anywhere. a special live edition of alex wagner, tonight, starts right now. and alex, in true nbc form, on your very first night, your big night, they ask you to work a double! welcome back, alex a wagner. this is how we roll. or do you doing from three to 6 am. we're also available. >> i'll be sleeping i hope so. i'm happy to see you, i'm so happy. >> welcome. back >> thank you. >> thanks to you all for joining us. welcome to our special live midnight show. just as we came on the air polls closed across most of alaska were primary elections are being held, as well as a special election for the states loan seat in the house, or none other than sarah palin is looking to stage a comeback. we start with the big news tonight. out of the state of wyoming, where earlier tonight liz cheney was defeated by a trump backed primary challenger. congresswoman cheney concede

her race because that is what years actually supposed to do when you lose an election. concede. >> our republic relies on the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections and tonight harriet hageman has received the most votes in this primary. she won. i called her to concede the race. this primary election is over but now the real work begins. [applause] >> congresswoman cheney also made a point of calling out election dire nine republicans across the country any hinted that this is not the last you will hear from liz cheney. >> today as we meet here there are republican candidates for governor who deny the outcome of the 2020 election and who may refuse to certify future

elections if they oppose the results. we have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. no american should support election deniers for any position of general responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future. >> i've said since january the 6th that i will do whatever it takes to ensure donald trump is never again anywhere near the oval office, and i mean. it's [applause] >> tonight we are also keeping a close eye on a special election for alaska's at large house district, where 2008 vice presidential candidate sarah palin is competing against two other candidates to finish the term of deceased congressman don young. sarah palin is of course in many ways the for mother of donald trump's brash political brand, so it is no surprise the president trump has endorsed palin in that race.

question now is of course with cheney out and palin potentially back and, what does it mean for the republican party and for american democracy? here to give us the latest on these key races and help us break is that all the is the great steve kornacki at the big board. steve, what are you hearing out of alaska? what should we sort of be expecting in this night of nights? >> i guess patients. you should be patient i think as we get results at the poll from alaska they are now close they've indicated it will be a veteran hour till we start getting the results. what we are gonna get than our votes that were cast in person today, votes that were cast in person at early voting locations in the run up to this election. what's gonna take some time our votes that were cast by mail. there's time for those that were postmarked today to come in, they can take a while to come in. the entire process here to get all the votes tabulated can take a while, and what's really

gonna slow things down in terms of getting it out come here, this is a rape choice voting section here. what happened they had the initial race, or a bunch of colored candidates, and the rule in alaska is that the top four go to two to the final round. what happened in this race one of the four from the preliminary round a democrat named al gross dropped out of the race. so is only three that are on the ballot for this election. you can see two of them are republicans, sarah palin and nick baggage and one is a democrat mary pell told. one of the most popular theories about what is going to happen here by being the only democrat on the ballot, pell toilet could monopolize the democratic vote and potentially even come in first place when all these votes are tabulated. if that happens, then it's a fight between baggage and palin to get second place and the stakes there couldn't be higher.

because the way rank choice voting works, as you get your ballot, you pick a first choice, epicures second choice, pick a third choice, well whoever comes in third here will be eliminated, so their supporters second choice preference from the ballot is gonna get reallocated. so the potential scenario here is portola as the democrat getting through in first place and then a fight between baggage and palin whoever wins that gets a chance to get to that rank choice round against peltola. whoever loses his eliminated there out. they want to the rank choice tabulations until either the very end of this month of the very beginning of september. again, you have to get every ballot in, every overseas ballot, every mail ballot, everything in before we can do those rank choice calculations. but if you watch this race carefully, palin and baggage in the home stretch have been acting like they're in a fight for that second place spot, where the winners got a real shot when the rank choice going

to congress and the loser is just out. >> adding to the confusion is the fact we are talking about a general election happening here and a primary election all at the same time sarah palin's name is on the ballot twice. thank you steve. we will be. patient joining us now from anchorage as lies liz raskin, washington correspondent for alaskan public media. liz, it is confusing and wild in alaska as an office is, especially when it concerns sarah palin. thank you in advance for helping us understand what is going on. it's a little bit complicated terms of the actual results we are waiting for. what can you. tell us about palin. and hers's. way that she has over the alaskan pub republican electorate? she's a known quantity to those of us senior on the national stage, but how have these last years change alaskans impressions of her as she seats exceeding congress?

