Out of washington this morning. Both of which the white house could have shut down long before they became big stories. For years, donald trump has refused to release his tax returns. In an exclusive report from msnbc has done it for him. We are going to dig into what those new numbers reveal straight ahead. Plus, with still no evidence that president obama admitted a felony, republicans are turning up the pressure on the Trump Administration to either put up or back down. We are going to talk to senator Lindsey Graham who is set to make a big announcement today on his push for the fbi to release any evidence about wiretapping at trump tower. Also joining us on set, on this very busy news day in the nations capital, House Majority whip congressman Steve Scalise whose job of counting gop votes for their new Health Care Bill was just made a lot harder by the cbo score. The top democrat on the Intel Committee congressman adam second half and senator Claire Mccaskill and joe manchin will also join us. Joe has the morning off. Its wednesday, march 15th. Joining us is mark halpern and associate editor for the Washington PostDavid Ignatius. Msnbc political analyst michael steele. In new york, willie geist. Along with willie, former treasury official and economic analyst steve rattner. So willie and i at the helm in new york and washington this morning. A lot to get to. Including the two pages of Donald Trumps tax returns that were revealed by msnbc late last night. The question this morning did donald trump perhaps release them in his own special way which we will get to that question as well. First, patience is paragraph we. Democratic senator Sheldon White house says james comey has indicated privately to senators he may provide a clearer explanation of a existence of a russian fbi investigation ahead of todays judiciary subcommittee hearing on meddling in the 2016 election. White house said the fbi director made the suggestion during a private sitdown between the two men and senator Lindsey Graham on march 2nd. The same day attorney general Jeff Sessions recused him from any potential investigations involving russia. On our show yesterday, whitehouse told us its important for comey to answer the question publicly because they cant have an fbi director steer clear of an investigation while not confirming there is a criminal investigation. Senator whitehouse told us he expects comey to expose any warrant that might have been made of trump tower or Trump Associates in response to a letter that whitehouse and republican lindy graham sent last week. And Lindsey Graham is now forcing the issue. You need to come to that because im going to make an announcement about the letter and let the fbi know they are about to screw up bigtime if they keep running to the Intel Committee and not answer that letter and sort of the theme of what im going to say is that i believe in regular order let each committee do its thing. We have risdicon over the fbi. I like director comey a lot, but we wrote him a letter. If they dont honor this question and give us an answer, then i would say that we need a joint select committee because their regular order is not working. More news coming on morning joe today. Lindsey graham will be our guest. Michael steele, what is he doing . He is throwing down. He is throwing a very bright line here and saying, look, you either put up or shut up, because they recognize for the republicans, this is going to be a particularly sticky situation so they want to get it behind them as quickly as possible. The idea that the former president of the United States was involved in a federal criminal action is problematic at best, but you better have the evidence to back it up. And so without that evidence, Lindsey Graham, lets move away. If you dont have it, lets move on. Lindsey graham, mark halpern, is forcing the issue with the white house . Its interesting. A lot of times members of Congress Respond to political pressure from their constituents or from talk radio, whatever. In this case, most of the republicans who are interested in investigating seem to be doing it on the merits. They actually want to get to the bottom of the facts and that is for the white house kind of a dangerous position to be in because you got members of congress who cant be really swayed because they have the bit in their mouth. They want to know what happened because they are concerned on russian influence on the american election. David ignatius, im sure our leaders around the world are watching this as well. What are the key questions here . Especially for the president himself. The key question is what kind of investigation, if any, was taken by the fbi into russian activities in the United States that might have touched trump tower. The paradox of President Trump accusing president obama, the Obama Administration of tapping his wires is that now the question is forced. So now we are going to find out whether there was an investigation that authorized you wanted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and under some other legal means into evidence that concern the fbi at that time. That is a big step forward. Then we are into the terrain of really getting down and understanding what happened. So Lindsey Graham is on the show this morning and forcing the issue. Willie geist, wait, there more. Another republican stepping into the fray. Unexamined move, Chuck Grassley said he will block the confirmation of President Trumps