group of fbi agents and, quote, this news statement that donald trump seems to assert that there is an fbi raid, recent or ongoing. he says that, quote, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary. he also then goes on to attack the doj and makes various claims we have previously heard about his view of the investigation, but a big headline here that nbc news and msnbc has not yet confirmed, but former president saying there is a raid at mar-a-lago. we will keep working on confirming and reporting this story. "the reidout" with jason johnson filling in is up next. jason jon filling in is up next. ♪♪ tonight on "the reidout," we have breaking news. >> we are elated. every member of my caucus is elated about what happened because we've really -- we've changed the world. >> democrats winning streak continues with a major victory in the senate on health care,

taxes and climate while republicans continue their streak of voting against things that voters overwhelmingly support, like putting cap on insulin prices. also tonight, the madness of the republican party, it's not just cpac. there's also the new reporting about trump asking his top military leaders why they couldn't be more like german generals, you know, loo from nazi times. plus, stunning allegations of voting machine tampering against the republican running to be michigan's attorney general. breaking news. you hear that sound, the sound of the police there. appears to be an investigation by the feds into mar-a-lago, the home of donald trump, the twice impeached president and very much disgraced president. we're going to go to this news right now with representative rho chana. are you hearing that the former president's residence is now being investigated by the feds? >> i have. it's obviously a very serious matter. i know president trump issued a very lengthy defensive statement, but, look, the fbi

doesn't just go in unless a judge signs off on a search warrant. that means they have some probable evidence about possible wrongdoing, and it's something that the whole country needs to pay attention to and shows that justice -- attorney general garland is setting this up step by step. >> so this is the first question that occurs to me, and i think a lot of people watching right now is how major is this as far as other members of sort of the trump cabal? it's been one thing to talk about the former president. it's been one thing to bring in the cohens and people associated with him, but for the fbi to actually be knocking down doors in his home, is this a time that americans can believe that perhaps the orange jumpsuit is forthcoming because this doesn't seem to be common. what would be your take on that? >> well, i don't want to politicize it because i think

attorney general garland and the justice department have done a very good job by following the facts, and it's not for me or members of congress to say what should happen. it should be where the facts lead them, and they have been very methodical. they have not been quick to do anything, but it shows that they are concerned that serious crimes were committed, and they are following the evidence, and now let's see what they end up doing, by -- i do think that this gives me confidence that the justice department is really pursuing this thoroughly, objectively and in a non-political way. >> speaking of being non-political, i have to admit, you know, in many respects, my first thought when i heard this newsy wanted to congratulate the bipartisan january 6th committee. do you believe that the efforts made by your colleagues on the january 6th committee, including republicans and democrats and the enthusiasm and the hunger and the satisfaction that americans have gotten from watching those hearings, do you think that had an influence on

the aggressiveness with which we're seeing right now from the department of justice against the former president? >> i think that had an impact on the country in understanding what happened, that it wasn't just about the riots and insurrection on the capitol, that there was a plan to basically try to overturn the election, to have someone installed as president who didn't win either the popular vote or the electoral college, and they did a masterful job of explaining that to the american public. i believe that the justice department has been following the law and the facts from day one, and they have been doing it in the way that builds trust, and i don't think it's helpful for members of congress to politicize it because ultimately what we want is an independent justice department that is not acting in a political motive. that's why president biden appointed attorney general garland. many people are saying he's too slow and not doing anything. i think what he's shown is

integrity and that's why whatever he does the justice department is going to have the confidence of the american public. >> so representative chana, i always push back slightly on this because it is a political investigation, and that's not inherently bad, and i say this because it was an attempt at a political insurrection, right? you can't say it's non-political when the former president was trying to use politics to sort of overrule the will of the people but my question for you also is now that you've seen this, do you think that this will have an impact on impending votes in congress? do you think that this will make your republican colleagues more likely to go along with what seem to be policy initiatives by the biden trace that the american public wants? do you think this will make them more likely to separate themselves from donald trump or will they basically double down, the fbi is after them, now is our opportunity, we have to sort of circle the wagons as we have before? what do you think the impact of this fbi raid will have on your

body working forward? >> well, you know, for almost six years every time i thought that the republicans would finally speak up against donald trump, they have, unfortunately, let me down so i don't know whether this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but if anything it should hopefully get enough republicans in the senate and a few in the house to vote for the electoral count act, reform act, which will make sure that whoever wins the popular vote in states in 24 actually gets the slate's delegates because otherwise you're going have a situation where someone can try to steal the election again, and hopefully at the very least the january 6th commission and all of these findings by the justice department will lead to bipartisan support for upholding the basic principles of our democracy. that i'm optimistic can pass the senate and the house. >> i want to follow up on this. one of the things that has occurred to me is that as we go

