents, it wasn't until then, and it was that very day, that an audit was actually initiated. but no audits from 2015 all the way through today, no audits of president trump's taxes have ever been completed. and very few were even tagged for audit, until after -- in fact, none were tagged for audit, until after we began this process of trying to ascertain these documents. clearly, the irs failed to conduct the audit of the president of the united states. clearly, this president's taxes are a matter of public interest, in the sense he was the president of the united states, with unique authority that no other person has. the reason that we asked for these returns was to determine whether we need to strengthen this aspect of american law, of the american tax code.

and clearly, after examining the audits that we looked -- i'm sorry, the tax returns that we looked at, and the report on the joint committee on taxation and ways and means staff, it was clear that we needed to follow through with legislation. no documents make the argument stronger for the need for us to codify this in law and strengthen the mandatory audit program than an examination of those tax returns. and that's why it was so important, we felt, it needed to be forwarded to the house of representatives which makes it public in order to take that step. >> i've got to ask, having no idea what the answer to this is, but trump's tax returns were such an object of debate. they were so much in the news media, how did the irs forget that they had a mandatory audit of the presidential tax returns? i mean, is there politics involved here? do you think there's something bigger at play than just omission? >> it's hard to say. we know that this was a failure at the irs.

there's no question about that. how that came to pass is another question that, i think, obviously, people will speculate about. i mean, it is the case that the president of the united states sits atop the federal government, one might speculate that there could have been influence. maybe not. one of the reasons that we felt like it was important to codify this is that we don't want to leave it up to somebody sitting in the irs, an employee of the federal government, deciding that they should initiate an audit of the president of the united states. we think that ought to be done by operation of law. and not left up to a person who indirectly or directly reports to that very same president of the united states. that, obviously, doesn't make sense. and that's one of the reasons that we're anxious to move forward on legislation. it's a purpose that we asked for this in the first place, is to try to see whether this is working and how bad, if it is, to correct it. and of course, we've come to the

conclusion this is worse than any of us expected. i didn't expect there were no audits initiated. i was shocked to see that. >> i think the other thing that confuses people is that president trump said for a while he could not release his tax returns because they were under audit. how does that factor into this? i assume that's a different audit, him as personal citizen than president, how do you sort that out because he was asserting that before that started happening? >> yeah. it's an interesting question. the president as an individual may have been under audit in the way lots of americans come under audit and he had been previously under audit but he was not under mandatory audit which we believe needs to be done on a particular time line. there's no excuse, for example, that any audit on president trump, whether it began in 2015 or afterwards, none of them had been completed, not one.

so, we don't want to leave ourselves in a situation where it's up to the irs to decide to audit him. and up to the irs to fight with the president of the united states over the conditions of that auditing process. the mandatory audit of the president and the vice president of the united states ought to be codified in the law and strengthened so it has to happen, and it has to happen on our time line, not in a situation where the president can delay and delay and delay and obfuscate which is a tactic he's used his entire career. we can't happen with the president of the united states, with incredible authority to effect policy and his own fortunes. >> can i ask, because the clock is very much ticking down to the end of the year, the ways and means committee received the tax returns last month. today's the day there's actually been a debate whether to release

them. what explains the gap between when the committee first got them and what happened today? and when do you think the public will see the returns? will it be this week? >> it will be, as soon as we can get the redactions done. the republican and democratic staff are working together to make sure we identify that personally identifiable information that should be released. the reason we're just doing that now, because of the supreme court decision of november 22nd, we were just able to get access to the documents. it takes some time to go through these voluminous returns and to prepare reports, so we can inform ourselves on the decision. but the reason it's taken so long, just to be clear, isn't because we wanted to wait until the end of this calendar year, the end of this term, it's because this case was tied up in the courts. we won four different cases in three separate courts, ending with the supreme court, under

justice roberts, determining that we were correct in our authority to seek these documents. i don't believe in wasting a signal day in congress even if it's the last day of a congress, we still have an obligation to do our job. now, the question is whether or not we can get legislation enacted in the president's desk so it becomes law. and another question is whether republicans can join us in this. they have rejected to the release of the documents i think it's important for the important context to support the need for the legislation. but if they're willing to say, look, they still believe we ought to codify the mandatory audit program, let's do that in a bipartisan way. >> it's a test of how allegiant they'll be to the former president. you know, big beautiful tax returns, they're a source of controversy. democratic congressman dan kildee, member of the ways and means, congressman kildee, thank you for being here.

