do that. because what biden will say is i was completely cooperative with the investigators, i let them oh consented to searches of my home, as soon as we found documents turned them over, so they could account for everything. by contrast, they are going to show trump fought them every step of the way and tried to hide stuff from them. >> sandra: the indictment says several documents concerned military activities, we now know, reading through the latest, we know the president is travelling right now, he is expected to speak very soon, he's been asked a bunch about this on his interest in so far, a lot of reporters have peppered him with questions as he's been walking about and he has refused to answer any that we have seen so far, so we'll certainly be listening for any white house reaction. andy, it appears 37 counts in

the indictment, i believe you said 38. we are still counting, going through it. >> 37 or 38. i'm going like this, sandra. you know. >> sandra: yeah. >> it's -- it's over three dozen and it's 40-something page document. >> john: the 38th count is false statements allegedly on the part of the president's valet and personal assistant. but 37 related to trump and notta together, and then that one separate one, number 38. but i mean, this thing reads like a book. >> sandra: hard to print. so, we are still going through it, and the top secret records seized by the fbi from the trump home as we learn more, andy, as we touched on earlier, they detailed on foreign nations' nuclear capabilities. we obviously have prepared for and had some inkling so far. is this more or less than you

expected, where are you on this, andy? >> it's much more than i expected, sandra, on the substance of the documents. ordinarily when you have a classified information case they have a defense tactic that's known as gray mail where the government prosecutors are trying as hard as they can to try to convince the court that the only thing that matters here is that the document was classified, or that it was secret. the substance of it is not something we need to get into. and commonly what happens is the defense will say, because they know this puts the government in a tough position, we need the substance of the documents in order to make our defense and it's kind of -- that's almost an extortion tactic, why they call it gray mail. so usually it's the government is fighting to -- to have this kind of information not in the public domain. here we are seeing a lot more of it than i would ever have expected to see and it's very interesting for us, but i just

wonder from the prosecution standpoint, particularly from the government standpoint, you know, when you start to play this game, when you show a little bit, you are kind of opening a pandora's box because they are really inviting trump to say we need much more about the substance of these documents so that people can put in context what i was doing here. so you know, it's hard for them to make the argument they need to preserve these matters as secret and confidential if they are showing part of it in the indictment. >> john: well, andy, we are going through this whole thing and -- the president will be in court in miami on tuesday afternoon to answer those charges in a preliminary hearing. stick with us. bring in shannon bream, chief legal correspondent and host of "fox news sunday." you have been diligently going through this thing, what do you make of it so far? >> not all the way through but i think it's important to go back to the back of the indictment,

the penalty sheet and that tells us what the former president and this alleged co-conspirator could face, and when you go through this, you have the first group of counts, 31, all under the same statutory provision. each could carry up to ten years of imprisonment, that's a max, and fine up to 250,000. and conspiracy to obstruct justice and withholding a document or record, those are 20 years maximum each. also concealing a document or record, that's another 20 years. in federal investigation concealing a document, another 20 years, and a couple of others that get you to the five years each. so i mean, this is significant jail time if this case proceeds, if it gets to trial without a deal, if there is a conviction on any of these counts, these are not easily brushed away. this is something that is a real danger to anybody who would be facing this indictment. these are real charges with real potential time behind bars and heavy fines which would be the least of the former president's

worries. so politically this is in the past helped him, the new york indictment helped him and boosted him in fundraising and polls. this is another story. it probably will also feed his narrative washington does not want him back here "the deep state to trying to keep him out" but along with the political benefit there are serious legal risks and point by point very detailed allegations about how he and this alleged co-conspirator worked together to make sure there were false statements made through attorneys and legal members to the doj through the trump team. there is a lot of allegation of misleading, of moving boxes. not only that he had them, the possession of the documents but as we said, the follow-up, what comes behind that. not being truthful allegedly about the documents of potentially moving documents involving someone else in that, so that's how we get to this 37, 38 counts indictment, this could have stayed sealed until tuesday but clearly the justice department which will speak

about it shortly felt it was important to get it out there. this is their side of the story. the former president is innocent until proven guilty and this is the case they are making. >> sandra: the president and first lady were departing for the next stop at fort liberty a moment ago, the president was asked if he will speak to a.g. garland, he responded when asked if he had spoken to garland yet, i have not spoken to him at all, i'm not going to speak to him, i have no comment on what happened. so that is the response so far from the white house. as we are getting a closer and closer look at some of the various conversations that have been included in this unsealed, now unsealed indictment, shannon. one is a conversation between the former president and a staffer where the president said this was done by the military and given to me, i think we can probably write, the staffer replied i don't know, we'll have to see, yeah, we'll have to try.

