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hello, everyone. i'm bianna in new york. pressure mounts for garland to appoint a special counsel to oversee an investigation into president biden's handling of classified government records. we are following this from every angle, so let's begin with cnn's evan perez. what are you learning about what we can expect to hear from the attorney general in just a few moments? >> reporter: well, bianna, we obviously know that the justice department attorney general garland are in a difficult position given the fact that we are learning still new details about these documents that the president's team says that they found now at multiple locations. the justice department is facing the decision right now whether to appoint a special counsel, whether to open a fuller investigation. we know that, at least at this

point, there was an initial review that was done by the u.s. attorney in chicago. that part of the investigation is completed, and so now the decision from garland that we expect to hear from him in the next few minutes, is what to do next. and as we've all been talking about, the fact that this has to do with the sitting president, merrick garland's boss, really kind of puts him and others here in the department in a difficult position, one that could be solved by bringing in someone who can be viewed as independent. there's a problem with perception that has been created by the fact that not only did you find documents in one place, but apparently in a subsequent location. so we expect, given the fact that there is already a special counsel looking into the matters related to the former president, trump, that this one will likely have to be treated in the exact same manner. >> you're talking about the special counsel, jack smith.

you also mentioned john loush and we should note that merrick garland appointed him partly because he was nominated by former president trump, wanting to reinforce his objectiveness. as we're waiting for this, let's talk more about these classified documents. we know biden's legal team announced they found a second batch and we're learning more about where exactly they were located on his property. can you tell us more about that? >> absolutely. in a statement, the white house says these additional documents were found at biden's wilmington residence. they say these documents were found in two different locations at the residence. the first, they say, was a garage, a storage space contained in that garage. the second piece of this pile of documents, they say was a single document, a single page found in what was described as an adjacent room. but a lot of questions still outstanding. how many documents, what exactly were they, and how did they get there.

in a statement the white house said it selected different locations to search, looking specifically at where files were shipped from the vice president's office during the 2017 transition. another big question is how much of this was known to the u.s. attorney in chicago. as evan just noted, our reporting is that the u.s. attorney's review has been completed, so is this new information to him, when were these located? the biden white house is making a strategic decision to let most of this information leak out through the media, and they're leaving a lot of unanswered questions in this swiftly escalating situation. >> and obviously we'll be taking merrick garland live when he comes out. phil mattingly, you're getting new reporting on who the doj is talking to in this probe. what are you hearing? >> reporter: evan and paul will were talking about the review under way and that is critical

because the information from the review was being passed up to attorney general garland as he weighed what his next steps were. white house officials have made clear they were under strict instructions to be as cooperative as possible, detail detailed timelines where they called investigators after reaching out to the national archives, and i'm told the cooperation also includes interviews that have been under way with individuals tied to then vice president's office, particularly in the time period as they were closing up that office, before he left of. the packing and the closing out of that office, which is where i think a lot of people have figured some of these documents came from, and who may have knowledge of how that was packed up, where those documents were sent. there are also individuals, i'm told, outside of the vice president's office who may have knowledge of those matters that have been interviewed. it's not clear whether or not those interviews are done and it will be interesting to see what the attorney general says about next steps, if there are any, when he speaks. but it underscores there's been

a process under way, the white house and the white house counsel's office has made clear they've been trying to cooperate. but information like this has become public, and particularly as white house lawyers have been clear that they want to maintain limitations on what officials can speak about publicly, have certainly put the justice department and the attorney general in a very complicated political position, not to mention the legal issues that are obviously still playing out. >> yeah, and we should remind viewers that the first batch of documents we now know were discovered in early november of last year. so over two months ago. phil, the president addressed this or attempted to address this in what appeared to be a written statement today. he was hoping to tout the economy, but instead, no surprise, the questions that he was asked pertained to this specific issue. >> yeah, it gives you a great window into the moment this white house is currently in, that just started three days ago. inflation, which had been the

biggest political and policy problem they faced for more than a year, is now easing for a sixth consecutive month. tangible signs that the grip is starting to ease for perhaps the long term, massive implications from the economy per expective. and yet the issue the president is dealing with are these classified documents. take a listen. >> as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified materials seriously. i also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the justice department's review. as part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president were stored and they finished the review last night. they discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library. >> the president also said he looked forward to hopefully, at least in his words, being able

to talk more in detail about what has happened and how this came to be at some point in the future. lawyers are making it clear they don't want him to talk about anything related to this until they know what any next steps or the end of a review will transpire. we'll see if they get that information today or how this plays out going forward. >> as noted, we are expecting to hear from the attorney general at any moment now. when he comes out, we will bring you his comments live. phil, paula and evan, thank you so much. as just noted, in the face of mounting documents controversy, this morning the president seized on good economic news as the year's first inflation report showed prices dipped last month. >> the data is clear. even though inflation is high in major economies around the world, it's coming down in america month after month, giving families some real breathing room. today's inflation numbers are good news, good news about our economy. we have more work to do.