appreciate your time. >> thanks, alex. let's turn to susanne craig, she's an investigative in "the new york times." and one of the lead investigators who won a pulitzer prize in 2015. she's literally the right person to talk about about this today. sue, how are you greeting this news as a reporter? is there stuff in here that you still don't know the answer to? is there information that you're particularly interested in finding out that you have not thus far been able to find out in your extensive reporting? >> well, i'm smiling, because one second before i came on air, the report came out, so i'm trying not to look over here and read it. but there's -- there's probably going to be a lot in there. but i don't think we're going to find anything too crazy that we haven't known before. "the new york times" obtained three or four out of the five years that are being released today. and we have more information than they do in terms of

individual businesses. you know, we found donald trump is not a great businessman. most of his businesses lose a fair bit of money. i don't think we're going to see a break from that, we're going to find out in the last two years he had a change of fortune. in fact, you're probably going to see covid had a pretty big effect on his businesses. but this audit, this audit issue is interesting. and i want to break out kind of the presidential audit. and then the audit that we found out if it goes against him could cost him in excess of $100 million. we learned today that audit which started in 2009 is still open, it sounds like. and then there's the regular presidential audits that are supposed to be done that weren't done. i have to say, it's kind of one of the least shocking things i've heard today. it is sort of surprising they weren't even bothering to do it. >> can i interrupt you, sue?

>> yeah. >> congressman kildee seemed shocked and you don't seem shocked at all. >> when i find there's gambling in a casino, i'm not surprised with everything we learned about the trump organization, oh, the irs didn't audit his taxes as they're supposed to, that's least surprising thing i've heard come out of the trump administration. it's upsetting as a taxpayer and citizen, would you have hoped they would have done it. i don't know why they didn't, maybe they don't have enough staff to dedicate to it. you would think they have a team of people who could do it. maybe there was an order from on high not to do it. i don't know. it's shocking but not shocking, i guess is what i'm saying. but it is interesting, that the other audit that we learned about when we did the story in 2020, when we got a huge amount of tax information, we also learned information about that big audit that that apparently is still open.

that's apparently something to catch. it goes against him. with penalties and interest now it could go well above $100 million. that's not a small amount of money including trump trump. >> when we talk about that $100 million looming, and last month, oversaw the trump organization, allen weisselberg is going to jail. letitia james, the new york a.g. has a civil fraud suit against him that could effectively shut down the business from operating in the state of new york. >> let's stop on that one, because that one, it may settle, and we don't know what's going to happen but that one can go upwards of $250 million. and these fines aren't tax deductible. he can't go in and then use it to reduce his taxable income. i mean, that's a big number. and then you think, you know, you're seeing signs of stress in his business. the biggest one we can point to

is the sale of the old post office hotel. he recently built it. it was, you know, a crown jewel in his collection of hotels and golf properties that he has, and they sold it. and separately, i have to say, everybody is kind of laughing at this thing he's doing -- >> nfts. >> nfts. that looked crazy, right? i don't think anybody is saying it doesn't look crazy. this is a guy who cared about his brand or cares about his brand. this is not good for the brand. this is sort of where he's at. you have to question why is he doing it? i think there's probably a bag of money at the end of it, and that's why he did it, and it's not good for his brand. and a lot of things he's doing is not good for his brand but he continues down this slippery slope. there was a point in time where he had a brand that was, you know, thought of in many circles to sort of stand for high

quality. >> yeah. but i think a lot of people looked at the sale of the nfts trump dressed up as a superhero, like a firefighter and astro not and chuckled about it, but it's indicative of a man who seems desperate. the trump vodka and trump steaks look like high class. >> it makes the trump ties look the best thing ever. the first time i saw it was, wow, he must need money. >> and his fundraising, even as a political figure is greatly diminished from his announcement from his 2024 campaign. he raised exponentially less money than he did when he announced his presidential bid. >> right. >> an arena he cares perhaps the most about which is financial prowess. >> right. and the other thing that's important, the tax return