former president trump said declassify it, the staffer said figure out and took a pause, the president said see, as president i could have declassified it, the staffer said yeah, the former president said now i can't, you know, but this is still a secret. the staffer said yeah, and the former president asked isn't that interesting. these are some of the conversations that are being included in this indictment, shannon. >> yeah, and when you have this detail, this is what grand juries do. they bring in people to testify. it's very much considered a one-sided thing. the government is making its case. you are going to hear from people that are going to help it put together this case. prosecuting it and getting it to a jury is a completely -- another phase of getting to a unanimous jury in the next phase. the grand jury is going to hear a lot, some of which may not be even allowed into trial, and so they are going to hear that story, and hear about the conversations, hear from these employees and associates and people that we have been told scores of people were brought in

for these investigations for these interviews and that being presented to the grand jury is it what makes up the guts of this indictment we are seeing today. >> john: shannon, stay with us. also get jonathan turley in here. we are just going through this and again, reading some of the evidence that the prosecutors have against the president, they detail a conversation that he had on may 23rd, 2022, with a couple of his attorneys where the president, according to the doj said i don't want looking, i don't want anybody looking through my boxes, i really don't, i don't want you looking through my boxes. president goes on to say, what if we, whatps if we just don't respond at all to the subpoena i guess or don't play ball with them. president goes on to say. wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here. well look, isn't it better if there are no documents.

you know, they've got these conversations memorialized by the president's attorneys, and also this recording of him where he talks about this plan that's believed an attack plan against iran, i mean, they have a lot of information in this, jonathan. >> it is an extremely damning indictment. you know, there are indictments there are sometimes called narrative or speaking indictments. these are indictments that are really meant to make a point as to the depth of the evidence. there are some indictments that are just bare bones. this is not. the special counsel knew there would be a lot of people who were going to allege that the department of justice was acting bias or politically motivated way. this is clearly an indictment that was drafted to answer those questions. it's overwhelming in detail. and you know, the trump team should not fool itself. these are hits below the water

line. these are witnesses who apparently testified under oath, gave statements to federal investigators, both of which can be criminally charged if they are false. those witnesses are directly quoting the president and encouraging others not to look for documents or allegedly to conceal them. it's damaging. and the key here to keep in mind is that every case i've ever been involved with, the indictment was a heart stopper, you know, these are written by lawyers who are trying to convict the client, every indictment i've ever dealt with has fallen apart to some degree once we look more carefully what the evidence may be. but this is -- is not an indictment that you can dismiss. there are a lot of people who are testifying under oath and they are saying highly incriminating things with regard to these charges. >> sandra: just want to say, we

are about to see more of the president on his travels, certainly listen for him to take any more questions on this. we are currently monitoring president trump's truth social account as he often puts out his statements via social media. we have not seen any update there yet. we did see him out golfing earlier today after learning of the indictment last night. but no official statement coming from him yet, and jonathan, this is all happening after just hours ago the radio airwaves when this happened, that we learned that the former president was shaking up the gal team in this moment. >> yeah, two leading lawyers have been removed, including jim trusty, a very experienced prosecutor has been the face of this defense team and this is yet another shake-up and what's interesting is that this indictment talks about these

conversations with various lawyers who are not identified by name. you can see how the government succeeded in forcing these lawyers to appear in the grand jury because these are statements that would go directly to allegations of an effort to conceal. the key to remember all of this, is that particularly the false statement claim are particularly dangerous because they are stand alone claims. what i mean by that, there's a lot of questions as to the president's authority to classify or declassify. i don't believe that that argument is going to be as significant as the trump team has suggested. but regardless of any of that you can't make false statements to investigators, and each of those statements are reviewed by the jury in an insular and independent way. this thing is chuck full of those allegations. >> sandra: jonathan, if you

could stay with us, and andy mccarthy is with us as well, and the former president is expected to surrender to miami authorities on tuesday after this indictment. can you sort of set up what that's going to look like and what will go down on tuesday? >> i think, sandra, it will be similar but better coordinated than former president trump's arraignment in manhattan on the charges, the state charges there, because these are federal agencies that work together all the time so the fbi, the justice department, and secret service will work together to make sure there is, you know, safe passage for president trump and security to get into the courthouse. he'll be processed like any other defendant is processed, and he will have a court appearance at which he is arraigned by a federal district court judge.

he'll enter a plea, because this is arraignment on an indictment, and if the case is already assigned to a judge by that point, i'm not quite sure what the process is in miami for how they parse out cases to individual judges, but what would happen ordinarily, the case will be assigned to a judge, and they would set a schedule for making motions and perhaps even a trial date, although it seems to me there will be a lot of motion practice in this case. >> john: andy, one thing we know at least initially the case will be handled by judge eileen canon, who was a trump appointee and actually came under fire from some circles for making rulings involving this case that were favorable to the president. you know, we don't know how judge canon feels about the case in the whole, and she's supposed to judge on the law. but if past is prologue, based