>> well, we really haven't heard much from her since she resigned as governor in 2009. she hasn't held elected office, she hasn't been very present in the states. she may live here but we haven't seen her in at public events, or at rallies or campaigning for other candidates here. so she is trying to overcome this label of quitter and nick baggage has been hitting or who was not very hard. it's been pretty bitter between begich and pale in this election. >> begich as being part of a dynasty and alaska and which is been more popular in this election? >> i've met a lot of trump supporters a definite trump just got this wrong.

it is hard to say. i would say that people who were here in 2009 might not have the best opinion of palin but not everyone was. not everyone was in adults in 2009. that was a long time ago. palin is a national celebrity and people are drawn to her because of that. >> what about lisa murkowski? she also voted to convict president trump for his role in january six. trump is responsible typical trump fashion, not only endorsing, herbert endorsing her challenger and conditioning his endorsement in the gubernatorial race in alaska by insisting that the governor not support, also not support lisa murkowski. basically a horse trade if you will. all endorsed you as long as you do not intern endorsed lisa murkowski, the sitting senator

from alaska. do you think that is made any difference of this? how much should lisa murkowski should be worried about her election bid? >> we'll, if we still have a close republican primaries she'd still be in big trouble. her approval ratings are very low among republicans. we don't have a partisan primary anymore. all of the candidates will appear on the same ballot and voters will be able to rank them, and a system like that really favors murkowski in the primary liz cheney was primaried lost in a republican primary. murkowski will easily survive, she'll be one of the top four that survive that advance to the general. so she doesn't have anything to worry about in the primary. >> let me ask you about the democrat or may make it in the

system. misses peltola. i correct me if i'm wrong here, she'll be one of the first members of the tribal nation to make it to congress if she succeeds. is that right? >> she would be the first indigenous alaskan to be in congress. i just spoke to her a couple of minutes ago and she is pretty excited and also saying it's going to be a long time until we know. >> all right. liz russian, washington correspondent for alaska public media. thank you for your time tonight. we will be patient. i am now thrilled to bring in the host of the last word, the great lawrence o'donnell. lawrence, there's no better night to talk to you about this when we talk about liz cheney, daughter of dick cheney and sarah palin's potential return to washington, not the u.s. house of representatives. i'm here under one condition. i don't have to say anything about rank choice voting. >> no you don't it's in your.

writer >> whenever steve kornacki understands describes it, i feel like understanding for the first 30 seconds. >> it's complicated and then it gets complicated. >> it is a job, this is a very special night for young voters especially, because you can go decades. i personally won about 30 years in the space between i've seen politicians lose an election over principle. liz cheney lost over a principle tonight. the last time i saw at it a prominent level, mario cuomo here in the state of new york 28 years ago he wouldn't change his position to favor the death penalty. and that was it, and he knew he was gonna lose if he didn't if he didn't do it. there is nothing more noble in politics and losing on principle. that is one of the reasons why concession speeches can sometimes be the best speech a

politician is ever made. >> i think of ted kennedy's concession speech 1980, where he coined one of the most famous phrases. let's speak of liz cheney. and her concession speech she said. this primary election is over but now the real work begins. >> so that's what's so amazing about this concession speech. it's the most combative concession speech i've ever. she concedes election, she does at so fast, and then she goes on to here's who i'm gonna continue to fight against and is donald trump. which technically not running against. her vow to fight against donald trump includes invoking abraham lincoln, and includes invoking general grant. it is the strongest valve she could possibly make, which means we do now have a genuine leader of the anti trump movement in the republican party. there really hasn't been that person who is totally free. now she's gonna be free of the

job of being a member of congress, so she's totally free to be out there whether as a print as presidential candidate or not. but beyond all the shows that want that leading spokes person in the republican world against donald trump was still a republican. we have plenty here, stewart stevens and others who were abandoned the party who are strong republicans, but she is fighting for the survival of the republican party without donald trump. >> i guess the question is, the battle is, who are her foot soldiers in that battle. certain are there are some never trumpers, some democrats >> it can be very. small >> the question, is can she pull some republicans over? i wonder as a creature of capitol hill, does her departure from congress make kevin mccarthy's life easier or harder? because i think the conventional wisdom would be, kevin mccarthy is probably saying to liz cheney don't let the door ayo on the way out. at the same time, i'm sure their people and kevin mccarthy

