[Bolduan:] Do you recall this wild moment that happened between Secretary Treasury Steve Mnuchin and the Democratic chair of the House Financial Services Committee not long ago? Watch.
[Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary:] If you wish to keep me here so that I don't have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here. I will be very clear, if that's the way you want to have this relationship.
[Bolduan:] That was the threat. But today, the Treasury secretary is back on Capitol Hill, back before that very same committee. Again, facing questions about the president's tax returns and new pushback to his reasoning for not handing them over to Congress. According to the "Washington Post," there was a confidential legal memo written by someone at the IRS that said Trump's tax returns should be handed over to Congress. The 10-page memo stating that, "The law does not allow the secretary to exercise discretion in disclosing the information provided the statutory conditions are met." The secretary was asked about this just a little bit ago.
[Unidentified Congresswoman:] Did somebody make you aware that the memo states that the law does not require that the Ways and Means finance chair or the JCT staff include a reason or purpose for the request?
[Mnuchin:] Again, I haven't again, let me just say the legal advice that we've relied upon and, again, I understand there's three branches of government, and when it comes to constitutional issues, there can be different interpretations. And that's why there's a third branch of government to interpret
[Unidentified Congresswoman:] I'm sorry. Reclaiming my time. You are aware you are at least aware that the conclusion of that memo directly contradicts the conclusion that you're relying upon?
[Mnuchin:] No, I actually don't believe that's the case.
[Bolduan:] He also said that he hadn't even seen the memo until it came out from the "Washington Post." What does this memo now do to Mnuchin's defense that he's not legally obligated to hand anything over? Joining me right now is one of the reporters who broke this story, White House reporter for the "Washington Post," Josh Dawsey. He's also a CNN political analyst. Great to see you, Josh.
[Josh Dawsey, Cnn Political Analyst:] Hey. Thanks for having me.
[Bolduan:] Really great reporting coming out that you this morning. This memo, it does contradict that Mnuchin has said was the reason he doesn't have to turn anything over. He says that he hadn't seen it, this memo, until your report. How far did this memo go?
[Dawsey:] So Steven Mnuchin has said repeatedly he's not giving the documents over because there's no legitimate legislative purpose. What the memo says it came from the chief counsel's office in the IRS, was written late 2018 after it concluded Democrats were going to take the House and seek tax returns. It said the committees do not have to have a legitimate legislative purpose. What the memo says is that they can only not give the tax returns over by citing executive privilege and then it would be unclear if that would actually work or not. But what the memo says is, after studying the law, the IRS attorney decided that the only way to do it was citing executive privilege.
[Bolduan:] You write that this memo was a draft. Do you have a sense of why it was written in the first place and how widely this was debated I guess?
[Dawsey:] So it was written as the Democrats are taking over. Different agencies across the government, different departments, began looking at what potential oversight there would be, what requests they were likely to get, what demands they would probably get for documents, for interviews, who might be subpoenaed. In the IRS chief counsel's office, they began looking at the issue of tax returns. Now, the Treasury Department says repeatedly to us and now publicly to others, that Steven Mnuchin and top leaders at Treasury never saw this memo. It's unclear if anyone at Treasury did see it. But the IRS obviously would be the agency that keeps the tax returns and that's why they drafted it.
[Bolduan:] It also at least seems clear from his testimony today that, even if he had saw it, it wasn't changing his opinion on where he stood on this at the moment. You mentioned executive privilege. The memo does discuss, it seems, one way that the administration or the president would have to be can resist such a request, executive privilege. But it was complicated. There was more to it. What did you learn more about that?
[Dawsey:] Well, executive privilege, defined broadly, is protecting discussions between the president and his top advisers, sensitive internal matters that should not be disclosed to the public. It would be hard to figure out exactly how the president's tax returns before he came into office as president and even now would be define as executive privilege. I'm not saying that they couldn't, but the memo also shows, in some ways, it's dubious that they could.
[Bolduan:] Yes. Real quick, any sense from the White House and your sources there of how they're reacting? We heard how the secretary reacted. But how they're reacting to this this morning?
[Dawsey:] The president has said repeatedly that he's not going to give his tax returns over, that he will fight this all the way to the Supreme Court. That no matter what happens he's not giving these over. So for the White House, the outcome is already predetermined. Now it's just a matter of, what does a court battle do, if this gets to court? The White House has made clear, the president's personal attorneys have made clear that they don't care what the statute says, he's not planning to turn over these returns.
[Bolduan:] Yes.
[Dawsey:] And what a judge will decide is still a ways away, I think.
[Bolduan:] This, certainly, though, is an interesting wrinkle on the path to the courthouse that we'll likely see.
[Dawsey:] Right.
[Bolduan:] It's good to see you, Josh.
[Dawsey:] Good to see you, too.
[Bolduan:] Thank you. Coming up, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that Donald Trump is engaged in a coverup. What's the message that members of her caucus took from this important meeting this morning? Democratic member, who was just in that meeting with Nancy Pelosi, joins me next.