on how she has handled the case so far, what might be see in that preliminary hearing on tuesday. >> obviously it will be very -- her performance will be very scrutinized and obviously it against on whether she's handling the case for purposes simply of the arraignment as kind of an administrative thing or whether she's going to be the judge assigned to the case. if she's the judge assigned to the case there's going to be a lot of negative publicity, you can be sure, over the next few days. it's not just that legal commentators had a lot of derogatory things to say about her performance, she was slapped down pretty hard by the court of appeals when she really not enough legal support said there should be a special master in this case to go through the thousands of documents seized from mar-a-lago and make decisions about whether some of it should be withheld from the prosecutors on the grounds of

attorney/client privilege and executive privilege and what have you. her reasoning in that case was not very persuasive and the court of appeals did not pull a lot of punches. >> we are still waiting on an official statement from the former president himself, the white house is an official no comment as a few moments ago we heard there. we await the actual handling of this in the miami court on tuesday, a few days from when this indictment was actually revealed, and this was issued to the president in the unsealing a few moments ago. is jonathan turley still with us? >> yes. >> sandra: jonathan, your take where this goes on tuesday. >> well, i agree with andy. it's probably going to be more smoothly handled than we saw in new york. but i would expect this to be a

sort of standard operating procedure hearing, even though the case is anything but standard. i think the court is going to want to convey this is being handled in as much the way as other cases as possible. there's going to be some differences. you are not going to have a president take secret service into a cell. you are going to have to make, as they did in new york, accommodations for his security. and in going forward you have this new team coming in that's not such a bad idea, by the way, because the nature of these charges really did contaminate, contaminate a lot of the preexisting trump team, so having someone sort of come in who has been unaffected by the allegations may have some benefit to that. but they have a heck of a job here because these are a lot of witnesses recounting a lot of statements from the president that are going to have to be knocked down and the president,

you know, has asserted all along that he has the authority to take and declassify this evidence. a lot of these charges don't turn on that authority. a lot of these charges are saying that there was obstruction and false statements that were made which could still could result in conviction even if the court were to entertain the arguments. a president around 76 years old. if he's convicted on any of these counts, they can range from 10 to 20 years. that could be a lethal sentence, even if you don't get the maximum. so, this is a fight for the president and it is going to tear the country apart and i think that's one of the reasons why this indictment is so detailed. i think the special counsel is trying to show that this was not a reach, it was not a close case, and that there's a reason why they are going forward. >> john: yeah, i mean, you have

for the very first time a president being indicted by federal prosecutors right after you had the very first time the president was indicted by state prosecutors, you have this 49-page indictment, 38 counts, excuse me, count 32 really gets to the crux of the case, that's the conspiracy to obstruct justice in which it says donald j. trump and his personal assistant did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree with each other and with others known and unknown to the grand jury to engage in misleading conduct toward another person and corruptly persuade another person to withhold a record, document and other object from an official proceeding. the purpose of the conspiracy was for trump to keep classified documents he had taken with him from the white house and to hide and conceal them from a federal grand jury. jonathan, the question i've always had, because as we have seen in the past, former presidents and former vice presidents have had classified

documents in their possession that were boxed up and maybe inadvertently taken from the white house complex and put either in a library or put maybe in their personal residence, and any time that that was discovered, those documents were quickly turned back over. the question that i have had in all of this is, i don't know, jonathan, if you have insight into this, why did trump want to hang on to this stuff? >> no, i'm baffled, and once again, we have a narrative here that's written by people who want to send the former president away for the rest of his life so we have to read this indictment with that in mind. but parts of this indictment sort of have a certain pattern that has existed before. the president is a counter puncher, and he tends to shove back when shoved. and that is not necessarily the best inclination when you are dealing with classified documents. but obviously in this indictment he comes across as sort of a

captain queeg, he's obsessed with keeping these documents. that's a dangerous inclination because he was dealing with documents that even if they weren't classified were still subject to federal law in terms of mishandling. but the biggest issues once again we have been saying this for months and this indictment bears it out, is going to be obstruction and false statements. they are going to have to knock down these accounts. have to get these witnesses to show that it was not as cut and dry as this indictment says. and that's going to take a lot of work, a lot of spade work by this new attorney, have to ramp up awfully fast. the other thing, by the way, this is a very broad array of witnesses. it seems unlikely that they can get this to trial before the election. there is going to be challenges going up to the court of appeals, which means this judge is going to have a headache, they are going to run out of

runway before they get close to the election. most judges are not going to want a trial months before a presidential election. so that could make the election a type of sort of referendum on how people feel about this case. so you may have a second jury composed of tens of millions of americans essentially voting on this. if he's elected, he can pardon himself. >> sandra: jonathan turley, if you could stand by with us. shannon bream is joining us now. shannon, thanks for jumping back in here, i know you've had a chance to go over the document which i think we all had a hard time printing, unsealed document outlines two clear circumstances in which the former president did allegedly show these documents to other people, one occurred in a meeting with a writer at his golf club in

