we'll be right back with susanne craig, investigative reporter for "the new york times." you might remember in 2016 "the times" told this dramatic story about receiving some donald trump tax returns in a plain envelope in a mailbox at the pain -- that was her. and now she is involved in this blockbuster reporting today. we'll be right back after this. we'll be right back after this ahoy! gotcha! nooooo... noooooo... quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent. bounty, the quicker picker upper. if your moderate to severeor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml,

we'll be right back with susanne craig, investigative reporter for "the new york times."ou might remember in 2016 "the times" told this dramatic story about receiving some donald trump tax returns in a plain envelope in a mailbox in a paper that was her. and now she is involved in this blockbuster reporting today. we'll be right back after this. at booking.com, we can't guarantee you'll find gold in them therr hills on your vacation. but we can guarantee the best price on this rental cabin. or any accomodation from hotels to yurts. booking.com, booking.yeah >>> joining us again is susanne craig, investigative reporter at the "new york times." thank you again for sticking with us. you say just a couple of paragraphs into this big piece tonight, quote, according to tax experts, it is unlikely that mr. trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. there is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud. i'm not a tax law expert and i don't necessarily

susanne craig, welcome. we're told you spent 18 months rking on this. the printout of the story by my count is pages. so i know it's hard for me to ask you to condense it, but in eggs -- essence what are you saying the president and his familyespecially hisather, did? >> well, there are two main findings here. one is the intance that donald trump got from his father is far greater than anybody has imagined. he has stated things like he got a si $mpmillion loan, he paid it back with interest. there have been stories that said it was larger. we've been able to identify it to hundreds of millions, more .han $400 but even more important, he was able to get that vast inhetance because it was swelled through fraudulent tax schemes that we uncovered as went through this incredible trove of financial documents that we fou >> woodruff: we should say at the outset that the president's lawyer, charles harder, has issued a statement saying "the new york times" allegations of fraud and tax evasioare 100% false and highly defamatory. we also he a statement from presi

nermeen: david, that is your co-author susanne craig talking about grats.ld you comment on whether this instrument is what essentially gave legal cover to trump's transactions? >> grats are a well-established and legal instrument used by the wealthy to pass assets on to their children in a way that allows them to avoid estate taxes. in fact, if you watch tv, you'll often sesee commercials f from o that are actually grat commercials. they do not say the word "grat" -- nermeen: what is bdo? >> a consulting firm that is actually on cnbc, sm abc, and cnn, running commercials that effectively are commercials for grats. is a technique that when you talk to tax lawyers, they almost get a little misty eyed about grats. this is like magic. these things are incredible devices that assets go income all caps of financial gymnastics occur inside of them, and then they sort of assets come out and there like free of taxes. amy: i want to go to another of your former colleagues, david cay johnston, also a fellow pulitzer prize winner and out editor-in-chief at dcreport.org

. >>> we're joined by one of the reporters who conducted the investigation, susanne craig and our legallyst dan abrams. susanne, you heard the statements from the white house and the president's lawyers. concerned about a defamation suit? >> not at all. >> tell us about this investigation, 18 months long, we just heard 100,000 documents. was there a key that unlocked it at the beginning? >> it's interesting. we started with a simple question back last year when two or three pages of the 2005 tax return were released. >> donald trump's tax return? >> yes, donald trump's tax returns were released and we shocked to see he had made money that year. he made around 130 million and it was just such a juxtaposition from ten years earlier when "the new york times" had published three pages of his 1995 tax return where he had -- he had logged a billion-dollar loss which would have enabled him to shelter taxable income up to a billion dollars for 20 years going forward and all of a sudden he has this really large profit and we just sort of said what happened? and from there we started to dig and w