An attorney who oversaw Donald Trump's income tax returns in the mid-1990s said the Republican presidential candidate had little interest in the tax code — contrasting with the billionaire's claim that he understood taxes "better than anyone" who had run for the White House. "As far as I know, and that only goes through late '96, he didn't understand the code," said Jack Mitnick, a former tax adviser for Trump. "Nor would he have had the time and the patience to learn the provisions. That's a lifetime of experience."

Mitnick oversaw Trump's income tax returns in 1995, portions of which were published Saturday by the NYTimes. The documents showed a reported loss of nearly $916 million - a deduction tax experts hired by the newspaper said was so large that Trump might have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.

Trump responded to the report on Twitter: "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them" — a stance he has repeated on the campaign trail. Mitnick, however, told the TODAY show Tuesday that Trump was "not at all" involved in the 1995 filing.  "He was interested in the bottom line, not the detail."