information that we saw was up to 2018. you're seeing going into that, he had the "the apprentice," and "the apprentice" brought in a lot of money not just directly from "the apprentice," but he brought in other deals around the branding deals. he was able to do hotel deals overseas and other things. and we saw going into the presidency, leading up to actually when he ran -- that was falling off. and it's not doing well now. you haven't seen since he left office that countries around the world, there's hotels calling him saying put your name on my hotel. so that income has dried up, there's just not a lot of good signs that we were seeing coming into this. i just don't think, you know, additional information we're going to get, there's probably going to be really interesting stuff in it. but i don't think it's going to cut across the narrative we're

seeing. >> susanne craig, "the new york times." the oracle for trump taxes. thank you. >> thank you for having me. we're just hours away from the january 6th committee releasing its final report, wrapping up a year and a half of that investigation into that violent day at the capitol and the weeks leading up to it. but over at the department of justice, the investigation of january 6th is very much ongoing and it's an open question of what special counsel jack smith is up to as the investigation of congress comes to an end. and just how much did the secret service know about what donald trump supporters were planning to do on january 6? new reporting from carol leonnig, the reporter who wrote the book on the secret service is just ahead, stay with us.

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as the january 6th committee held its final public meeting yesterday and unveiled four criminal referrals for former president donald trump it also released a 154-page executive summary. a very hefty 154-page summary, highlighting the committee's key findings from its 18-month investigation. chief among those findings, president trump disseminated false election fraud allegations. he pressured vice president pence and other elections officials and members of congress and summoned a violent mob to washington, d.c., all in support of a multipart conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election. but there were other principled findings in that report which were bombshells in their own right like this one. the committee believes some witness with close ties to trump were less than honest with the committee. the committee called out people including ivanka trump, kayleigh

mcenany. hope hicks and tony ornato. and now we're learning from a cnn report that donald trump up ethics lawyer stephen passantino, he advise her that she did not recall details that she did indeed remember. according to cnn, trump's save america political action committee paid for him to represent hutchinson which is something that should deserve investigation. in other words, the questions around january 6 certainly have not been answered and likely to have more tomorrow. in less than 24 hours, the committee will make the mother lode of its existence present. for months, the doj has asked the committee for many of these

items and for months, the committee has been reluctant to acquiesce to that request until now. hours ago, punchbowl reported that jack smith sent the committee a letter earlier this month requesting all of the materials that the committee has gathered for the past year and a half. as of last week, the committee started to send over the goods, reams of transcripts and documents. nbc news confirms that the committee has been actively cooperating with the justice department for the last month, just ahead of tomorrow's big public reveal. joining us in luke broadwater, congressional reporter for "the new york times". luke, thank you for being here tonight. i've got questions between what's happening between the doj and the january 6th committee. because for a long time, we've had reporting there was tension between the two. does it now seem that they are working hand in glove, and do you read anything into that cooperation as far as potential criminal indictments, based on referrals from the committee? >> right. well, we know that the justice

department wants everything the january 6 committee has. and for a long time, the january 6th committee was reluctant to turn over all of their materials to the justice department. but they have begun to do so. we know from the committee's report yesterday, the executive summary, that they've already given them some materials about possible obstruction and witness tampering in the committee's view. and they're going to begin giving them all the transcripts, some hundreds and hundreds of transcripts, before the end of the month. this is what justice has wanted for a long time. they feel the committee has done a really robust investigation here. and as they're interviewing some of those witnesses, they want to see exactly what those witnesses said to congress before they question them themselves. so there was a bit of, i think in my view, a bit of a bureaucratic fight for several months. a lot of people view that as

unfortunate. but it does seem to be that there is going to be full cooperation before the year's out. >> so we're not at a point where one might say there's specific cooperation, or maybe they're seeing eye to eye on the potential criminal referrals that the committee issued yesterday and will that inform the indictment process if there is one? i guess if you don't know the answer to that, let me also ask, luke -- >> yeah. >> go ahead. >> well, i think it's a little too soon to created into that based on this. i think what we can safely assume is that the justice department is interested in investigating all of these things. >> uh-huh. >> and now that they've reached the same conclusions that the january 6th committee put out yesterday, when they issued the criminal referrals. so, they want to see all the evidence they can. and, look, we know they're really ramping things up. i mean, they put out subpoenas in all seven states where the so-called fake elector scheme was carried out. and we know that was carried out by the trump campaign, by

