PJ Vogt

This is Search Engine.

I'm PJ Vogt.

No question too big, no question too small, no question too taxing.

We were not supposed to have an episode this week, and yet here we are.

All because of a big national news story that has been developing.

A story that we here at the show have not been able to stop talking about.

President Trump's anti-weaponization fund.

The origin story of that fund actually begins years ago with an enormous IRS leak, a leak that let the American public see both Trump's tax returns as well as the tax information of hundreds of American billionaires.

It was obvious at the time that this was a huge story.

We covered it here at Search Engine.

What was not obvious, though, was where it would lead.

Jesse Isinger, a journalist at ProPublica, played a weirdly large role in the chain reaction that's led us to today.

So we asked him back to Search Engine Studios to help us understand what's going on here.

I kind of want to like return to the story that you told last time we spoke, but I know not everyone will have listened to that episode.

Can you just tell me like many years ago, you got an anonymous tip, which led to a big reporting project.

Can you just like sort of describe what the tip was and what the reporting project was in brief?

Sure.

At the time that you were writing your story, you didn't know the identity of the person who was leaking to you, but later he was caught, he was arrested, and so you found out his identity.

And so, remember, Trump had been

the first presidential candidate in a long time to not voluntarily disclose his tax returns.