through the january 6th hearings, as we see the investigations by the department of justice, the number one thing that congress and this administration can do and should do is secure the vote. how confident are you in this electoral vote count angst? do you think that these kind of raids could lead to renewed interest in passing this bill not just in the house but in the senate, because at the end. day it doesn't matter who gets indicted, it doesn't matter who gets arrested or who ends up in oz if the votes still can't be protected in november. >> absolutely, i do. and i think people are looking at this and regretting probably the impeachment vote in the senate. i think after that some people thought donald trump would just go away. he obviously hasn't. now you have a justice department ongoing investigation into conduct at the very least people very close to him, and we don't know whether itlism kate the president or not, but they are certainly looking at evidence that the president has, the former president hashs and

so my view is we need to pass the electoral count act. i'm encouraged that there are republicans in the senate that supports that. all the act says there needs to be judicial review before a state legislature can overturn the popular vote in that state, and i fear if we don't do that, you could have a repeat of the efforts in 2020 and 2024, and that would be malpractice for our congress not to prevent someone from stealing the election in 2024. >> thank you, congressman ro khanna for starting us off with breaking news. joining us now is former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst and professor at the university of michigan school of law. thank you so much for joining us tonight, barbara. first, what is your immediate reaction to this unannounced fbi raid on mar-a-lago, the home of the twice-impeached former president and insurrectionist leader donald trump? >> absolutely stunning. i'm absolutely stunned. i'm stunned that it's happening

so quickly, and i'm stunned that it's happening at all. searching the premises of the president's residence is absolutely unprecedented. keep in mind this could only happen if a judge found probable cause to believe evidence that of a crime will be found there, so really stunning development. >> so barbara, takes us through that process. look, my -- my knowledge of the law pretty much begins and end with "law & order," occasionally some "csi." is it a matter of the department of justice, they just find a local judge? do they have to find a federal judge? do they also need approval from the local police? is it that the fbi comes in and commandeers everything? what is the process that the fbi had to go through in order to begin this unannounced raid? >> to get the warrant you need probable cause which usually involves month and months of investigation that. build a record. then a federal agent swears out an of a date in great detail, 10 to 20 pages long detailing all

of the evidence thus far into the investigation that they believe supports probable cause to search the premtss, that is that there will be evidence of a specific crime found there, not just any old crime, but crimes they have been investigating for which they believe they have probable cause. they then have to take that to a judge in the district where the property is located, so that would be the southern district of florida. in a case of this magnitude, the approvals will go all the way to the attorney general himself. this would not happen without any absolute approval. once that warrant is secured, then the fbi would assemble a team, and they usually do bring with them some local police officers who know the lay of the land, who can go up and help with the knock and announce, explain why they are there, and then the teams begin their search, and they can search any place on the premises where the items they are looking for might be found. in this case it's documents and maybe electronic storage devices, cell phones, ipads and the like, so that really allows them to look just about anywhere where you might be able to find

a document, and people are often shocked that the number of agents that show up for a search like this, but they usually go into rooms in pairs so that they can develop a chain of custody if evidence is ever to be used in a trial. in a premises the size of imlago, i'm guessing it's dozens and dozens of agents going in unless there's specific things that they want to seize, a box of classified documents that didn't get turned over. they are looking for specific items. my guess it it's dozens and dozens of agents participating in this search. >> now this is one thing that occurs to me. we have seen evidence, people have talked about it in books, supreme talked about it in the previous administration, that donald trump would tear things up, flush documents down the toilet, you know, have them cut up. what do you think -- given that he had a tendency to try to burn bad things while they were happening, what would you think? if you had to speculate, what do you think they are actually going to find at emlag snoerks would trump and his cronies be dump enough to take fedex boxes

worth of indictable materials and drag them to his house? >> well,' we used to say in my former office, we don't catch the smart ones. people do all kinds of things because they are either too foolish to understand the consequences or too arrogant to believe that anybody will ever look for them. i don't know. and it is also the case though that a judge can't issue a warrant just to go look through the house on the theory that maybe there's something there that could be evidence of a crime there. has to be probable cause, that there's reasonably specific items that be found there. perhaps documents were step by aides or others. it could be that things that have been found on people's phones or other electronic devices that trace their way back team lago and it may not be donald trump himself. it may be a family member. it may be a staffer or somebody else who has an office in mar-a-lago so it could be anyone there. we know this it is somebody close to former president trump, and we know that a judge has found probable cause that a specific crime has been either

committed or is being committed and that evidence of that crime exists on the premises at mar-a-lago. >> in the event, let's say we find out or let's say that the fbi finds out that there are classified documents in the possession of the former president in his home. who could potentially be at risk for being arrested? i assume at that point they would have to figure out, okay, well works brought this box here, but at the end of the day, is that alone something that could lead to an arrest? if they say, look, somebody has to tell us how this box got into this building could. that lead to the arrest of the president, of the former first lady assume she's actually there, or somebody else who may have brought that information down there? >> well, finding classified documents would alarm government officials for two reasons. one is the potential crimes that you suggest, possessing classified materials outside of their proper receptacle. the other is who else may have had access to it. it's sometimes referred to as a spill even if it's just an