's caucus who was much more radical than he is in their support for trump, and who remember kevin mccarthy's statements in the days leading after donald january six, saying this is don trump's fault. and as much as kevin mccarthy may do the work at convincing hard-core trump is that he is one of them, the fact of the matter is his previous record shows him not to be that. and i wonder if the ouster of china increases the fervor to really purge the party of anybody who might be seen as somebody tangentially in the depresses of their mind a rhino. >> oh it was a successful purge. kevin mccarthy began it by getting her out of the leadership in the house, getting her off his team, and then donald trump say get arrow completely. that purges. worked kevin mccarthy as far as we can tell, the most simple minded leader of a house party in my lifetime that we've ever seen. because he doesn't care at all

of having a range opinion which is always important in the following way. when the people on the right side of your party say we need to do this, kevin mccarthy needs to be able to say to them, we can't do it, we can't get those new york republicans. there's a faction we can't get. >> cautionary. >> therefore it tames the wild impulses of house party, and so each party has always had a. listen i'd love to, i'm a san francisco liberal but, we won't be able to right so let's try to put it here rather than there. mccarthy seems to want no moderating voices whatsoever in the party. he wants to simply take trumpism as if it's the catholic cataclysm that i grew up with and just read it word for word and wants no one missing word of it. >> strategically, that could be

deeply problematic for him. he could be speaker of the house. and then the flashbacks to john boehner and the impossibility of governing a caucus that feels deradicalize caucus. getting anything done. it doesn't seem he's learned anything it seems. let me get you quickly on sarah palin. lawrence, is this a day for republicans of yesteryear to wear black armbands as they look at potentially the ascension of palin and the departure of cheney? >> i am so glad that you had a guest from alaska to remind me at least. just use that phrase, being hit with the fact that she's a quitter. wasn't even explained. she quit the governorship, which i forgot because so many insane things happened in our politics since then. like that was supposed to be the most insane thing for the next 20 years. but then came donald trump and so this governor who simply quit in the middle of the job is now saying, you know a, give

me a two-year term as a member of the house. >> i can make it across the finish line. >> maybe i won't quit that, because it's only two years. >> quarters versus losers, you don't want to be either one of them in today's republican party. lawrence o'donnell, thank you for staying up with us tonight. my friend, let's do many more of these. in just a minute, we will be joined by one of the very few people who can relate to what liz cheney is going through tonight. congressman adam kings manor is the only other republican on the house january six committee. he knows what it is like to face an angry trump fueled republican base. he sure does. we have a lot to ask him tonight. tonight. unleash the freshness... ♪♪ still fresh ♪♪ in wash-scent booster ♪♪ downy unstopables

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choice to violate his oath of office. to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our constitutional order. there is no way to excuse that behavior, it was indefensible. >> president trump urged others to bring his big lie to life. he was willing to sacrifice our republic to prolong his presidency. i can imagine no more dishonourable act by a president. >> both liz cheney and adam kinzinger launch their careers in congress's republican party darlings with bright futures, and now they both did in the

january six committee investigating trump and shining a light on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. they both also voted to impeach the former president in january, 2021 for his role in the january 6th attack. only eight other republicans joined them while the rest of the party coalesced around donald trump. for all those reasons, the republican national committee formally censured cheney and kinzinger earlier this year. and tonight, both of them will be out of congress at the end of this year. in october of last year, congressman kissinger said he would not be seek election for a seat in illinois and tonight after an appeal primary battle to keep her congressional seat in wyoming, congresswoman liz cheney conceded with just 62% of the vote in. she had already lost too much ground tour challenger, a trump backed cheney credit harriet hageman. hageman has more than 63% of the current total vote total. cheney conceded. it is enough another rough

