as for the returns themselves, abc's josh haskell has been scouring the documents. josh, good morning. >> reporter: diane and kendis, we're nearly two months into the presidency of donald trump and questions over his tax returns continue to swirl over his administration. on tuesday night, the white house released trump's income and tax rate for 2005 in order to pre-empt an msnbc story they referred to as desperate for rating. pulitzer prize-winning journalist david kay johnson made the announcement on msnbc's rachel maddow show, based on documents obtained by johnson, trump paid $36.5 million in taxes for a tax rate of roughly 24%. that percentage is below the 27.4% average for taxpayers earning $ m according to data from the congressional joint committee on taxation. the white house numbers closely mirrored those released by johnson who claims he received the return unsolicited. >> came in the mail and there's nothing improper about journalists, if you haven't solicited something, getting it over the tranceom. and it's entirely possible that donald sent this to me.