>> the president, of course, is talking about this. inflation cooled for the sixth month in a row and prices fell slightly from november to december. cnn's matt egan is here to break it down. good to see you. so inflation slowed to its slowest level in more than a year. how is this specifically impacting consumers? >> the cost of living is still high, but it's getting better. let's look at the numbers here. consumer prices up by 6.5% year-over-year. that's not good, that's not healthy. but everything is relative. let's look at the trend. this line chart shows that consumer prices actually are cooling off. of course it's higher than it was in 2020, but things are getting better. this is well below the peak of 9.1% last year. let's look at where things are cooling off. gas prices, look at this, cheaper and used car prices. we had a shortage of cars and

prices are coming down sharply. good time to buy tvs, a sharp decline in prices. the cost of living remains high. shelter, this is rent, big part of people's budgets, going up at a very fast pace. grocery store prices, and we have to talk about eggs. egg prices up by 60% from a year ago. we have not seen anything like this since 1973. so inflation is cooling off, but it hasn't gone away. >> eggs aside, and that may be an anomaly because there's avian flu affecting prices, does this in your view give the fed any pause, perhaps even reversing course or changing course, and at least pausing in terms of raising interest rates? >> i think the big number the fed is going to be looking at is this month-over-month price drop. we saw prices decline. we haven't seen that since this inflation crisis started, so that's a big deal. if we keep seeing numbers like this, that will bring inflation

down closer to the 2% level that the fed is targeting. investors seem to like this inflation report. we see u.s. stocks up pretty significantly today, markets are betting that the fed is going to be able to slow the pace of interest rate hikes. instead of slamming the brakes on the company, maybe they can tap the brakes. that would lower the risk that they overdo it and accidently cause a recession. >> the next decision expected early february. thank you. >> thanks. we turn to the deadly california storms now. a much-needed break from the rain today, but sadly, more is coming. a new system hits in just hours, as millions clean up from the last one. across the state, weeks of flooding, mudslides and falling trees have killed at least 18 people. in the mountains, 8 feet of snow has fallen since christmas alone. 5 more feet are possible within the next storm. cnn's veronica miracle is in

salinas, california. what's the concern where you are now? >> reporter: well, bianna, here in monterey county there has been a significant amount of flooding. you can see it just right over here, this water has overtaken this area, including this house right here. you can see the water level has almost reached that top -- the window sill here at the front of the house. just to show you beyond this the significance of how much water has flooded this area, i want you to take a look at those trees in the distance, those trees way out there. it is normally on the other side of those trees that the water channel is, and that's how much water has flooded this zone, including this house and a house in the distance there. officials here have been concerned about this. there are two major highways that the salinas river also crosses over, and they are concerned that both of those roadways could be overtaken later this afternoon, potentially through the weekend, which means that traffic in and out of the peninsula could be blocked and damaged and they're asking people to be aware of

that. this comes, of course, as a major storm is about to come into california after weeks of a fire hose of rain that has sprayed over the state with very little respite, very little relief, and very little time in between all of this damage and all of this destruction. it has proven to be deadly. 18 people, at least, have been killed, including a 5-year-old boy who was swept away from his mother's arms in floodwaters. this all comes after years of historic drought in the state of california. it has been incredibly dry, and now all of the water reservoirs are filling up, the snowpack which feeds into those reservoirs is at a historic level. so if there is any good news, it is that there's water in a state that needs it very badly. however, at this rate and at this pace, it is proving to be very dangerous, deadly and costly for the people in california. bianna. >> horrific story, 18 now reported dead. just so terrifying and sad, the

5-year-old boy. thank you. we are now just moments away from attorney general merrick garland, who is set to make a rare statement. we will bring that to you live. >> plus, the pressure is building on the man elected to congress on a fake resumé. george santos dodging yet more questions and being more defiant as he faces more calls to resign. >> plus, the man accused of killing four university of idah. what went down. and wait until you hear what the suspect's neighbor just said about him. there's something going around the gordon home. good thing gertrude found delsym. w what's going around is 12-hour cough relief. and the giggles. the family that takes delsym togher, feels better together.