night for republicans who have stood out to donald trump, and there's one person in american politics who knows and understands what it's like to be in liz cheney's position. that is congressman adam kinzinger from illinois, former member of the january six committee. i talked to him earlier about how's college was approaching the. stress >> congressman king kinzinger thank you so much for being with us tonight. i want to start with i wish we were meeting under better circumstances given where the polls and in training concerning cheney's fate. i want to ask you as one of the few people who've been going through this with her inside the same party, what has it been like being on the committee with liz cheney. has there been camaraderie or gala seem, or was that relationship been like for you? >> look, it's been pretty amazing. this committee just outside of liz and i, this is like

probably never happen in history and likely will never happen again. you have a committee that is focused on getting the truth, getting to the answers, getting done what needs to be done. we thank kevin mccarthy for pulling his members because it's made it a lot easier for us to get to the truth. but with liz look, i feel the same way, if i went back 20 months and made the decision about am i going to impeach donald trump, i would've done it in a heartbeat, and liz feels the same way. what is it for a man to gain the world but lose his soul? i think have we gotten in to this committee, liz and i get along really well. my respect for her was huge prior to all of this and it's grown immensely. she's very determined, very doggett, and she will chase donald trump to the gates of hell for sure. >> have you talked to her about her candidacy, have you talked to her in advance of election night tonight? >> yeah, i kind of let her before the last 12 hours or 24

hours or so. i think she realizes it's an uphill challenge. she made the decision that she is gonna go down firing and a miracle can obviously happen tonight but even if it's a little closer than what people expected, i think the bottom line is this will send a very strong message that this is not your dad's republican party anymore. this is not a party that's committed to truth. this is a party that's committed to conspiracy. people in congress don't really believe, it i don't think they believed the big lie in the country's conspiracists. what i worry about is the next generation of people who have just been elected and you to be here next, year they do believe these conspiracies and that's very frightening. >> you've been very explicit about the moral wrestling the eve had to deal with, personal anguish that you have been in in terms of some of these votes and coming up out against trump. i want to quote from an interview you did with the washington post. you talked about the fact that

in 2016, he didn't vote for trump and then in 2020 you did. that is not the normal pattern for people in your position right? you talked about that vote pretty honestly. you said, i decided to vote for him in 2020, that way could say with a straight face i voted for him. i know he's not gonna win but i could say i did it but i and i have credit with the base. you said he felt dirty casting that ballot. it's not something i can square away in my soul fully. do you think other members of congress are facing the same internal anguish when they make these calls? >> how can you not? i think it's important to be open and honest about that. it was a cowardice vote for me. but there's a lot of cowardice votes that are being taken daily in the house. i've gotta tell you, besides just a few of my colleagues, there are so many that i know have stuffed down that kind of

little bird, the little angel on his shoulder that's whispering you really destroying this country with the votes in who you're supporting it. they've stuffed, down and tried to justify it by saying if i don't vote somebody crazier's gonna come along. but kevin mccarthy bears 90% of the way for donald trump's return. he's a failed leader who has absolutely nothing more than his own power in his mind, and he resurrected donald trump. i've got to tell you, if he's ever around the mirror, i can't imagine it's easy to look at him unless it's that cold and calculated. >> kevin mccarthy wasn't alive years when you first came annual he was you are one of his protegees act, and did you not see that back then it, was just naked lee after power did something change? >> i guess in hindsight, the i knew is a good politician and i guess he. is he goes with the winds, he goes where it's gonna take him.

he knows everybody's name, you know something about you. and i knew that there was a lot of politician-ing to that, but at the time we didn't have donald trump yet. when he came, and you all of a sudden start seeing different people, it's not just about differences of opinion, we need differences of opinion in this country. but it's about swallowing authoritarian views, changing the constitution, and changing our view the government. i saw him working on behalf of trump with that and not lead. liz cheney and i can continue to speak out against donald trump and will continue to do that. kevin mccarthy is the one who will do that he's a leader, but he's too much of a coward and people should realize that. >> there are people who legitimately believe that you lead the party to hold him accountable he is a moral abomination some of those people are in your family. you shared a letter right after you called for people to be

removed from office. 11 members of your family sent you this letter. i'll just quote some choice lines. adam, oh my what a disappointment you are to us and to god! we were once so proud of your accomplishments! instead, you go against your christian principles and join the devils army, the democrats in the fake news media. adam we're gonna they're not collected your appearance tonight on msnbc. but you know what happened with kevin mccarthy? right that's a fairly abc, i can be maybe to the next speaker the house, and kevin mccarthy to stay in power. but what about members of your own family? i ask you that not to be critical of members of your own family, but i think they are representative of a lot of republicans in the country who don't hold elected office and are and throttled with donald trump at our voting against liz cheney who otherwise is everything you could want from a conservative republican? >> i think it's an important thing to talk about.

