WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday denounced as “fake news” the release by journalists of a portion of his 2005 income tax form, just hours after his administration appeared to confirm the accuracy of the documents.

Two pages from the president’s 2005 tax returns were disclosed Tuesday evening by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow after being mailed to David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter. They show that Mr. Trump paid $38 million in federal income taxes on reported income of $150 million, an effective tax rate of 25 percent.

The White House confirmed those numbers before the show and appeared to accept the document’s authenticity by criticizing a story “about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago” and stating that it was “totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns.”