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regulations, i have notified the designated members of each house of congress of the appointment. i'm joined today by the u.s. attorney for the northern district of illinois, who conducted the initial investigation into the matter that i will describe today. on the evening of november 4th, 2022, the national archives office of inspector general contacted a prosecutor at the department of justice. it informed him that the white house had notified the archives that documents bearing classification markings were identified at the office of the penn biden center for diplomacy and global engagement located in washington, d.c. that office was not authorized for storage of classified documents. the prosecutor was also advised that those documents had been secured in an archives facility. on november 9th, the fbi commenced an assessment consistent with standard protocols to understand whether classified information had been

mishandled in violation of federal law. on november 14th, pursuant to section 600.2b, i assigned the attorney general to conduct an investigation. he has served since 2017. before that, he spent more than a decade as an assistant u.s. attorney in that same office. i selected him to conduct the initial investigation because i was confident his experience would ensure that it would be done professionally and expeditiously. on december 20th, president biden's personal counsel informed mr. loush that additional documents bearing classification markings were identified in the garage of the president's private residence in wilmington, delaware. president biden's counsel informed mr. loush that those documents were among other records from the period of the

president's service as vice president. the fbi went to the location and secured those documents. on january 5th, 2023, i was briefed on the results of his initial investigation and he advised me that further investigation by a special counsel was warranted. based on his initial investigation, i concluded that, under the special counsel regulations, it was in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. in the days since, while the investigation continued, the department identified mr. herr for appointment as special counsel. this morning, president biden's personal counsel called and stated that an additional document bearing classification markings was identified at the president's personal residence in wilmington, delaware. when i first contacted mr. loush about this matter, he said he could lead the initial investigation but would be unable to accept any longer-term

assignment because he would be leaving the department in early 2023 for the private sector. the u.s. attorney and his team of prosecutors and agents have conducted this initial investigation with professionalism and speed. i am grateful to them. earlier today, i signed an order appointing robert hur as special counsel for the matter i've just described. the document authorizes him to investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter. the special counsel will not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the department, but he must comply with the regulations, procedures, and policies of the department. mr. hur has a long and distinguished career was a prosecutor. in 2003, he joined the department's criminal division where he worked on counterterrorism, corporate fraud and appellate matters. from 2007 until 2014, mr. hur served as an assistant u.s.

attorney for the district of maryland, where he prosecuted matters ranging from violent crime to financial fraud. in 2017, mr. hur rejoined the department as the principal associate deputy attorney general. in 2018, he was nominated and confirmed to serve as a u.s. attorney for the district of maryland. as u.s. attorney, he supervised some of the department's more important national security, public corruption and other high-profile matters. i will ensure that mr. hur receives all the resources he needs to conduct his work. as i have said before, i strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with sf integrity. but under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence

and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. i am confident that mr. hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department. thank you all. >> have you spoken to the president about this investigation, sir? >> there we just heard from the attorney general, yet another special prosecutor has been announced and appointed in regards to classified documents found in yet another now current president's residence. i want to bring in our panel. let's go to andrew mccabe, first. andy, you know is special counsel robert hur. he was appointed by former president trump. it doesn't appear that was a coincidence as to why the attorney general appointed him. he also went through a list of dates in terms of the sequence of events and when the doj was

notified about this batch of documents, the initial batch was found november 4th and november 14th. he appointed john loush on december 20th. now they were informed that an additional batch of documents were found. tell us what you make of what we just heard from the attorney general, specifically with regards to robert hur being named special prosecutor. >> i think the selection of robert hur is a logical and sound one. as you can see from the brief resumé the attorney general laid out, mr. hur essentially was a career department of justice prosecutor and attorney, both served as an assistant u.s. attorney in the district of maryland, which is of course located in baltimore, and then spent some time significantly working at doj main in the headquarters. i worked with rob when he was appointed as the principal assistant deputy attorney general in 2017. always found him to be