unintentional possession of a classified document you outside of where it's supposed to be stored because you don't know who may have seen it, and documents are classified because they protect methods, means, sources that are the nation's secrets, and so if those secrets are and get into the hands of foreign adversaries that could be very dangerous to people who are serving as sources so that's one area of great concern. the other is potential criminal liability, and so if someone inadvertently brought boxes of documents thinking it was framed pictures with vladimir putin or something, that is unlikely to result in criminal charges. there are some charges for negligent handling of classified information, but as we saw in the case of hillary clinton, we've never seen somebody charged until there's a willful violation, taken this material to harm the crites or aid a foreign adversely. you would have to show intent before someone could be charged criminally. >> this is a general

informational question. we know marissa baggo is the home of the former president. do we know who else actually lives there? do we know what kind of people are there and in and out on a regular basis? i alluded to the fact that we don't know if the former first lady is there. does he have former staffers that live with him? is it a big empty wayne manor where it's him sitting across from a big table by himself every night how do we know who is there and who could possibly be implicated if something is found? >> yeah, without knowing what the search is for, it's hard to know, but one of the things that it the agents would need to do is conduct investigation to figure that out. who has access to that property. who is coming and going because they can only search the property that is authorized in that search warrant, so if it's a place, a resort and guests come and go, people are working and others are living, you have to make sure that you're searching the premises only covered by the warrant.

>> going forward, we now have this raid at the home of -- one last question, barbara, got ask this one last question, barbara. do you think that this is the last such raid that will occur. do you think that we'll see a slew of raids like this as the sort of dominoes fall and other people in the former administration are concerned? >> well, searching the president's premises strikes me as something that happens towards the end of an investigation. there's been a lot of criticism of merrick garland for not moving quickly enough in his investigations into the former president, but typically what you want to do is get your ducks in a row before you aim at the leader of the criminal organization so similarly a search warrant is an overt investigative step that you do only after you have completed most of your covert investigative steps, so this strikes me as something that's at the end of the line. we may be seeing criminal charges after they review this material in the shorter term

than i might have expected. i've been predicting criminal charges if any to be filed well after mid-term elections, but maybe they are going to prove me wrong. >> thank you, barbara mcquaid. thanks so much for joining us tonight. stay with us. much more on this major breaking story. former president trump says his home at mar-a-lago in florida has been raided by the fbi. "the reidout" continues after this. d by the fbi "the reidout" continues after this it's 5:00 a.m., and i feel like i can do anything. we've been coming here, since 1868. there's a lot of cushy desk jobs out there, but this is my happy place. there are millions of ways to make the most of your land. learn more at deere.com finding the perfect designer isn't easy. but, at upwork, we found her. she's in austin between a fresh bowl of matcha and a fresh batch of wireframes. and you can find her, and millions of other talented pros, right now on upwork.com

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>> breaking news. we have an unannounced raid of mar-a-lago. the current home of the former president of the united states donald trump. this is not only unprecedented, but it is also a sign that perhaps the advancement and the doj's plans have gone much further than people have anticipated and expected. one of the primary concerns that we've heard from members of congress and analysts and former people who have actually worked in the white house and those victims from the insurrection on january 6th is perhaps things were not moving as quickly as expected. this is a sign that perhaps the department of justice and merrick garland have gotten much more serious about this investigation than we initially expect the w.eel now be moving to dave aaron bhoerg will be coming -- the palm beach county state attorney who will be

telling us what exactly occurred at mar-a-lago today. >> well, thank you for having me. my office was not involved in the search today. this was all the fed. we were not notified of it, so this was kept close to the vest by the feds, and one thing to know that mar-a-lago is closed during the summer. it's a ghost town in the summer. trump is in bed minister and there's no functions at the club. there's no social functions at the club though there are guest suites there. although trump was not there, i do think that he believes that this is crossing a red line. this is her inner sanctum and to get this raid of his place it has to be a warrant signed off by a judge. there needs to be probable cause. there needs to be a belief that there's evidence there that could lead to a crime. can't be a fishing expedition so this is definitely serious stuff, and i guess the next question is what crimes are they pursuing? and who are they pursuing

against? i do not believe they are searching mar-a-lago to build a case against someone else who lived there or a guest that have place. that's donald trump's home, and i think it shows further evidence that doj is indeed looking at donald trump himself, and as far as the crimes, well, you have the false elector scream which is, according to report, being tied to donald trump. you also have the reports of mishandling of classified materials as barbara said in the previous segment. that's rarely charged. i mean, generally you've got to show willful misconduct and when you are the president you can immediately declassify documents so i don't think that's what this is about, and the other thing to know is lately the doj has subpoenaed people really close to trump, like pat cipollone, his former white house counsel, so i think this is definitely big news. i wish i could have more information about it, but as i

said my office is not involved. >> dave, i'm curious about this, and i hope you take this in the sincere way in which it's being asked. do you think the there's a possible that the fbi was concerned about alerting local law enforcement because they thought trump might have gotten a heads up. i'm sure desantis is concerned about it but there might have been former people on the ground that could have said you might want to clean out the building. >> it's very common for the feds to keep things close to the vest. they will work with us on some matters, but it is not uncommon for them to go do it alone without telling us, and even though we will not divulge secrets, this is very normal for this to happen. i do want to throw some cold water on this. for people to think that an indictment of trump is imminent. here's why i don't think that's the case. first of all, you've seen the raids on rudy giuliani's home, john eastman's home, and there wasn't an immediate indictment.