bedminster, described federal officials plan of attack, we read that earlier, against him, and purportedly acknowledging he knew the information is still a secret, the later meeting with a representative from his political action committee, the former president displayed a "classified map related to a military operation acknowledging he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close." and that was a direct quote of the former president, according to prosecutors in this indictment. what more have you been able to go through there, shannon? >> yeah, those are the two standouts for sure, and much made of a recording potentially of a meeting in which the president said some of these things and it looks like that accounting in this indictment, on page 16 of the copy that we have, where he's talking with a writer and a publisher about a book that's going to come out, that language seems to mirror what we have been told is in

recording, he says as president i could have declassified it, laughing by a staffer, now i can't, you know, but this is it still a secret. staffer, yeah, now we have a problem, trump, isn't that interesting. so we have heard much about the recording, seems it is clearly, if this is it, in the possession and has been of the justice department as they are looking at that. but there are also all of these text messages that go back and forth. month after month of times where employees and people working with president trump, all of these text messages, he's going through certain boxes so they have detailed records, clearly as a result of subpoenas the grand jury has seen and placing and putting this together and more of a timeline of the communications where the boxes were being held. there are pictures also that apparently the allegation here is that one of the employees was taking pictures of the boxes where they were stacked, what they were doing so they could show the president where things were and how they were being handled. at 1.1 of -- at one point, able

to see documentation that the indictment says only available to very specific highly classified eyes with other countries and the u.s., so at that point some awareness of the employee who took a picture of that and saw it said there is something here that apparently they told the grand jury, you know, we knew this was something potentially out of the ordinary, describes what they saw. a lot of communication about moving boxes and doing things, outlying detail, a lot of detail as we have been saying in this indictment that paints a picture of exactly where prosecutors are going to try to go, some against the president, some against the alleged co-conspirator helping him and part of the texting and back and forth on the messages, they are both potentially facing serious jail time as we see the

communications that outline what was happening at the same time that the archives was demanding this information back and there were representations and allegations the president pressured people to make false allegations that didn't line up with what they knew they actually had at mar-a-lago and bedminster. >> john: we remember as you talked about pictures of boxes in rooms, we remember the photograph the fbi released, doj released of all of the top secret documents all over the floor, see it on the lower right-hand side of the screen. in terms of the number of documents related to this indictment, it's 31 various levels of classification and shannon, i asked this question of jonathan turley, i'll ask it of you, do you have any knowledge of why the president wanted to hang on to this stuff and why he was apparently according to this indictment so adamant about hanging on to this stuff and not turning it back over to the archives? >> it does raise a lot of questions for us and the fact he

had in these two alleged incidents here, had shared them with people, was it sort of a status symbol, look what i have here, you know, one of these meetings was alleged to be the writer and publisher of a book coming out. was he trying to keep material so he would use it for memoirs or his side of the story, any number of things. if the allegation of this conversation is accurate, it shows that he knew that these were documents he could not declassify and shouldn't have had but as i said earlier, everything that's presented to the grand jury is pretty much one sided. there is not a defense voice in there telling the other side of the story or taking issue with the employees or witnesses or texts, that's what happens at trial. it will be a much different situation when his legal team can then rebutt these things or try to. >> john: what defense is there for having to plan to attack a certain country, and we believe from the reports, iran. >> no defense of that, but maybe

the defense is that's not how the conversation happened. if there are recordings, that's difficult, that's an he have -- issues of veracity -- >> sandra: you mentioned the different level of classification in the indictment, lucas tomlinson according to the indictment, 102 documents, 17 marked top secret, 54 secret, and 31 confidential. so 17 in the top secret category, shannon. >> yeah, and the fact is we have talked about the, you know, we heard there were going to be different statutory measures used here and did not know how many counts with each, the first one we talk about is section 793, willful retention of national defense information. 31 counts on that point alone.

so then as we talked about it goes to the alleged concealment and moving and hiding of these documents, of lying about them to the government, so the first part is possession and all of these things have potential jail time if there's a conviction, there are minimums and maximums, but they are significant and so 31 counts on that first point alone about those documents on national security. >> john: so that's your legal hat, let's put your political hat as host of "fox news sunday" on. what's the net political effect of this? we don't know when the trial will actually happen, but it could be the trial is not over before the election. what happens if he gets elected president and gets convicted? >> then there's a question about him pardoning himself. and right now the question becomes -- first of all -- >> john: does he run on that? >> he might, and there are other people. are they going to run on that. we have some gop contenders, if you elect me president and he's been convicted, i will pardon