Deputy Attorney general pick until he gets russiarelated answers from the Justice Department. The powerful Iowa Republican said yesterday he will not schedule the committees vote on rod rosensteins nomination until fbi director comey respond to his written request from last month. When he and ranking democrat Dianne Feinstein asked for an explanation. Senate Intel Committee richard burr said he is satisfied what he has heard on trumprelated wiretaps and russia so far saying he didnt feel he had to ask for related documents because we have had sufficient qualifies and gotten answers that we find to be satisfactory from the appropriate folks. David ignatius, what is the complication of Chuck Grassley as well stepping forward now . You have prominent republicans, republicans now going out publicly in the media speaking their minds and saying we want to know exactly what is going on here and we wont move forward past things you want until we get our answers . Willie, i think it just shows the movement to demand a full congressional investigation is broadening. Chuck grassley is not at the center of this investigation, never has been. So if he is deciding that politically its important for him to be part of the Group Calling for complete disclosure that is important. This is no longer john mccain and Lindsey Graham, longtime critics of donald trump and broadening to more of the party. Other republican members of the Senate Intelligence committee tell me the same thing, they are serious about getting to the bottom of this. You know, we will have a lot of questions for Lindsey Graham when he comes on this morning. Also Ranking Member of the Intel Committee adam schiff will be our guest so a lot more could develop in the next few hours here on morning joe. This morning, we are also learning more about Donald Trumps taxes. The president refused to release them throughout the campaign and throughout his administration. Last night, Rachel Maddow revealed two pages of his 1040 form from 2005. No itemized pages, though. They show 152 million in income and 38 million made to the alternative minimum tax and a writtendown of business losses. Little more is known because none of the documents showing income breakdown are included. The documents were obtained by david k. Johnston who could only speculate where they came from. Seen them in the mail and there is absolutely nothing improper about journalists, if you havent solicited something getting it over the transom. Its possible that donald trump sent these to me. Donald trump over the years has leaked all sorts of things. The president said an effective income tax rate of about 25 because of the alternative minimum tax. Mitt romney, by comparison, paid 14 and took heavy fire about that during the 2012 campaign. As maddow prepared to go on the air last night, the white house acknowledged the documents veracity and writing in statement this. That being said, mr. Trump paid 38 million even after taking into account large scale of depreciation for construction of an income more than 150 million as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes and this illegally published return proves just that. Despite the substantial income figure and tax paid, it is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns. The Dishonest Media can continue to make this a part of their agenda, while the president will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all americans. The white house added, quote, you know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago. So, steve rattner, what do the tax returns tell us and i guess i do see how it might be in trumps best interest to release them this way so that is a hypothesis that is worth considering. What do we learn from the two pages . First of all, the hypothesis that maybe he actually was happy with them being released is making its way around the chattering classes for a couple of reasons. First many of us thought he would turn out to pay no taxes and here he has paid a significant amount. Second, the copy that was released said client copy on it. Youll recall that the two pages their mailed to the New York Times were mailed from an address that said trump tower but if it was trump tower, who knows. Its possible he and someone in his organization is perfectly happy to have these in there. We havent learned a heck of rah lot, as you said. Most of what we have learned is that under trumps tax proposal, he would eliminate something called the alternative minimum tax, a tax designed to make lots of people with lots of depreciation say some amount of tax. Without that provision which trump wants to repeal as part of his tax plan, trump would have maid 5 million for taxes. You can see the tax plan would help the wealthiest than the less wealthy. It does not appear he is very schedule. We dont have any of the backup schedules but in his summary of itemized deductions and include his charitable, a relatively small number and probably local and state taxes. I think the sense that he do a lot of charitable is probably a legitimate thing. Lastly on him violating the law. I think the law is clear you cant steal someones tax returns and you cant give someone else someones tax returns but if you receive someones tax returns youre within the law to publish them. A lot of us wanted to see the tax returns and we have asked for them over and over again the last couple of years because we want to know about business relations and ties