first off, i've come to believe over the last year that people, more than even fearing death were such a tribalistic people, they fear being people kicked out of their tribe. because you accept anything, because now republicanism and conservatism and trumpism becomes your identity. so you are going to stay. look, my family, they are my dad's cousin's, i'm going to say this as a christian myself. the pastors, many pastors in this country are failing their congregation. not even just by pushing kind of trumpism from the pulpit, but even refusing to talk about how bad it is, how corrosive it is. you have people today that literally, i think in their hearts they might not say, but they equate donald trump with the person of jesus christ. to, them if you even come out against this amazing man donald trump, which obviously is quite flawed, you are coming out against jesus, against their christian values. and when you go after their religion, that violates the death of who they are.

i've been kicked out of my tribe and that's okay. but >> you seem okay with it. you are doing it with your head held high. i guess i want to just close to so by asking you about tonight, we might see the departure of liz cheney for all intensive purposes from congress. sarah palin is in a primary in alaska, may very well make it to congress as the lone congress person from alaska, they, being the operative word there. donald trump is suggesting that he might run again in 2024, what do you think the road ahead is? you won't be in congress, but you know what's going on with the gop, what happens now? >> i, like a lot of people feel politically homeless. this is obviously nothing near the party i joined. i have a movement, country first. we have played against madison cawthorn, we've played on behalf of brad raffensperger, played in michigan and some other places. what we are trying to do is to say that democrats are live in

a district that you know is going to go republican, one of those it's not competitive. in certain areas, consider taking that over the republican ballot and voting against these crazy. i personally am going to be focused on that. and i love calling out the garbage that is being done to abuse people. the abuse of emails that say, seven times match or just give me $10 or donald trump knows you have a given in this corner. it's all lies, it's abusing people, many of which are seniors and on a fixed income. i am excited to be able to go out and fight that battle. because somebody has got to. people are just being abused and obviously the republicans are becoming a cult. i'm going to pulling people from that cult if i can. >> congressman, i'm kinzinger, ready for the fight, member of the january six committee. best of luck with all of your efforts and thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, congratulations. >> still ahead here tonight, new details on the search at mar-a-lago. judge sets a hearing to whether

we can see the reasoning between the doj's search of trump's country club home. next, president biden has some fun with his former boss on twitter. the b f d, they are talking about is the brand-new law that biden signed today. the biggest investment in fighting climate change this country has ever made. we will be right back. back. know what to do. seeing my daughter have a heart attack, it shook me. aspirin helps reduce the chance of another heart attack by 31%. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein.

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we spent billions to sweep it under the rug. man 3: so we're going to be fine. but you might want to start a compost pile, turn down the ac. you got a lot of work to do because your kids are going to need it. >> today, president biden

signed the inflation reduction act into law. despite the colossal understatement of a name, the bill is the largest climate investment in u.s. history. it lowers health care costs for millions of americans. it makes sure that big corporations pay their fair share in taxes. and the whole thing will not only reduce the deficit, oh yes, it will fight inflation too. the name is not completely off base, but you understand me. democrats in the biden administration have been hammering home those messages since this agreement was reached. as they should. but president biden did not just brag about with this bill will do today, he also used as a very real example of why elections matter. >> let's be clear, in this historic moment, democrats sided with the american people and every single republican in congress sided with the special interest in this vote. every single republican in congress voted against lowering prescription drug prices, against slowing health care

costs, against the fair tax system. every single republican, every single one. voted against tackling the climate crisis, against lowering our energy costs, against creating good paying jobs. my fellow americans, that is the choice that we face. >> with less than 90 days until the midterms, the message is pretty clear. if you want more progressive stuff done to help people in the planet, help elect more democrats. that is what brings me to some other very good news tonight, some of the key obstacles that democrats are facing this november are threats to voting itself. whether it is the tidal wave of voter suppression laws, the harassment of election officials, or the increasing extremism of the conspiracy theorists who believed the 2020 election was stolen, it is getting really hard to just vote in lots of places around the country. today, the nba, national basketball association announced a new plan to make voting easier. yes, easier.