the former president. that puts all the other gop contenders on the hot seat answering that question and caused almost every one of them to publicly defend him and come to his defense in the last 12 hours, it's tough on the field, good for him politically if it pans out the way it did with the new york city indictment, he said it will help me, and it did. >> sandra: ari, your time, what are the implications politically? >> well, i think as everybody has said, there's a short-term boost for donald trump here and the boost comes from the fact that especially for republican primary voters, they are sick of the hypocrisy. where was the indictment of hillary clinton, where was the indictment of others, sandy berger, he got dismissed with a misdemeanor after he stuffed classified information in his sock and took it out of the national archives building. so, why are they going after donald trump with the series of felony charges when donald trump is running against joe biden, merrick garland the attorney general is an agent of joe

biden. this is them dealing with their political opponent through the criminal system. longer term, though, i don't know. because i think there's a lot of seriousness to these charges. i already said i wouldn't have brought them because of the damage it's going to do to the country and inconsistently, where republicans, donald trump treated one way, but they have brought them. will this cause any number of republicans to say sometimes donald trump can be too hot to handle, isn't it time for somebody different for 2024, or will republicans say it is wrong to let joe biden dominate our process and by going after trump pick our opponent, pick his opponent by bringing these charges so republicans will rally behind donald trump. short-term rally, but this one could be different into 2024, we'll just have to watch and see. >> john: ari, coming back to that point about whether or not candidates out there make a

point of saying they will pardon president trump if he becomes -- if -- if they became president, i'm sorry, and i'm going back to something that ro khanna said last hour here on this program, where he said he trusts the fbi to carry out an investigation and he doesn't know that the house oversight committee should be involved in looking into this form 1023. is there, among trump supporters, enough of a distrust of the fbi and the doj that anybody who pledges to pardon the president has got a leg up here because that feeds into their whole narrative about distrust of government? >> yeah, absolutely. absolutely, john. i think every wise republican should make a pledge they would pardon donald trump because -- because in effect, the obama administration pardoned hillary clinton. she committed equally somewhat equally the same crime, alleged

crime that donald trump is accused of. classified information at her home she did not handle properly, top secret information and then she destroyed evidence. the obama administration looked the other way. the department of justice let james comey make the decision. that was in essence pardoning hillary clinton. so why would it be any different for donald trump? and that's what republican primary voters know. >> sandra: i think that's a good question to put to our legal panel that's joining us right now. andy, how do you answer that question? how does this case of the former president trump differ from the other politicians that are known to have been in possession of classified documents? we know the doj just closed their case with former vice president mike pence. >> yeah, i think all along, sandra, they -- the way that this indictment is charged and also what they did in connection

with pence last week, dropping that case, this document, this indictment, as much as it's a legal document, it's also a political document. and what they are trying to suggest to people is that there is an element of willfulness which is the bright line between people who should be prosecuted and people who should be given a pass. now, i personally do not buy that. i think it was a terrible travesty that hillary clinton was not charged. i thought david patraeus should have been charged with a felony, i didn't think it was right he got a slap on the wrist that he got. the question is, if you decide that those things are things that shouldn't have been done, what do you make of that. in other words, if you've done something atrocious in terms of using your prostitution authority -- i can't say that we

can keep the country safe and keep the integrity of classified information and at the same time say that the hillary clinton precedent is the one that we have to apply to all high ranking officials who do terrible things with classified information. what they are clearly trying to do here, because they know that president biden has a significant classified information problem of his own, is lay out a case that makes it look like trump is so singular and so willful in what he's done wrong that there is a rationale for prosecuting him with 38, 37 charges as we have seen and giving biden a pass because we all know biden is going to get a pass. >> john: so let's bring shannon bream back in here again for the political angle on this, andy. so, we've got a couple of firsts here. a president, ex-president for the first time indicted, now indicted again by both state and federal authorities, so that's

precedent setting on those two levels. and then he's running for president as well. so voters are going to, for the very first time in history, vote for a -- many people will vote for him, vote for a person who is under indictment twice. now, among the trump faithful, that's probably a badge of honor for them and they will support their former president regardless come hell or high water. but for independent voters who are taking a look at this and saying well, i have a choice between -- if trump becomes the nominee, or even if they are voting in the primary, i have a choice between somebody under indictment twice or a person who is not under indictment who is espousing many of the same policies, how do they make the calculation whether they cast the vote for trump? >> that's what we have to figure out, voter fatigue or will it bruise him so badly to make it hard to win in the general. the team says they are just as

good head to head with president biden as desantis is. we will see. the investigations of president trump him saying this is about the establishment wanting to keep me out of washington, that's nothing new and think about the years it took to get here and some people will stay as a magnet, look back on the hillary clinton case and say that didn't go anywhere like we thought it should. hunter biden, the story was suppressed going into the investigation. they will point to the durham report. fbi clearly went outside the bounds and got things wrong. in their mind, they have been building to years. it's not just oh, provided got indicted and now rally to his cause. there has been this growing belief the government is not treating people fairly, that's their perception. so, that's taken a lot of time. i don't think they will easily be swayed away. >> john: as andy observed, may

