The White House released details from part of President Donald Trump's tax returns just before MSNBC said it obtained his returns from 2005.

  • 'Rachel Maddow Show' unveils part of Trump's 2005 tax returns
  • Tax forms came from investigative journalist David Cay Johnston
  • Trump, on Twitter, calls it 'fake news'
  • White House alleges it was illegal to release documents

Trump made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in income taxes, according to the White House, which is something MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow revealed Tuesday night. 

The White House alleged the network violated the law by releasing the documents.

The tax forms were obtained by investigative and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who runs a website called DCReport.org, and reported on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." Johnston, who has long reported on tax issues, said he received the documents in the mail, unsolicited.

"My suspicion is because I have written a great deal about negative incomes and our failure to pay attention to it. It's one of the ways very wealthy people get out of paying taxes — or pay much less. And about the alternative minimum tax: Those two pages show that if it wasn't for something called the alternative minimum tax ... there are two tax systems, regular and alternative, Trump would have been taxed on that $152 million plus at a lower rate than the poorest 50 percent of Americans," Johnston said in a CNN interview.

However, the president took issue over the matter, tweeting: 

His son, Donald Trump Jr., said the documents prove the president has paid his dues in taxes.  

Others think Trump is behind the leak himself.

Former Republican Florida Rep. David Jolly tweeted:

Trump has long insisted that the American public wasn't interested in his returns and said little could be learned from them. But Trump's full returns would contain key details about things such as his charitable giving, his income sources, the type of deductions he claimed, how much he earned from his assets and what strategies Trump used to reduce his tax bill.

The issue was a major point of attack from his election rival, Hillary Clinton, who suggested Trump had something to hide.

The White House has not said whether the president plans to release his returns while he's in office. More than 1 million people have signed a White House petition urging the president to release them.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.