they are still building evidence, and the other thing that tells me an indictment is not imintelligent that the doj is starting to litigate issues of equip. they are going to court to proactively prevent trump world from invoking equip. that's the kind of thing that you do at the beginning of an investigation, not at the end, so i think this is an evidentiary move here, but don't expect charges follow immediately. >> thank you, palm beach county state attorney dave arenburg. thank you so much. joining me right now is adviser to the dnc and dcc and dana milbank, columnist for "the washington post" and author of "the destructionist, the 25-year crackup of the republican party" which comes out tomorrow. kurt, i'll start with you. just your immediate reaction to this unannounced raid on mar-a-lago. are you surprised? are you thrilled? are you jump willing up and down? what was your immediate

reaction? >> i guess we know why so many republicans were talking about defunding the fbi at cpac over the last weekend. you know, i think that this is unprecedented. i mean, and we cannot underscore and understate the fact that the former president of the united states' residence, if you will, just got raided by the fbi. i think that as we look ahead at the political consequences potentially, i think any republican who has spent their time and energy on the campaign trail sucking up to donald trump, begging for his support, begging for his endorsement, they do so at their peril because whatever happens next i don't think it's going to be particularly good, and i don't know how you get to campaign on being the law and order party while perhaps the biggest person who have the most sway in your party is under this kind of scrutiny from the fbi >> unlike vegas, what happens in mar-a-lago may not stay in mar-a-lago after this investigation. dana, as kurt suggested, people who are politically connected to trump, all the republican members of congress who go down

to mar-a-lago to kiss the ring. do you think right now they may be concerned? are they thinking did i leave my business card in the wrong bath room. >> did i leave this document here or there? are there members of congress right now checking their schedules to see how much time they sflent and whether they left anything incriminating? >> it may well be. it's a testament to donald trump's malfeasance. there are any number of things that this could be about. there's so many avenues of criminality and so many different people involved. there's a whole lot of reasons for a lot of people to be concerned, but there's a reason we should all be concerned right at this moment because can you see in donald trump's responses that he's ready to turn up the heat, to turn people against the fbi, against the justice department, against the government, so even though it would be a normal procedure for the justice department to proceed in some secrecy, i think there's a real public interest in letting the public know what's going on, getting some information out there because

we're in a potentially dangerous period of time if donald trump and possibly with support of republicans is going to use this to turn his people against the investigators, against the fbi, against the government. we know what happens when this anti-government rhetoric gets out of hand, and it can often be violent. >> dana, one of the sort of key they'ries in your book, "the destructionist" is talking about the fact you trace this back to newt gingrich. you trace this back to the contract of america. that's where the beginning of the republican party sort of going off the rails begins. with that in mind, it's been almost 30 years since we saw that sort of transformation. what do you think is a potential worst case scenario here? you know in, august of 2018, two years into the trump administration, he was treat begun how he wanted jeff sessions to stop the witch hunt. he's now shown himself capable of literally raising a terrorist army to raid the capitol. do you think the raid on his home will lead to domestic

violence, domestic terror or any other violent reaction that he claims he's been violated in his home? >> god willing it won't but that's exactly the concern right now. to go back to the '90s as you just were, before the oklahoma city bombing, there were a whole lot of things building up to that, a lot of smaller skirmishes and incidents and a whole lot of heated rhetoric coming from republican law enforcement, from conservative talk radio at the time, and it got heated and more heated, and then we had that -- that catastrophic event. i think some people who follow these things closely are worried that we've been building towards just such a moment right now with the rising amount of violence we've seen from right wing domestic terrorists who are the lion's share of domestic terrorism right now, so that is a very real concern, but i think a lot of it will hinge on the reaction trump has. is he going to sic his army of

proud boys and oath keepers on the united states government again, and what happens with his potential rivals and elected republicans in congress? do they join in this anti-government fervor? >> well, speaking of people to help us out, standing back and standing by is former fbi official frank fuglusi. thanks so much for joining us tonight on "the reidout." you are the person i want to talk to about this. what is the significance? i mean, you were in the fbi. i am sure there are agents who woke up this morning and were thinking i am going to be raiding the former president's house. that's got to be difficult regardless of how you feel about the former president of the united states. what do you think the attitudes are going on in the fbi right now? are people -- are they concerned saying oh, my gosh, this is the beginning what have could be an absolute serious investigation? were people aware of this all along and were like, hey, this is just step one and finally bringing this person down? what do you think is the internal rhetoric going on at the fbi right now about this