lawyers for the trump campaign. and we know that that was the basis for many of the referrals that we saw yesterday. so, this is a very active investigation. and i think it's just -- it's just one more sign that jack smith is getting down to business and being very serious about how he does this work. >> yeah. it seems like the committee also planted some red flags for jack smith to further investigation. they said repeatedly about witness tampering that there were numerous witnesses whose testimony was unreliable. and the doj perhaps, will be more effective in their line of questioning should they choose to call the witnesses in. is it your expectation that people like tony ornato, kayleigh mcenany, mark meadows, dan scavino, where do we think the doj is in following up with the testimony that the committee has found questionable? >> right, well, the committee has long said that the justice

department has certain powers and abilities that they lack. remember, they work -- they are a congressional investigation. they're legislators. they're not federal prosecutors. they don't have the power to throw anybody in jail, to put anybody in handcuffs. and they can't really even threaten to do that. but the justice department certainly can. so, i think many of these witnesses may well treat a subpoena from the justice department differently than a subpoena from a legislative branch. and so -- and we've even seen the justice department subpoena some of the same witnesses that have already testified before the committee. and in fact, get some rulings that pierce some of the privilege assertions that some of the witnesses made before the january 6th committee. so, i do think, if they put their full effort into an investigation, they can easily go beyond what congress has done here. and the congressional investigation was very robust. >> yeah. that is saying something to go

well beyond what the committee, given how as you say robust their investigation is. luke broadwater, congressional reporter for "the new york times." thanks, luke, as always. >> thank you. still ahead this hour, the january 6th committee final report is likely to focus on president trump and there is it still question about what the secret service did or did not do that day leading up to the insurrection. carol leonnig knows very much. stay with us.

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♪♪ on december 19th, 2021, donald trump tweeted this, big protest in d.c. on january 6. be there, will be wild. less than a week later on december 24th, the secret service received an alarming report about how trump supporters were creating to his message. from the report, trump can't exactly open and tell you to revolt. this is the closest he'll ever get, one person wrote. i read the president's tweet as armed, another person said. there's not enough cops in d.c. to stop what's coming said another. be already in place when congress tries to get to their meeting and make sure they know who to fear. trump's tweet was being

interpreted as a call to arms, as an invitation to revolt. two days ago, the secret service got another tip this time about the proud boys plan , quote, literally kill people during an armed march in d.c. the informant added please, please take this tip seriously. three days later on december 29th, the secret service held an intelligence briefing where it concluded that president trump supporters have proposed a movement to occupy capitol hill on january 6. it does not get much clearer than that. the secret service and other agencies knew ahead of time that the capitol was likely to be a target on january 6 of. this is one of many things that we learned from the january 6 select committee released yesterday. we also know the person in charge of informing the white house about these alarming threats doesn't recall if he informed anyone about these alarming threats. that man is former white house deputy chief of staff and secret

service agent tony ornato. this is the question from the committee, do you remember talking to chief of staff mark meadows about any of of your concerns about the threat landscape going into january 6? ornato, i don't recall, however in my position i would have made he was tracking the demos which he received, a daily brief of presidential briefing. despite having key intelligence at hand and despite the fact it's literally his job to respond to these threats, mr. ornato told the committee he doesn't recall if he did. and it's important to pay attention to the language here because it's not the first time the committee has been stone walled with those exact words. in fact, another big revelation from the committee is that the committee has specific evidence that at least one witness was asked by pro-trump allies to not recall the facts during her interview. and that witness' lawyer would not tell her who was paying his fees. quote, the lawyer advised the witness that the witness could