well-informed, hard-working guy. as you mentioned, i think it's not insignificant that he was an appointment from the trump administration, served in the trump administration as a very high level official in the department of justice. so that goes to maybe disarming some of the political criticisms that might come from the right as a result of whatever results come of this investigation. >> and, john miller, i want to bring you in. john loush was the u.s. attorney in illinois who was first tapped to investigate one and then the second batch of classified documents that were found. we heard from the attorney general that he was briefed on january 5th that he would support further investigation and the appointment of a special prosecutor. what do you make of this in terms of where this investigation stands? >> well, i think the discussion that we've all been having, you know, over the last couple of days is, what is the difference in scope and scale between the trump documents at mar-a-lago,

which involved, you know, possible obstruction and attempts to hide them and denials that they exist, and the case where the president's lawyers were going through spaces, looking for files, and found them and immediately reported it. but the special counsel regulations say, does the matter merit investigation, which clearly this did, which is why it was referred to the u.s. attorney in chicago. but, also, are there extraordinary circumstances. and i think it was the judgment of the attorney general at this point that rather than doing backflips and tortured explanations about it not warranting a special counsel, that the single extraordinary circumstance was it involved a sitting president, and those two things came together. the choice of the special prosecutor and rob hur is a particularly well thought-out one, in that you have a person who served in the department of justice under democratic administrations at a very high

level as the principal associate deputy attorney general during the trump administration, who then really made a name for himself as u.s. attorney in maryland, prosecuting the former mayor of baltimore, the former police commissioner of baltimore, delegates and a state senator, a lot of democrats on corruption matters, but most importantly, if you're going to pinpoint this case, he did two very significant investigations into the nsa, two employees, both of whom carried large amounts of classified documents out of the nsa, one of them stored them in his home, in his car, another had massive information electronically, so he is very adept at how to navigate the care, handling, proper handling of classified information and where the lines are between the crime. >> evan perez, i want to bring you in, because, listen, the road to how we got to the attorney general appointing a special prosecutor in these two

cases are quite different. the attorney general, we should remind viewers, signed off on a search warrant of mar-a-lago in terms of president trump and the return of those documents. from everything that we have heard thus far, president biden and his team have been cooperating and his lawyers reached out directly to doj to notify them that these documents were found. that having been said, now we have two special prosecutors investigating these two instances. talk about the timing of this announcement today. >> well, one of the things that the attorney general just clarified for us is that at the time the white house told us on monday about the initial batch of documents, class fified documents that were found, it appears they knew there was a second batch that had been found and they had notified the fbi. the fbi had gone back in december to retrieve those documents. that's an important thing because it raises the question as to why the white house didn't

just disclose everything at the time that they did on monday. but it appears that the justice department was already way past the point where they believed they needed a special counsel. according to the attorney general, the recommendation from the u.s. attorney who was standing next to him, who had done the initial review, he had concluded already by that point that this was a step that needed to be taken, to make sure that the department and its decisions are viewed -- essentially that they are handling this in an independent manner. and i think that's the important thing, certainly for the justice department, for merrick garland and chris ray, two people very much a tuned to the idea that it is important for the justice department to be seen to be handling these casens in an independent manner and whatever happens, they're going to follow the law, they're going to follow the rules.

and the white house, i'm sure, is not pleased this is the direction things have gone, but it appears that the decision was made here very early on and not as a result of the communication snafu that we have seen unfold from the white house in the last few days. >> the decision may have been made early on, but phil mattingly, the public found out about it a bit later, thanks to reporting, not from the white house being transparent. what do you make of that and what are you hearing about the strategy of how this was announced? >> look, listening to evan, i think he's hitting on all the critical points. that was an enlightening timeline from the attorney general, as someone who has been reporting on this for better of the last four days. the fact that -- let's take the timeline for a minute. this news came out on monday. on monday night the president's special counsel from the white house counsel's office put out a

detailed statement related to those ten documents that were found at the penn biden center. there is no implication that other documents were around. the president's private attorneys, according to the attorney general, informed the justice department in december, nearly 15, 20 days before this news broke publicly, that there were additional documents. there was also an additional document that was reported to the justice department, i think, either yesterday or today as well. so the fact that the white house put out a detailed statement related to one set of documents, even though they had known for several weeks that there was another set of documents out there, which we ended up finding out and reporting on last night, i think gives a window into the fact that there's, perhaps at this moment, as we listen to what the white house has said over the course of the last several days, there's a lot of questions about how this was approached and how they walked through things to the extent they could. and, look, full disclosure, they made very clear, they thought