unannounced raid? >> so, jason, yeah, not only did i spend 25 years in the fbi but i spent a significant portion in it in the miami field office which is responsible, of course, for west palm beach and the mar-a-lago location, so, look, not a lot of time right now for internal intersection going on in the miami field office and/or any other agents from other field offices that came in but rather let's do this job right. they clearly understand the public scrutiny that will be involved. the gravity of the situation and, of course, what's coming next which will be endless rhetoric from donald trump about how horrible the fbi is and how this is a targeted fishing expedition. what we don't know, of course, is really what the substance of this is. we don't know. >> right. >> if this is connected to january 6th or whether this is connected to the national archives investigation of the top secret and secret documents

that trump allegedly squirrelled away at mar-a-lago, but it may be helpful, if you want, if you haven't done this already, to just walk through the process of a federal agent obtaining a search warrant. if you want to just go through that and what it means and what it doesn't mean so it simply means that the agents decided and, of course, at this level when you're talking about a former president, this will be cleared at the highest level of the fbi, u.s. department of justice and likely crossed the desk of the attorney general of the united states and you have to go to a united states magistrate with a prosecutor and assistant u.s. attorney and say we have evidence, probable cause, that a federal crime has been violated, and, number two, that evidence of that crime is located in the location we wish to search. that's the big one, right? and so a magistrate or judge has to look at that and go -- by the way, you know, a magistrate or jumping, you ask about what's going on in the heads of fbi

agents. imagine the federal judge or magistrate that may have gotten out of bed this morning. i've done that before, right, and he's reading through a lengthy affidavit, and he's got to like have his coffee or her coffee and go through it and say holy cow, that's mar-a-lago. >> right. >> and i'm going to sign off on this. he has to ask the question how do you know there's evidence of a crime inside that building? and that's where very interesting discussions occur like hey, we have a source says it's in a safe what we're looking for or we have a source that says it's under the bed, right, and then parameters of the search warrant really kind of constrain where you can look so if you're looking for a car, you're not going to be looking in the bread basket so you've -- you can't just tear the place apart unless you're looking for very small devices and things, so, you know, we don't know what's happening here. we know it's of grave significance, we know it's federal, not state or county, and we know trump will, of course, start lashing out starting about right now >> fred, i want to ask you one

other question real quick at you'll be staying with us. how long does this take? frankly when we see raids we tend to see them on a news or television show. the raid goes in. people go into the building and then you go to commercial break. will they be camping out there for a while? are they ordering pizza because mar-a-lago is a huge location. how long will this likely raid last or is it a situation where they go in and know it's right behind this one hidden camera and they will move a photograph and pull something out of a safe? how long do you think this raid will last? >> so, great question because that will be a clue as to really what they are looking for. so if it's in and out. the documents we're looking for in the safe. we're out. if this drags on for hour, some white collar searches, health care fraud when you're searching an entire hospital or administration system for

evidence of systemic fraud, this could go on for days so i understand that there's some reporting that trump has issued some kind of a statement. i don't know if he included in the statement whether the agents came and went. we should key in on that. how long were they there? how specific was it, how short or long was it? again, it depends, jason. >> i'm joined my msnbc news correspondent von hillier. quite unexpected. what's the mood and the attitude down there. i remember when president was in the hospital hand people were wearing maga underwear and praying for him. is that the scene we see surrounding mar-a-lago at this point, or are people still shocked? >> i think it's a good question of what's happening at emlag, o. we're just outside of milwaukee right now because there's a major primary happening here.

trum was here over the weekend in the greater milwaukee area back being tim mitchels who is one of the election-denying candidates who could have his hands on certification process in 2024, and i think that's where all of this hits here. i'm reaching out to multiple trump sources here right now. i'm told by a source familiar that the former president is currently in new york city. the exact location i do not have at this time here. he and his family have not been in mar-a-lago over the course of the summer. they have been staying in bed minister. he did fly back to new jersey this weekend after attending cpac in dallas, but then i know at some point here since then he made his way to new york city where he is at right now. i mean, essentially the former president was breaking this news himself here, and i think to your question, it's providing the context of this moment here. donald trump for years has been setting up an american voting

population to question the legitimacy of its investigation agencies, and he has successfully gotten elected leaders to echo those reservations and the suggestions that the deep state was out to get him. you know, just take wyoming. next tuesday is liz cheney's primary against trump-backed harriet hageman and i was in wyoming back in may and harriet hageman stood on stage next to him and said do not trust the fbi, the cia, the nsa, so when you are looking at where millions of americans have been getting their news and the sources in which they trust at the top of it for so many is the former president. there is a distrust in this, and so what you just saw the former president lay out in this lengthy statement, he called it an unannounced raid. of course, it was approved by a judge here, and ultimately there was probable cause for the judge to grant this search warrant of the former president's residence

here, and yet at the same time you've seen the former president call this a witch hunt. he has sown distrust in the media and in the government and he has sown distrust in our elections here, and the question we have over the next three months is where is the american electoral sequentially will they follow the lead of this former? will you see republican leaders up on capitol hill step away from the former president and say maybe we should take a moment to see what the department of justice has come up with? again, we don't know if the former president himself is the subject of this investigation. we do not know what they were looking for here. that is important context to all of this. at the same time donald trump has made himself a political martyr and has suggested that he's going to run for president again as such here in order to save america in his words from the radical left. this is a political moment as much as it is an investigatory one in the eyes of donald trump. >> thanks all.