to, perhaps, russia. In the two pages you dont learn anything about that. Is there anything else you can read into in . He paid 38 million in taxes and made a lot of money and paid a lot of taxes on the money and all we learned really from the two pages. Is there anything else you see into this . Unfortunately, there is not a lot else in this. 2005 was kind of a peak economic year so this would have been a good year for donald trump. Seeing all of his other tax returns, we know ten years earlier he lost a billion dollars what is more of a tax shelter kind of game than an actual loss but he got to shelter a lot of income. No. The backup schedules would really be something that would be interesting for all of us to see to find out what is really going on there. There could be more income in there against a lot more deductions. The fact that they emphasized in the statement his use of accelerated depreciation on his buildings suggest that like most real estate guys he had a pretty good tax game going. We still dont know exactly what it was. It was the New York Times story he might not have paid taxes since 1995. This statement disproves that. It does. Michael steele, the fact he paid the least amount of taxes possible. Say more returns that show that. That plays right to his base. He was very proud of that point. I remember when he said it during the debate thinking, yes, they are going to say he is smart to pay the least amount of tax that he illeglegally has to. Questions of large payments from lets say a russian and does that happen but those two little pages doesnt show any of that. So it almost sets the media up to get hysterical about something we dont know about and which then leads me to wonder if this is exactly what they wanted, which is why a client copy was released to the press . I think that is spot on analysis of the situation how we got here. Really, the story is in the schedules and in the admissions that go with the tax returns which can number hundreds of pages and we dont have that. What you do have is something that states very clearly that donald trump not only paid taxes, he paeed a lot of taxes that donald trump, those werent clearly audited but somehow they got out into the public. Probably their fingerprints are on it. He wants to set the narrative on the taxes and i think its because youre not going to see the current taxes. I dont think youre going to get a look what comes out on april 15th. This sort of preempts that story a little bit. Look. I pay my taxes. Im being audited over here and still working on the ones for 2016 opinion the media is going to get excited about it as you said and they are going to be wanting to know more but i dont think they are going to get it. The tax for this april 2015 wont be under awe diudit, will . They might be. We should get all of the returns and not just two pages. This begs a lot of questions and doesnt answer so many questions we have whether he has overseas investments but as the white house statement points out that critics said he didnt make much money, he made a lot of money. As steve said, possibly a better year than some and he paid a lot in taxes and some thought he never paid taxes. It begs a lot of questions and it certainly shows, ones again, people will suspect he is trying to manipulate everything because there is widespread speculation where it might have come from. We dont know but what we do know its a distraction that doesnt amount to much in terms of knowing more about him. Steve rattner . Two final things. First, to marks point about taxes not under audit. He probably wont file until october because people with complicated tax get extension and takes months for the irs to decide if there is an audit. A window he wont be under audit. The dollar amount of taxes he paid will be surprising and maybe reassuring on one level to americans but, remember, his 25 tax rate is the tax rate paid by a family with about 400,000 income. There you go. Steve, thank you. Senator lindy graham will join us on set next hour. Also Ranking Member of the house Intel Committee congressman adam schiff joins us. The republicans vote counter in the House Majority whip Steve Scalise and democratic senator Claire Mccaskill. First, here is bill karins with a clean on yesterdays this morning. What a mess. How about for the highest snow total reported . Bridgeport, new york, 41 inches of snow. That is almost 3 1 2 feet of snow. Binghamton 31 inches and scranton almost two feet and albany a foot and a half and same with portland and hartford. Worcester area through central massachusetts, here is some aerial drone pictures from yesterday. Amazing it can fly with the strong gusty winds we had and worcester picked 14 to 18 inches of snow. Two days before the storm hit, we thought the big cities would have the high snow totals but the storm was a little closer to the coast. The other story is the miserable cleanup out there this morning. Hopefully, you did a lot yesterday. Windchills are in the Single Digits in new england and 19 as far south of atlanta. You get the picture. Very cold eastern half of the country. Still feels like the middle of winter. I know spring is only a couple of days away but it doesnt like we are getting any big warmup any time soon. New york city, times square. Still cleaning up. Sleet was a real pain and heavy shoveling yesterday too. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. 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