in certain circumstances tell the committee she did not recall facts when she did actually recall them. we don't know if a pro-trump group told mr. ornato to do the same thing but one does wonder, et cetera superbly because ornato seems tovy a close relationship with president trump when he was a secret service agent. so much so that president trump took him to work at the white house. then there's this, a summary from the january 6 panel said a small group of secret service agents relied on private counsel, rather than secret service agency. that representation would have been free. the committee cites footnote 704 which lists tony ornato as one of those agents. now, it's unclear that the secret service would have assigned a lawyer to mr. ornato since he was in the white house. but he had private counsel. who is paying for it we don't

know. the committee and most importantly the justice department can make its own conclusions especially because the january 6th committee has found ornato to be significantly unreliable. joining us now is carol leonnig, national investigative reporter for "the washington post," she's also the author of "zero fail i the rise and fall of the secret service." carol, thank you for being with us. you were the first person i thought of combing through that summary and reading about the secret service. what do you make about the fact there are 30 agents cited specifically in the report that are retaining private counsel, in lieu of taking on preagency representation? >> well, it seems in the course of your public servant role that you have a very specific job, you assess the security for the president, or the vice president, or family members. you provide protective intelligence about potential threats to the protectees of the secret service. it seems like in the course of that job, that nothing too

controversial factually, or legally compromising is going to come up for you. and so, i understand why the committee highlights their concern about private counsel. the idea is why spend all that money, just answering basic questions about you doing your proper job which is pretty much supposed to be apolitical. the problem for tony ornato is that he really breaks a lot of barriers and norms in the secret service as donald trump did throughout his presidency. tony ornato used to be the secret service head of the security detail for donald trump. donald trump grew extremely fond of him. thought really well of him. thought he was very loyal. an excellent detail leader, and wanted him to be elevated to be the director. tony did not want that job. and the president made him the white house deputy chief of staff. what's the problem with that, alex? you know it very well, because

you've really studied this, too, he became a political operative in the white house, even though he had a public service job. and still, technically, worked for the secret service. what was his new mission? not to be looking out for the security of the president, but to be looking out for how the president could get re-elected. creating events and moments and public photo ops that would make the president look stronger and help him win over voters. that was a big issue. and i can see now why ornato would want his own counsel, because he did have an exceptionally unusual job as a political -- you know, basically, a political deputy, who enabled donald trump in some of his worst instincts, especially in 2020. >> the fact is, though, carol, even people who aren't tony ornato had apparently given the

committee some questionable testimony. as you say, this is the secret service. this is supposed to be fairly straightforward. this is supposed to be black and white, right? yet, we keep returning to this topic because the secret service was in a particular situation on january 6. they knew what the president was trying to do they had a clear view into intent, in terms of actions that day. and yet, it seems like it's been very difficult to get a full testimony and the full truth from the key agents, among them, bobby engle, who was the agent, the lead in president trump's detail. he was not mentioned at all in this committee report. you have reporting on bobby engle's testimony very much going against the testimony of other witnesses who were there as president trump tried to return to the capitol. you can tell me a little bit more about what bobby engle said? >> absolutely. i would like to just flag one thing you said a minute ago before i answer that question, alex. which is you could not be more

dead-on right about the secret service being what they call at the right hand of the president. the detail leader is on the shoulder of the president, a witness to everything he says and does, almost, everything except going to the bathroom or having a private meeting in the oval. when the president is moving towards the ellipse, when he's leaving his speech and when he's demanding to be taken to the capitol, when he's getting briefed on the weapons that people have outside of his speech, it's the secret service that's right at his shoulder. here's what bobby engle told committee in the most recent interview he had with them in november, according to my sources who are briefed on that interview. he said he didn't see the president make any lunging motion towards his driver in the suv. as cassidy hutchinson relayed that she had been told. bobby engle told the committee that there was no physical altercation. he was not assaulted by donald

trump. he was not grabbed or lunged for by the former president. the person he was sworn to protect as his detail leader. and why is this significant, alex? well, bobby engle says, you know, this didn't happen. he doesn't say i don't recall. and here's the problem for the committee. they had a witness named cassidy hutchinson, a former aide to mark meadows the chief of staff who had some incredible a powerful testimony. much of it first hand. she was there when the mark meadows said the president didn't want to act to tell the aides please tell the rioters to leave the capitol. she was there when they briefed trump in the fact there were weapons to trump supporters, that they were armed to the teeth in some cases.