be one of the reasons why the indictment is the level of detail that it is because the doj and the fbi know that there will be an inherent bias against anything that they come out with from trump faithful, and does this indictment overcome that skepticism, i don't think so. but it going to come down to a court of law and see what happens. >> the fact we will hear from the doj shortly is very interesting. the justice department has often wanted to signal it's not a decision by merrick garland, the attorney general. when you set up a special counsel, it is because there is inherent conflict or appearance of conflict, you want it to be handled independently. but also jack smith, the special counsel here, would be keeping the attorney general informed of any major decisions. this is run by him. the only way the attorney general would say no to what jack smith wanted to do and moving forward if he found something out of bounds. but it's fair, to be clear to say, this has been by merrick

garland's desk before we got to today. >> sandra: shannon, if you could stand bipary with us, and we ar going to bring in peter doocy, ari is with us as well, and the 3:00 top of the hour special counsel news conference, 3:00 p.m. eastern time, jack smith about to make a statement. he has been the special counsel looking into trump's role and the retention of the classified records. we also, peter, just got an official time, we have the day, now the time of the courtroom appearance for the former president and his aide, the special counsel office a minute ago confirming 3:00 p.m. tuesday will be the court appearance for the former president trump. jump on in here, peter. >> so we have this jack smith announcement coming at the top of the hour and we know that officials here at the biden white house are going to be watching it on cable news because that's what they keep telling us, we ask them, did you have advance notice about this,

how did you find out, and they are telling us all the way up to the president news like last night's indictment on truth social, president biden is finding out about it through news reports. officials on board air force one travelling with the president don't want to comment about the specifics of the case and don't want to comment on things bubbling up in the universe, like hillary clinton's call to fund raise off of this. however, president biden took a very brief question about his contact with the attorney general that he installed and senate confirmed, doj merrick garland a few minutes ago, we have the tape. >> president biden, have you spoken to attorney general merrick garland? >> i have not spoken to him at all, i'm not going to speak to him, no comment on what happened. >> and that's basically been the line from here dating back to last summer. i was going through my notes while listening to andy and

jonathan and on august 24th of last year i asked the president how much advance notice did you have of the fbi plan to search mar-a-lago, and his answer that day was i didn't have any advance notice, none, 0, not one single bit. back to you. >> sandra: well -- go ahead. >> john: i was going to say peter, up on the screen a photograph, detailing page 14 of the indictment, taken by walt notta, apparently he went into one of the storage rooms and found one of the boxes had fallen over so he took a photograph of this and transmitted it to someone else, and you can see there there's a copy of the washington post, a few other papers, and then you can see that there's a redaction on one of the papers underneath that. apparently that was a secret document that he took a photo of and then transmitted it, so that's in the indictment here as i guess mishandling of classified information. but again, peter, all of this is

just sort of background and context to the overall charge that the doj is making here and that is conspiracy to obstruct, to give false statements and engage in activity to try to hang on to these documents. peter, i know you know the president -- the former president personally, you have spoken to him a number of times, you know all of his aides as well. has anybody given a rational explanation as to why he so adamantly wanted to hang on to this material? >> no, and john, i know that you were here in this spot every day that trump was president and so you would have better insight into his mind than i would. but i really don't understand and it doesn't look like the government is willing to try to get inside of his head, at least yet. we are just laying it all out and i know that there have been a lot of comparisons between the

trump case and the biden case. but the issue it does seem to be is that the biden people say that when they found out that there were documents in a storage room and in the garage and somewhere else at the wilmington house and then at the penn-biden center here in washington, d.c., they say they started to take proactive measures to get the documents back. we know it didn't necessarily happen right away, but the difference the way the folks at this white house see things is that they were at least getting the ball rolling towards getting the stuff back. and we haven't seen the photos from inside the biden office or inside the biden garage, so it's hard to -- it is not a clean comparison at all, based on everything that we know. >> well, and what we are -- what we now know is these documents were stored in boxes and various

locations at mar-a-lago as we have been trying to make possible for our tv screen the pictures that are detailed in the indictment. this is one of them, the spilled box there at the mar-a-lago club, including a ballroom, some were stored in, a bathroom, a shower, office space, his bedroom and storage room, and recap for anyone getting a look at the images, the former president has been charged with willful retention of national defense information in these documents, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and false statements and representations. his aide has been charged with conspiracy to construct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and false representations. peter, have you getting any sense the president will eventually comment on this? >> no, it seems like it's going to be a while before joe biden

talks about this. but to john's question earlier about trying to get into trump's head, while we don't know what his motivations would be for keeping this material, i remember doing an interview with him at some point or we were talking to him doing live shots during the transition and this would have been january of 2017 or december of 2020, and he was so proud to show the crew the newer of the ballrooms at mar-a-lago, talking about how he had to go to fight with the palm beach board and he won and he got to build this thing. that's what he wants people to think of when they look at mar-a-lago. probably a safe bet and john, you would know better, he doesn't want people to see mar-a-lago as a place where there are documents on the floor. >> john: yeah, and one of the

rooms the documents were being stored in was a room that guests could potentially have access to, because it did have access to the patio outside where guests would often gather. the 31 documents cited in the indictment, most of them are about military capabilities of foreign countries, there is the document regarding -- outlining military strategy for attack against a country believed to be iran, and that was the one the president was describing, sandra read it to us a while ago to people who were there to gain some background information for mark meadows' upcoming book. it's interesting, too, when you look at the transcript of that conversation, ellipsis so the president said so you attack and it's redacted there, potentially the president described what the do you want said.