there were limitations into what they could say, the counsel's office protective and cognizant of the fact that they did not want to end up in a place where a special counsel had been appointed. the as a result of that has been a steady drip of information where the president has had to make statements about two different sets of documents, and they knew about both sets before the first set of documents were reported on. so i think trying to put all that together right now, i think it underscores the fact that while there has been an intensive review over the course of the last several months in the wake of finding that first batch of documents, where this goes next. because throughout the course of this week, according to the attorney general, the recommendation from the u.s. attorney came last week that a special counsel was necessary, or in his view, was recommended. so this process has very much been in the works, moving forward, and seems to have been a little bit ahead of where the white house has been not just the last three or four days, but

several weeks. >> we heard from the thattorney general that he was briefed that a special counsel be appointed on january 5th. you know john and you worked with him previously, as noted, both he and rob hur, the special prosecutor who has been tapped to investigate this, are both trump appointees. the attorney general highlighting this underscores the independence and accountability of the doj. but talk about the significance and perhaps the time now, this past week, that the attorney general has spent in focusing specifically on who to appoint. >> yeah, i think it's interesting. i actually was surprised to hear that john wasn't the one who was tapped for special counsel. it looks like he's going to be leaving the department. one thing i will say, as somebody who worked with him for a long time, although he was a trump appointee, i consider him to be nonpartisan, very much a

career doj employee, somebody who is well respected by democrats here in illinois, both the democratic senators came out and asked biden not to remove him when there was an original indication that might happen. and i think the fact that he recommended a special counsel suggests to me that he thinks there's something here that merits investigation. not that he thinks there's going to be charges necessarily, but he thinks that there are still some matters that need to be investigated here, and i suspect that there will be continued interviews regarding -- obviously there was a document that was supposedly just found yesterday at another location. >> if i can just pick up quickly with something you mentioned, i thought i heard that as well from the attorney general. that john said that he would be leaving and that's perhaps why, am i correct to assume, why rob hur was then assigned this case? could we have seen john loush stay on? >> yeah, that's right. i will say -- i'll confess to

the viewers that an hour ago i heard some murmuring that there was going to be a special counsel and i assumed it was going to be john. the fact that the attorney general said he's leaving the doj is news to me, as somebody who knows him well and is part of the former u.s. attorney in chicago community that would know these things pretty early on. so this is news. but the fact of the matter is that i think the attorney general went out of his way both in selecting john, but also in selecting mr. hur, selecting people who were appointed by the former president, president trump, so there will be an appearance to the public that you have somebody who is independent making those judgments. >> let's bring in jamie begange. i'm just curious to get your thoughts and what you're hearing from your sources about how big of an issue this is becoming, and quite quickly for the biden administration right now. >> there's no question there is political fallout here. we have said over and over this

past week that this is very different from the trump mar-a-lago documents, though we don't know what all of these classified documents are and the potential security issues. there's one word that you can say over and over again, which is cooperation. from day one they have cooperated. just as a side note, sort of a footnote to what merrick garland said, he mentioned that yet another document, an additional document was identified today and they were informed about that document. it sounds as if that was also coming from the biden home. but we're now sort of dealing with three groups, the one that was initially found in the office, the second group that was identified, i think, december 20th, and then it appears they're continuing to

look for documents, because something else was mentioned today. but there is no question politically that republicans, donald trump, they are going to use the fact that there is this special counsel, that it wasn't just limited to those first ten documents, for political attacks. >> yeah, and we heard now that the first batch of documents had been found at the penn biden center and that was in early november. now the other two investigations were conducted at the biden wilmington and rehoboth beach residence. in the wilmington home, in the garage, the second batch was found. ball paula reed, if i can get you to weigh in on the impact and the narrative that we have to

back-to-back presidents both being investigated, again, apples and oranges in how it's been handled on their end, but for storing classified documents or having classified documents in their possession. and now having two special prosecutors assigned to investigate these cases. >> it's notable because the justice department doesn't have to farm out tough cases. tough cases is the business they're in. that's what they do. and here you do have what the attorney general described as extraordinary circumstances that do warrant appointing a special counsel, both in the biden situation and also in the situation for former president trump, not only the possible mishandling of classified information at mar-a-lago, but also the way the former president and his team handled that, potentially obstruction of justice that's being looked at there as well. but that's not the only place where the attorney general has sort of found independent people to handle politically fraught