and that was the group that donald trump urged to go to the capitol. all goes to what you said, state of mind. so these are really important moments but cassidy hutchinson also relayed a bombshell that was second hand, she was clear, i was told by tony ornato she said that the president lunged by his detail leader, bobby engle, lunged for the steering wheel. he was so irate and furious he physically went for the jugular of these individuals when bobby engle told him it's not safe to take you to the capitol. we're not going there. that also goes in some respects on donald trump's assistance in joining his supporters at the capitol which is crazy town when you have like sort of a loaded missile directed by the president to the capitol. when you know there are weapons in the crowd. and as we all know, they became violent, and they were a mob that attacked that icon of democracy.

but cassidy hutchinson didn't see tell herself. and now, we have tony ornato saying he doesn't recall. and we have bobby engle saying that didn't happen in the car when i was there. >> i'm telling you when the full report comes out tomorrow, the operation i'm looking for is bobby engle's and tony ornato's, carol leonnig, thank you so much. the house ways and means committee just released two reports from trump's taxes. nbc news' national committee reporter sahal kapur is coming up next. have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for

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to keep it together. now there's new theraflu flu relief with a max strength fever fighting formula. the right tool for long lasting flu symptom relief. hot beats flu. the house ways and means committee only had their hands on former president trump's taxes for a few weeks, but check out what they have spotted already and they believe the irs needs to examine closely. trump carried a net operating loss in 2015 of $105 million and then carried that operating loss over for several more years. he made loans to his children. loans that apparently concerned the house ways and means committee because they could be gift disguised as loans to avoid the gift tax. djt holdings cost of goods sold

but did not say what goods had been told. that is all from the house and ways committee meeting after the historic vote to release trump's tax returns. that is what we found here from the very initial speed read. our sahil kapur has been cramming this report, and he joins us now. sahil, granted, we had this for a matter of minutes but what is the top line here? what can you tell us about what you're seeing in the reports? >> yeah, alex, i've been attempting a speed read, too, of these multiple report that the committee has put out, one by the ways and means and one on the joint committee on tax. which has significant numbers on the tax returns over six years from 2020. the biggest thing that stands out, alex, the specific purpose that the ways and means committee wanted the tax returns to begin with. there's a procedure by which the irs is subject to mandatory

review. richie neal had a suspicion that program was not operating as it should. that donald trump being the first president in 40 years to conceal his tax returns in his presidential campaign could be unduly influencing that program. and richie neal concludes after viewing the tax returns that is precisely what happened. neal says, quote, we know now the first mandatory audit was open two years in his presidency. in other words, his review found out the previous administration, the trump administration, the program was dormant. that's why richie neal said he wanted the tax returns because of valid legislative purpose that he cited for viewing an american's tax returns which the chairman has to say, can't just do that for any reason. thisis a congressional committee that goes back. and they found in the first two years of donald trump's presidency until they requested

the tax returns that the audit wasn't happening at all. after that, they found specifics issues that they say should have warranted further audit that information was not coming to you them on. that was a few of the things that you mentioned including charitable contributions where certain deductions were supported by required documentation are whether or not it was necessary on reimbursed business expenses and legitimacy. and the question of whether loans made to the trump children were loans or disguised gifts that could trigger a gift tax. these are the kinds of things that the ways and means committee said should have triggered that audit and raised questions. and the conclusion that richie neal comes to, that congress needs to codify that audit program into law to make sure that presidents should not evade them. that the american public deserves to know this kind of information so they can have trust in the president's finances in potential involvement and bank accounts and entanglements that this gets

all the way back to neal's view, it validates the entire purpose of wanting the tax returns. alex. >> i was struck by the fact that this is the president who said repeatedly were so big and beautiful -- he didn't use the word "voluminous" but other people have. in the end, they should say, they were expecting large amounts of tax returns all they got was one banker's box in the size of paper files. and two banker's boxes in the size of tax returns and information requested from the former president. not so big after all. what else is new, nbc news senior correspondent sahil kapur. thank you for doing that speed read for us. that does it tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early with jonathan lemire" is coming up next. ♪♪ ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy leaves his country for the first time since the war began. making a secret trip to