the nba affectedly made election day leak holiday. no basketball games will be played on election day, no basketball games. on top of that, the night before election day, every single nba team will have a game. and the teams will use that game as an opportunity to encourage fans to get out and vote. it is almost like a high school pep rally, both national implications. this was atlanta state farm arena in 2020, where the atlanta hawks play. more than 40,000 people cast their ballot said that you. biden won georgia, if you remember by fewer than 12,000 votes. twice as many people voted at the bowl stadium, the united stadium, than any other polling place in the city of chicago. in 2020, a total of 23 teams made their arenas and practice facilities into polling and voted related sites. they hosted poll worker training, ballot drop offs and voter registration. and nearly 300,000 americans voted in nba team arenas in

2020, which to put that in perspective is more people than there are registered voters in the entire state of wyoming. and when and entertainment or sports group does something political, it is often more window dressing or brand management then it is substance, but this is different. elections matter, facilitating elections matters but, getting out to vote matters and for a change, man, it is great to have some good news to report.

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the fbi search former president trump's palm beach home. just four days since a federal judge released the search warrant, revealing that the fbi had taken 11 sets of classified documents from mar-a-lago, including several top secret sets of documents. in the days since, we have learned that attorney general merrick garland deliberated for weeks about whether or not to approve the application for the search warrant of trump's home. that is how sensitive it was. amidst all of this, though there is one important element that we have not gotten a lot of information on. we've not gotten access to the underlying sworn affidavit by fbi agent, that aligns why there was probable cause to think that evidence of federal crimes would be found at mar-a-lago. that affidavit, essentially the basis of the search warrant. and the justice department has

said that releasing the affidavit to the public would quote, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation, because the investigation involves highly classified materials. but, despite that today, a federal judge set a hearing to decide whether or not to unseal the affidavit. and that is scheduled for this thursday and as we wait to hear what happens on that front, i do want to bring up one point that seems potentially under explored in the analysis of the search warrant materials. one of the documents that fbi agents uncovered and took with them from mar-a-lago was listed as a quote, executive grant of clemency regarding roger jason stone junior. you might remember that trump granted not one, but two executive grants of clemency for his old friend and adviser roger stone and so there could be a totally innocent and truly boring explanation here, maybe there was just an extra copy of that grant of clemency lying around and that extra copy just happened to be on top of or next to the classified documents that the fbi picked up. but, maybe not.

and maybe there is more to it. mid last week, the day after the fbi executed a search warrant at trump's home. robert costa, of cbs news, reported that quote, some january six committee members have been investigating quietly, the trail of trump's documents for months about pardons. and are probing whether or not any private pardon papers exist. if so, if they are held by trump's aides. we have no idea with that roger stone clemency document could be. the one the fbi took from mar-a-lago, but it could have been a private pardon. meaning a pardon trump granted secretly without the justice department or virtually anybody else. knowing that there is no way to tell right now. there is no way. but, if this reporting is correct, that the january six committee is investigating whether or not private pardon papers exist, well then now you have my attention. and i have just the person to ask, right here about this. my next guest has quite the resume. she spent 18 years as a federal

prosecutor in birmingham alabama, before becoming a u.s. attorney. in 2009, was one of the first five u.s. attorneys. there she is. to be nominated by president barack obama when he took office. in fact, was the first u.s. attorney that she named them was unanimously concerned by the senate. no small feat. joyce vance spent nearly a tiredly of rock obama's two terms of president, almost eight years as the u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama. that is why she is here. among other reasons. joining us now, joyce vance, so great to have you here, thank you for joining me joyce. >> good to see you alex. >> i want to explore this private pardon papers scenario. the fact that this roger stone clemency document was taken when the fbi seized papers from mar-a-lago, normally pardons go through the doj. office of the pardon, right? >> the pardon attorney, who routinely handles all pardons. >> is it possible trump has a