investigations. for the past seven or so years, the justice department has really been mired in these politically very contentious investigations and cases and questions about its impartiality. in this case the first step was to find a trump-appointed attorney in chicago to conduct the initial review. you see merrick garland following the facts but also being mindful of the perception of the justice department and wanting to make sure, at least from an optics standpoint, that these investigations appear to be handled fairly by people who don't have some sort of political bias against those under investigation. so it's a really interesting pattern, and the fact he was able to find another trump-appointed u.s. attorney who was willing to take this on, that's really significant. and of course he found jack smith, who has been in europe for quite some time. even the former president's

lawyer said i'm glad he found someone who hasn't been in the beltway for the last five or six years. so a credit to find people to take on these challenging cases. >> and jack smith quickly jumped in on this case and was quickly read in as well. now we have rob hur catching up to speed here. evan, is it too soon, especially given everything that we know and we're being told from the president and the administration that they are cooperating, they are the ones who proactively reached out to the doj, again there's a lot more to learn here, but is there any liability at this point that the current president could face? >> yeah, there absolutely is, in the order that the attorney general signed to appoint rob hur, they talk about the possible crime that would be prosecuted or investigated here, and it talks about the unauthorized -- the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents and other records.

and that's the crime that is being investigated here. the question is, was this willful, was this something that the president or anyone else may have done on purpose? that is the pursuit here by the fbi and rob hur, the new special counsel looking into this. the white house has made clear in all of their statements that the president, president biden, was not aware that these documents were there, he says that he doesn't know what is in them. we only know from jamie's reporting over the last couple of days that, at least in the initial set of documents, there were some very highly sensitive ts/sci, which is sensitive information included in the ten documents. so, again, there is potential liability here. it is, at least at this point, it does not appear that there is any obstruction being

investigated, but of course that is something that is going to have to be looked at in the future. but that's what the difference is between this investigation, bianna, and the investigation of former president trump, which from the beginning included the question of obstruction. >> and, john, i think it's important and relevant that we highlight we're talking about the time lapse between when the doj was notified and when the public was notified of these classified documents. to go back and think to when we first heard about president trump's issue, and that was when his home was searched after that search warrant was signed off by a judge and obviously implemented initially by merrick farland and the doj, there had been over a year and a half where behind the scenes privately there had been back and forth between trump's camp and the national archives about

getting those documents back. is that a surprise to you, given the lapse we saw in that case? >> not really. the difference is between the national archives, the fbi, the department of justice trying to get cooperation from donald trump and his team to be able to inspect documents, get them back, versus basically a document survey that was going on where they immediately reported that to the department of justice is important. but as evan said, when you look at the special counsel's mandate and there's potential crimes here about the storage and possession of classified documents, it's further complicated by the idea, and remember the mueller report where in the first pages it said office of legal counsel, guidance from the department of justice says a sitting president can't be charged with a crime or indicted or brought to trial. so that is going to throw a little bit of confusion into if they find criminality, then

what? that would mean that the president would have to be impeached and then charged with a crime after the fact. but they have to go through this process because this is now going to be a fact-finding mission and those facts are going to have to be reported. when you look at rob hur, the person they put in this job, this is someone who served as a career justice department official, as an assistant u.s. attorney prosecuting cases, was appointed as a political appointee at the highest levels of the trump justice department and to two presidentially appointed jobs, and a guy who, interestingly, served as the special assistant to christopher ray back when he was in the bush administration as the head of the criminal division and the justice department. >> small circle. >> it's a small circle. and as evan pointed out, the decision to appoint a special counsel, something we've been wrangling with for a couple of days, appears to have been made

on january 5th, and the question of who that would be, and finding a person with the exact resumé that it would make it very hard to accuse them of bias or leaning is what took the time in between. >> yeah, the few days in between. finally, if i could get to you andy mccabe, and get your thoughts as to whether this impacts jack smith's investigation into former president trump. >> i think it does not. it's essential that doj approach the initiation of these investigations in the same way, with the same level of seriousness, and with the appointment of special counsels, which i think were appropriate in both cases. but from that point on, these cases are entirely different, they should proceed where the facts take them, and ultimately each special counsel is going to have to make a recommendation to the ag based on the facts and the law. and as we know, we've talked about it many times, the facts, just the ones that we know so

far in these cases, are very, very different. the course of dealing with the government, what happened when the trump team discovered that they had classified documents versus how the biden team handled it. there's many more facts that we need to understand about the biden situation, but these cases are very different from this point forward and either one could really end up with a declination or a recommendation to go forward. >> again, the big headline for our viewers, the attorney general just appointing a special counsel into an investigation into how the current president biden has handled classified documents that were found at his residence. stay with us. we'll continue to follow this story. when it does, aspepen dental is here for you. we offer the custom dental trtreatments you need, all ununder one roof, right nearby. so we can n bring more life to your smile... and momore smile to your life... affordably. new patients without insurance can get a free complete exam and x-rays,