joining me now is the editor-at-large of "the bulwark" and msnbc nat political reporter mark caputo. charlie, i'll begin with you. this is signature, right? >> right. >> the former president of the united states, the fbi has raided his home. we don't know how long they are going to be there. trump himself appears to have broken the news by making the announcement one way or another. how is this resonating, or how do you think this is going to resonate in the next 24 hours? we know maga world immediate response will be this is terrible, this is deep state, et cetera, et cetera, but many other republicans. this is now a different line. the fbi is now in his home. they have a home they have been to. they may be nervous one way or another. ron desantis is licking his lips saying that's exactly what i happened. how is this affecting the non-cult members of the republican party? >> well, it's too fresh but would i underline everything that vaughn hillyard just said.

do not underestimate how much effort donald trump has gone to to sow distrust in the fbi to set up this particular moment, so this will unleash an absolute firestorm. my guess is that many elected republicans will observe a strategic silence, keep their heads down. they won't speak out about it because that's their normal pattern, but you know that maga world is going to be absolutely on fire, and the attorney general, merrick garland, had to know this. the fbi had to know this. the federal judge or the federal magistrate had to know that they were pulling the trigger on this. i think one of your previous guests described this as crossing the rubicon. >> right. >> this is going to have -- you can't come back from an unannounced raid of the former president's home, so clearly they felt that there was something that was important for them to get right now, so

everything has escalated dramatically. i think a lot of people have wondered would there be an indictment. this does not signal that there will be an immediate indictment. >> right. >> but it certainly indicates that the justice department, merrick garland and a federal judge thought there was sufficient reason to go into mar-a-lago n.terms of the republican reaction, you know, i think watch for silence from the usual suspects and absolute in fuego outrage from trump's inner circle. >> mark, let's take a look at the democratic side of this. so, again, merrick garland, the fbi, the doj, have been adamant, frustration of quite a few democrats have been adamant about being apolitical. you can't convince cultists that they are apolitical because donald trump and his minions have always been out to get them. what's it likely to be received by national democrats?

will they, too, as charlie suggested observe sort of silence? look, we didn't have anything to do with this. we'll see where the evidence takes us. will more progressive democrats will say, hey, it's about time? how do you think the national democrats is going to be as the news is broken over the next 24 hours? >> if you look at twitter the national democratic reaction is hallelujah. whether that bears out we'll see. democrats, especially president biden can be incredibly measured. donald trump won't be measured. charlie is right about the reaction. the desantis world folks is their supposition look, you better have a lot of evidence before you raid a former president's place so they are just focusing on the process of this. they are not going to step in this one either. as you pointed out, merrick garland is just a cautious prosecutor. in the end, if they do make a criminal case, have you to have a criminal case where you need enough evidence where you think

you can convict the person. that's a high bar and then there's how do we impanel a jury, a long complicated process, completely uncharted waters and donald trump pointed out this has never happened to a former president but a former president that never incited a mob that ransacked the capitol and also prevented congress from doing its job to certify a presidential election that he lost. that's different as well. also didn't have the national archives asking the fbi, hey, can you investigate this matter because this guy walked away with a bunch of boxes of documents that were supposed to be left here. those boxes of documents were at mar-a-lago. do we know what the federal investigates about and there's two potential ones we know of off the bat and we don't know what's going on at the depart of justice? >> i think that's a key thing, mark, and i want to follow up on that because we don't know exactly what's in the white house. it's like going to somebody's house saying wait a minute, that's my sweater in your closet. right? obviously that would be something that the united states

is concerned about so it could be a january 6th investigate. it could be financial crimes. it could be archives one way or another. my question for you is what impact do you think that this will have on trump's already stated and leaked plan to announce that he's running for president? do you think this is going to speed this up? do you think he'll say i've never been arrested for nothing domestic, you guys can't come after me? i'm still going to run for president or do you think his timeline is unaffected by the fact that the fbi just did an unannounced raid on his home? >> you're asking me to do a difficult thing to get in the mind of donald trump who is very reactive. >> right. >> he decides what he's going to do when he wants to do it. he tries to falsify things. he's going to announce in september, going announce in july, after the election, before the election is he doesn't know but he does know that he's going to announce so i don't think it's going to change donald trump's plan to announce running for president, and i'm not saying he's going to be charged or jailed. >> right. >> but even if he's in prison he could be running for president he'd be doing it and he'd probably win the primary at least right now if you look at