but one of the documents that caught my attention was from october of 2018, peter, and it said regarding communications with the leader of a foreign country. it's believed the president wanted to hang on to his communications with kim jong-un, and secret, no foreign sharing, document dated october 21, 2018, concerning communications with a leader of a foreign country. i'm wondering if that was one of the letters from kim jong-un, peter. >> it's entirely possible. he has talked a lot about that as he has restarted his white house campaign, and i'm seeing these photos in color for the first time on screen that are up, and it is extraordinary to think about this moment in time where you've got the two front runners, one of them had classified material next to a corvette, and the other one has classified material next to the toilet. and in a shower. and it's just an extraordinary moment to look -- there is the toilet and the shower curtain,

there is a chandelier above. it's -- we have known a little bit about what the government was getting at, but we haven't seen this and it really -- and again, we haven't seen the photos yet of the biden investigation. at some point if charges are brought we will see those photos. but just based on what we are seeing here it's extraordinary to think about what these two guys might have to talk about if they find each other on a debate stage. >> sandra: true. peter, if you could stand by with us, jonathan turley is still with us. jonathan, the first time the viewers are starting to get a look at some of the pictures. the boxes piled up at various locations at mar-a-lago, going back to the picture on the screen a moment ago, clearly boxes photographed in this indictment that were in a bathroom with a toilet and sink next to it. to john's earlier point, it could have been a space accessed by any visitors to the estate.

>> yeah, it's really breathtaking. obviously this is mishandling, you know, putting classified documents into ballrooms and bathrooms is, borders on the bizarre. and these are the types of pictures that hit you below the water line in a trial. i mean, jurors tend to be very visual in terms of evidence. and it's hard to show a picture of these boxes surrounding a toilet and saying we really acted responsibly. now we have not really heard from the trump team on these specific allegations, but also keep in mind, a bit of account stacking here, the government is bringing dozens of counts, they only have to land one of those punches. keep in mind every one of these counts is coming with a substantial potential sentence. so for the trump team they have

to run the table. they have to take out every single count or you've got a 76-year-old man looking at a potentially terminal sentence. so this is a big challenge for the defense. the visual and the audio tape evidence is really daunting. you know, the audio tape that they transcribed makes it sound like the president was using some of these documents as trophies, and that's likely to be the narrative that comes out of the trial that he's boasting. that's going to undermine it even further in the eyes of these jurors. >> john: so here is the other question for you then, jonathan. you said in the eyes of the jurors. how and a lot of people have tremendous faith in the system of justice in this country. but how do you find a pool of jurors who haven't made up their

mind about this, haven't heard -- haven't heard about it, don't know just about every detail about this president and this entire case? >> right, you really wonder whether you want a juror who is unfamiliar with the facts. these are on every single news program in the country. you don't want to end up with a jury of troglodites. so not whether they have knowledge but whether they have bias and clearly it's not always possible for a court to eliminate those with bias, but the courts try to do the best they can through voir dire. the biggest problem i think for them is not this jury pool. the biggest problem is knocking down some of this evidence. this seems to me all admissible in terms of these photographs and that's going to leave a mark. i mean, they are going to have to find a way to explain how this happens. the biggest problem, by the way,

with having the president caught on tape is that he's recognizing, according to the government, that these are classified documents and that he didn't have the authority to declassify them. and so again, they've got to come with some -- some narrative that is able to thread that needle. but these are really 38 needles you have to thread. >> sandra: andy mccarthy is still with us. andy, obviously a live look at the special counsel's office there in washington, we are about to hear from him top of the hour, we expect him to step in front of that microphone. what do you expect to hear? >> i think he will stick with this very detailed indictment because as jonathan has been outlining in chapter and verse, it's very strong -- the case doesn't get any better for the government than the one day that you have before defense lawyers start to try to dismantle your

case to lay it out in chapter and verse for the public. so this is a high time for him and he should stick to the script, stick to the four corners of the document. obviously what the media is going to want to know, what were your consultations with attorney general garland. they'll want to suggest or at least give him an opportunity to say this was my decision, very little, if any, consultation with the attorney general, no interference from the white house, because he was brought in, let's remember, there's no conflict of interest with the biden justice department investigating trump. in fact, they were doing it for a year and a half before garland appointed smith, which i think he did not for legal reasons, because there was no conflict, but for political reasons. they knew that a case was going to be brought against trump and they wanted to create some

insulation for president biden and the biden justice department to say hey, we have nothing to do with this, we are detached, we brought in this veteran prosecutor to exercise prosecution discretion and we are not interfering with him. and for his part, what smith is going to do, play to that party line and say i'm an independent actor, i looked at this, my assessment of the evidence and he's going to want to talk about the fact he's laid out or at least what he will plead are facts that he's laid out in the indictment. >> john: we are hearing from the president on that point about the prosecutor, he has a slightly different opinion than the one that you just voiced. it's a lengthy on truth social security among other things describes jack smith as a deranged lunatic. so the president setting the table here. >> you don't say. >> john: as to how he feels about this prosecutor.