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we are back now continuing our breaking news coverage of u.s. attorney general merrick garland appointing a special prosecutor to investigate president biden's handling of classified documents. i want to bring our panel back in. jamie gangel, we heard in our previous block about the impeccable credentials in what should be a nonpartisan investigation led by robert herr. he had been appointed by former president trump, he had worked with chris wray and rod ro rosenstein. what do you expect to hear from

republicans in particular but democrats as well in response to this news? >> i think it's going to be very hard to criticize his reputation, his credentials. he was a clerk for justice rehnquist. i am told by sources in the justice community that he has impeccable conservative credentials. so i think that merrick garland has picked someone whose impartiality in all of this is not going to be questioned. as andy mccabe said earlier, just going through his resume. one other thing i think it's worth talking about, we have seen documents mishandled with both donald trump and now joe biden. but i went back to talk to sources who have worked with past presidents, vice presidents, also sources who are familiar with the national

archives. this doesn't happen a lot. it is true that from time to time high-level officials will find a folder in the back of a closet. there are incidents where a widow of a high-level official found something. there's a story where a university was given papers for a high-level official and then going through them years later, they found documents. but if you go back, bush 41, this did not happen. bush 43, no. clinton, no. obama, no. dick cheney, no. so there are honest mistakes. there are situations like what happened with donald trump where it seems that he wanted to hold on to some things. he thought everything was his. but this is not usual for presidents and vice presidents. >> andy mccabe, if i could get you to respond to what you just heard from jamie gangel, because that is a question many are asking, how common is this of

presidents to remove classified documents, knowingly or unknowingly, and storing them, has it happened before. and also to the question of the impartiality and the respect that members of both parties have for prosecutor rob hur because i'm just a bit skeptical given that we heard the same accolades in the initial early days of bob mueller being assigned to investigate the former president until that all changed. >> sure. so to your first question, i think jamie is absolutely right. i think this is until very recently, these problems with the retention of classified material or sensitive material by presidents is fairly rare. i would suggest that the reason for that is because presidential administrations and vice presidential administrations have large, competent professional staffs. this is largely a staff issue. i would be willing to bet a lot of money that joe biden didn't

sit there and decide what got packed up out of his vice presidential office before he left. so you have highly trained competent staff, professional staff around. usually these problems don't happen. that's why you do see it more among high-level officials who don't have that sort of expansive staff. that's how mistakes can happen, documents can end up in places where you didn't intend them to be. with respect to how much rob hur's strong reputation will protect him and insulate him from criticism, i suspect that will last maybe until the end of today. your reference to robert mueller is the perfect comparison. he was the imminently acceptable by both sides, candidate for the special counsel position, and that lasted just long enough until the republicans decided it was advantageous to criticize him. i would point out criticize him baselessly.

and that's when he started receiving a lot of intense fire. you can very easily see the same thing from rob hur if the politicians decide that it's advantageous to do so. >> evan, in our final few seconds, if you could reminding our viewers, what these classified documents per takened to that were found? >> the importance here is from what we know, from the important reporting that jamie has done, the first ten documents included things that were at the tssci level, things that had to do with briefing papers that were prepared for then vice president biden. by comparison, trump had hundreds of documents that were labelled at the highest classification levels, and that's the reason why there's been such a concern about those documents. the problem for joe biden and for this investigation is that even -- even though these documents are from the obama/biden years, right, that information may still be

classified because of the sensitivity and the sources and methods in which they were collected. so that's the issue here which is being looked into. >> evan perez and panel, thank you so much for joining me this hour. for viewers at home, stay with us for the breaking news. we'll continue right after this quick break. because e it's powered by the most potent source of energy there is ... you. this is the lexus variety of electrification ... inspired by, created for and powered by you. ♪ meet a future mom, a first-time mom and a seasoned pro. this mom's one step closer to their new mini-van! yeah, you'll get used to it. this mom's depositing moy with tools on-hand. cha ching. anthis mom, well, she's setting an appointment here,

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