the polling. when he said, hey, i could shoot a guy on fifth avenue and my supporters would still be with me, that's true. that's true of the primaries as far as getting elected. he 'is the undisputed heart of the party. he knows that and has laid the groundwork to run for office and he's going to do it again and the question is when. >> we're coming up on a tight break. based on what mark has just laid out for us, do you think this makes donald trump stronger in his attempt to run for the nomination in 2024? does he now say, look, they are coming after me, you know, i'm -- i'm on the cross. i'm being prosecuted by these terrible people. do you think that this ultimately strengthens his position within the republican party, or is it pretty much going to be the same? >> short term it probably will. there will be a rallying around, but ultimately it's a whole different question what made merrick garland pull the trigger? what made that federal judge go ahead? i mean, the ground is shifting under us right now and we just don't know.

as vaughn hillyard said donald trump has been saying i'm a political martyr, the deep state is out to get me. he's comfortable running as a martyr, but i'm also guessing that he -- that he was taken very much by surprise by the aggressiveness of the department of justice, the aggressiveness of the fbi and he's got to be wondering what we're wondering, what are they looking for? what do they know and what are they going to do and that's a big question mark for a gee like donald trump. >> thank you both. i'm back with barbara mcquaid and frank fuglusi and also joining us is the executive director at the "new yorker." i'm going ask you a simple financial question. do you think this raid might have anything to do with financial crimes that the president has commit that had began with investigations with the southern office in new york, or do you think this may have something to do with the

insurrection? what's your sort of feeling and when are your sources telling you about the potential focus of this raid? >> so in the last few weeks a government official told me that the issue of trump mishandling classified documents was a major focus of concern. that you know, there were news reports about this i think several months ago but there were boxes of documents in the white house that were brought down to emlago and so this official said that was very unusual, that there were major concerns about what was in those boxes and that, you know, that seemed to be a focus of inquiry so off the top of my head that could be a primary focus. you know. there were news reports or pictures of those boxes and trump had apparently taken things out of the white house ignoring, you know, very clear laws about the handling of classified information and the irony of all of this, you know, hillary clinton was pilloried by trump for her email use and for mishandling classified

information, and could you have donald trump, you know, facing the same exact sort of inquiry by potentially taking classified information to mar-a-lago without permission. >> ah, yes, the e-mails explanation for why trump got into office in 2016. barb, i with a tonight ask you this. as we learned over the last couple of thundershowers could be multiple things that the fbi is looking for within mar-a-lago. they could have multiple investigations. is it possible that the fbi could be acting on behalf of multiple investigations, or are they only deployed for the specific case that the doj is looking after? so, you know, could they be on multiple missions? could they be on archives, on january 6 and finances, or can they only be deployed for one potential crime and one potential investigation? >> no, it is possible that you could get a warrant that could be looking for evidence of multiple crimes. that happens frequently, say,

for example, agents get a warrant to look for drugs and money laundering that is part of a money laundering operation and child importantography is a part of a pornography ring, and it's all in the same premises, you can get a warrant seeking evidence of each of those crimes if there's problem cause for it. s if there's problem cause for it. must be specifically articulated if there is probable cause in that war to believe the evidence would be five. one other thing that is important. even if it's only is limited to one crime, like these classified documents that were reportedly mishandled and taken out of the white house. once agents are lawfully in a place, they may seize anything in plain view that constitutes contraband or evidence of a crime. so as they're gathering at these documents, it could very well be that they find evidence of other crimes like election fraud. as long as they are there lawfully, they can seize any evidence they see fit. >> the new york times is

reporting that the surge according to two people familiar with the investigation appeared to be focused on material that mr. trump had brought with him to mar-a-lago his private club and residents after he left the white house. those boxes contain many pieces of classified evidence according to people familiar with the contents. 15 boxes of material were requested by -- for many months. when it became a threat of action to retrieve them. frank, i would ask you real quick. what we're looking at a situation is basically he's got a bunch of library books and vhs tapes, do you think this is a situation where trump is potentially going to send someone out of the house to say hey they're here don't look at the other things. were the actions of someone under this and destination at the time. one of the possibilities or they locked out of their own

home into the fbi has done? >> so, he has already issued a statement. i went through a quickly, as you believe alluded to it jason, he made a reference to hillary clinton and her legal issues. but agents will have to secure the search site. you don't allow someone to wonder around. i understand he's out of town, maybe he will have his aides tried to do something. but rest assured, they will keep the site secure and free from anyone tampering with what they are doing. no one will be allowed to destroy any evidence. that won't happen and risk will be risk being charged if they try to tap with what's going on. now i'm going to use a phrase jason i'm going to say i have a medium to high degree of certainty that this at least is focused in part on national archives case.