stash of pardon papers that might intersect with the things that were done around january 6th? >> my temptation is to tell you no, absolutely not, it's impossible, this is trump we are talking about, he did not do things like anybody else and the reason that you'd have a pardon attorney is so that there is an official record of a president granting pardons, while he is in office and the only time that he has access to the pardon power, which is broad and expansive. could trump done these privately? i suppose he could have. but there is one limitation, even trump would have to create some form of a record. that the pardon was issued while he was in office. right, he does not today at mar-a-lago have the power of pardoning anyone. despite what you might say. one of the reasons this is interesting, because of all of the other rhetoric coming out of trump land. vis-à-vis these documents at mar-a-lago. right, we know that trump is the person in saying he had sort of unilateral capabilities to declassify information and that all of the things that he

took with them, to mar-a-lago were things that he had declassified, effectively i will read the statement, president trump in order to prepare for work the next day often took documents, including classified documents to the residents. he had a standing order that documents removed from the oval office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment that he removed them. like boom, i can declassify something by virtue of the fact that i am donald trump. and somebody who thinks that he has that power, to just to classify things could also maybe think that he has the power to issue pardons willy-nilly without having to go through the appropriate channels. >> it is not beyond belief, i got stuck on the part that you read where he was saying to prepare for work the following morning. but it just defied belief. and i think that you are right, that this is somebody who was never constrained by normalcy operations in the white house which depended upon creating a record, because we are a rule of law country and we keep records and record the sort of

items, whether it is a classification of import national security documents or reflecting pardons granted by president. >> when we talk about the documents in and around mar-a-lago, i will call it, investigations seeds are. there's a lot of interest in this affidavit from the fbi agent to explain why they were going down the. a judge is going to have a hearing on that on thursday. what is your expectation from that? and if the affidavit is not released, should we infer anything from that about the seriousness of this investigation? >> the affidavit is always the tricky part of the search warrant, everything else is filling out papers but to some extent our boiler plate. but in the affidavit, as you laid out, the agent collects all of the information that has led the government to believe there is a crime that merits investigation. so, you and i and everybody else out there who is listening wants to read that, but doj's interest is in keeping all of that secret. they lay it out in this notion

that you began to read from. and here is the problem, from where i sat as a prosecutor. if somebody could read my agents affidavit, they would have a roadmap for where i was going next in the investigation. and there are real problems, particularly when you have a situation where witnesses could be intimidated, future witnesses might not come forward, right? this is a real sort of a risk here. some sorts of information that are contained in affidavits cannot be released, and anything that is obtained using the grand jury legally has to remain private prior to charges being brought. then because of the nature of this case, there is the entire specter of classified information being included in the affidavit. and i would be stunned if the judge ruled that this warrant, this affidavit should be unsealed and released to the public. >> let's be clear, merrick garland according to our reporting wrestled with the decision to raid mar-a-lago for weeks. he is not known as a knee-jerk

shoe from the -- attorney general dude. and the fact that we are admitting it's an ongoing criminal investigation, these are all measurable, tangible signals that this is pretty serious. >> that's right, i have to push back a little bit on the characterization of it as a raid. because this is a search warrant that a federal judge authorized based on probable cause. which i know you know, and we will be careful with the language on this, but the second part of what you said is something that has not been said enough and that is very important. the whole country has been waiting to see what merrick garland is doing. and this week where garland told us that he has a criminal investigation and he had the authority from that judge to go in and see is the office of mar-a-lago, called 45. >> merrick garland, nation turns its will only eyes to you. former u.s. attorney, thank you for being here joyce, appreciate it, we will be right back. back smelling fresh waaaay longer than detergent alone. if you want laundry to smell fresh for weeks, make sure you have downy unstopables

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thank my talented and esteemed colleagues for all the work they've done over the past few weeks and months as we built the show from the very bottom up. ali velshi, that he has on, and payment meridian and then incredible work holding on this hour ahead of this lunch and for that i am incredibly and forever grateful. thank you guys. and in a final note, don't forget to set your dvr's for alex wagner tonight. now it's time for the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle. it's primary night. liz cheney and the future of democracy on the ballot. cheney will not be wyoming's republican member of congress but her political future is not over. steve kornacki is back with the numbers as voters, some who believe election lies are having their say.