shannon bream, your eyes perked up when we talked about the idea of finding an impartial jury or a jury to make an impartial decision. jonathan turley mentioned, or jonathan turley mentioned the tape recording. i remember a very famous recording of the president which didn't seem to faze him at all. >> or voters. >> john: and he was president not long after it was released. speak to the jury pool and the evidence they will hear. >> as jonathan was talking about voir dire, ask the potential jurors what they know, what they follow, it's a deep dive on the president's team as they try to find the best possible jury they can. this country feels very polarized, but a lot of people don't care about the inside the beltway stuff, not as dialed into politics and they are out there, that's who they want to find with no strong opinions. when you go back through the

document, the allegations the former president tried to sway his own legal team to make representations or that he did that were not accurate, on page 21 of this indictment it talks about attorneys meeting with him, may 23rd, talking about the fact they had the grand jury subpoena, they have to move forward with this, and during this meeting one of the attorneys, according to the indictment the president told this story, he was great, did a great job. you know what, he said, he said it was him, he's talking about hillary clinton's attorney, that it was him that he was the one who deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and her having beauty appointments and he was great. and he, so she didn't get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them. and you know, the indictment says he told that story multiple times that day as if he is suggesting maybe there's another way that we handle this. there's another allegation a few pages later one of the attorneys who showed up, searched through

the documents that he was provided by trump, to the storage room, go look through them, he found several things, put them in a sealed envelope and said i need to take these and give them to the doj. that attorney then, the way it's described in the indictment says that he made a motion, says, meaning the president, made a funny motion as though well, ok, take them with you to the hotel room. if there's anything really bad in there, like, pluck it out. that was the motion he made, he didn't say that. so you have the attorneys coming forward as part of this grand jury investigation and part of this indictment now memorializing places where they felt like the former president was pressing them to do something that may have been less than a full disclosure of what they knew or what they had. >> sandra: very interesting. so waiting to see if we hear anything else from the white house, mar-a-lago on the left, we saw the president golfing earlier today after the indictment was announced last night, and special counsel's office shannon as you know, we are about to hear from the

special counsel right at the top of the hour, generally they tend to be on time, so that should be starting in just a couple of moments. so, shannon, set it up what you x expect to hear then and what is tuesday going to look like down there in miami. >> we heard the way john said the former president is describing jack smith as a lunatic, the word john. >> john: deranged lunatic. >> he's going to want to present anything but that. i think this is going to be very dry, very methodical and procedural to say you've got the indictment, this is what it has, we have laid out the details there. i would be highly surprised if he takes any questions. he will probably just explain what they have done and what comes next. so, yes, tuesday you have the hearing. jim trusty, i believe when he was part of the legal team, he is going to show up. you have to work through the procedural logistics, it's not every day a former president moves around. but you go to the pretrial phrase, all kind>> martha: wereg

jonathan here, how she began to wrap this up, we saw the scene -- >> we saw the scene shannon not long ago of the president flying from mar-a-lago from west the west airport, to appear in state court up to new york, not a plane can be going the other way because the president is in bedminster, so they're likely to come from laguardia, or one of the new jersey airports nearby. in flight on the other way to miami to appear in court. so, we will have all of the same imagery that we had not long ago when the going the other direction. >> and there are some differences, but as you guys have been noting com objects can and is the one who has been assigned this passion that is a random thing that has not been chosen. and she is taking some heat from the way she had a thinks area, and overruled on that so we'll see how she proceeds with this case. >> thank you for that, but if this is a sign of work members of congress are going, one of

the few reaction so far saying that the doj pursues of former president he is cracking jokes about his crimes, and he responded to reporters yesterday when asked about his dealing with burisma, the response should be asked hunter said marcia. stay one year working from a lot of republicans who doesn't think it was a good idea. >> india, so we hear from the special consults shortly, it's been great to be with you. >> yes we shall see you next week, the meantime here is "the story with martha maccallum" with martha. >> martha: good afternoon everyone, and we are about to hear from special counsel jack smith. he has worked fairly quietly until now but his office has just released this 37 count indictment of the former president of the united states donald trump. now he makes history here with his first ever federal credit mosel and indictment of the u.s.