they're trying to make sure the thermal further secret or top secret documents from the white house days and at the time for talking is over. the time to negotiate and turn everything over is long gone, and now we've reached the point where agents are convincing a judge that they have evidence of a crime. >> now, i'm curious about this barbara, because if it is something as -- i wouldn't say it's simple because the national archives has asked for it -- but barbara if it's simply a matter of retrieving these documents and coming back, does that mean that those charges could simply become forthcoming much faster? if this was part of the january 6th investigation, we know there's part of the -- if it's financial crimes, this probably just data. but if the concern was, hey we think you have these library books, we think you have these archives and we found them in your house after you refused to give them back to us for the last several months, is that sort of an open shot case with him getting convicted or at

least having charges in getting indicted? >> well, it's absolutely a much smaller universe of evidence that would be a cause case involving election fraud and the january six insurrection. it's a much tighter case and the -- notably said before, it's rare and fact it's unheard of that the justice department charges some unless there is some intent to either harm the united states or help a foreign adversary. it would surprise me if this resulted in charges. i think you have to look for some level of wolfing us, that he kept them and use them for some improper purpose. as frank said, maybe the time is over for talking, and they've negotiated and kept getting silence. that could've prompted this raid. that alone could constitute woefulness if you have these things and refused to turn them back. because every day they are out, they do create a's national security risk if they do fall

into the wrong hands. >> i want to follow up in this real quick. are you suggesting that there is a possibility that this wouldn't necessarily end up resulting in charges? is that possible? is it possible that if these documents were found, these archival documents are found in the white house after donald trump took them out, he wasn't supposed to have, and took them down to mar-a-lago, you're telling me that there is a chance that he won't necessarily get indicted for this? that he might get a slap in the wrist or a fine? is that we are suggesting? >> yes, that is a possibility. prosecutors exercise discretion all the time. they don't always bring charges just because they can't. i think it'll matter what is in these docketed's. just how sensitive are they? what was present president trump's knowledge if he had them? that he had? them and what was in them and why did he have them? did he have them for some improper purpose? all those things will matter. a mere matter that he has them

was probably not enough for mere criminal charges. but if they are answered in a way that is troubling to national security concerns, and certainly criminal charges have to be in the table. >> i'm joined by now by nbc news justice and criminal correspondent candy lanny. thank you for joining us this evening. as barbara said kendle lanny, we know this is an archival surge. we're trying to get this information back she also said that simply being in possession of these documents may not be enough to lead to an indictment. what are your sources saying, what is your assessment, of the possible consequences if these archives are found in mar-a-lago? >> what jason, the first thing they are telling us is that we should be careful about what we know and what we think we don't know. we should be humble about this. this is a major, major development. the fbi is convinced a judge the probable cause existed to

believe there was evidence of a crime at this location and essentially when i can tell, you is that the fbi is not disputing that they were there and that there was no indication as we are planning or weeks in washington around law enforcement that anything like this was gonna happen. there may have been some people in washington were surprised this happened and elsewhere. i've been listening to our guest that this may likely relate to the national archives case. that may well be true, i have no reason to dispute the. we should all consider what a dramatic step this is that the fbi has taken. if it's a case of some records that were taken from the white house. all we know everything else that is going on with the grand jury calling witnesses about election interference for people close to donald trump. i think we should be very humble and understand we don't know what this is about other than it's an incredibly

dramatic and provocative step that has been taken. >> so can, you used a very important phrase there they were there. are you saying that the fbi has obtained what they wanted and already left? do you know if they are still on the ground in mar-a-lago searching for materials or has this rate come and gone? >> i don't have that information jason. all i'm being told is that the fbi is not disputing trump's assertion is statement that they were conducting this raid. >> i want to go back to frank very quickly. frank, i can't stress enough how shocking this is. as ken pointed out, there's no one in washington that had a clue about this one more the other. do you think, and i've asked this question of previous guests, but i want your insight from the fbi's point of view, do you think that the success and public attention on the january 6th hearings had any impact on the progressiveness

and public nature of this raid? do you think the doj saw -- it looks like we're having laps run around us now by a congressional investigation we, have to make sure we're doing something -- you think it had any role in this or was a planned all along and that we were gonna see this raid in the first month week of august no matter what happened in congress? >> i like to think and i believe that doj moves with facts and within their own timing. we have certainly heard that repeatedly from the attorney general. they are not an island. they are aware that there are certain time constraints, there are certain pressures. even merrick garland and said he's watching the hearings. he sees as evidence develops. but the way it works jason, as they watch far less television than the rest of us do. they are very busy and when the prosecutors say they are ready and the attorney general says he is ready to sign off on something, they are going to do it. now if indeed it is accurate

that a police part of this is the national archives case, it's a fairly straightforward case. and barbara correctly pointed out, it doesn't mean he's going to get charged with it. i would predict by the way that if this is what it's all about, is gonna blame it on someone else, and administrative clerk. i gave you everything i had, who knew this stuff was in my safe? then details become really important. barbara alluded to what kind of document? sorry >> i gotta cut you there. we gotta go to the next show. thank you so much for this breaking news. thank you ken delaney. frank floozy and barbara mcquade. that's it for tonight's read. all in the craze house starts right now. ad. .