good evening once again, i'm stephanie ruhle, it is now midnight on the east coast, we are continuing our breaking news coverage as evening, about 30 minutes ago the justice department filed its response to donald trump's request for a special master to go through documents that were seized after a search of mar-a-lago, that took place over three weeks ago. in the filing, the doj says that some of the documents seized were so sensitive and classified, that in some cases fbi agents and doj attorneys needed additional security clearances just review them. if that, i want to bring in ryan riley, justice reporter

for msnbc news, -- matt miller joins us, former special advisor on communications for the nsa, and former chief spokesperson for the department of justice. and jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters. ryan, you had the very difficult challenge of speaking to us moments after this document dropped. you've had a bit more time, tell us what else we've learned. >> i mean, i think it's significant, especially those photos that you discussed in the last hour, that show just how this was organized. i think the key part of this is essentially, them not trusting the trump team. because after they had that initial grand jury subpoenaed that was delivered, you had this filing that was signed by a trump reporter. so we don't know based on the filing what it was, but it's been reported publicly they said there is no responsive documents left. and lo and behold, when they

when it's executed the search warrant, there were all these documents left. there's still information, and we don't know how they got this horse that information. but the key part of it is, that they were right. you could see by the product of what they're able to seize from donald trump's mar-a-lago facility down there. in fact the information you have, or continue to hold on to classified information was corrects, you obtained all those filings, those classified documents from a mar-a-lago. and i think he had a pretty good reason for going down there. and i think they made the argument that with regards to executive privilege, it's really where this is all gonna go, because the trump team is gonna try to make this about more up then about attorney-client information, which is a small subset of the overall documents, and try to make this more about this idea of executive privilege, to try to work with this tripwire and here. but the doj's already arguing that this is not necessary, they already went through the process --

. >> okay, because you brought up attorney client privilege, i have to torture matt miller, who must be dying to speak right now, as somebody who knows the department of justice so well. he has to be chomping at the bit, but i have to ask chuck. this argument, attorney client privilege, isn't the doj going to argue, none of these documents belong to trump to begin with, so what's ground says we have to say, bring them back to me they are not his. >> well stephanie, don't confuse attorney-client privilege with executive privilege. some documents might actually be communications between trump and his attorney, and the government has already said that we found a few of those, a small subset, and we set those aside. with respect to executive privilege, i don't think that trump will have any like to stand on. and here's why. executive privilege, right, communications between a president and his or her -- i hope her one day very soon,

the top advisers can be privileged under certain circumstances. we want to president who has candid advice from their advisers. but executive privilege belongs to the person who is currently pro president. so right now, mr. biden is the one who makes decisions about executive privilege, not mr. trump. trump has tried to argue that there's some residual executive privilege for former president, but by and large the courts have said that's just not true. so two different types of privilege at issue here, attorney-client privilege, and there may be some merit to some of that that some documents are genuine communications, between trump and his attorney, and the government has said that we've already found those, and we've set them aside. with respect to executive privilege, i think that claim has to fail, because mr. biden has said he will not assert that on behalf of mr. trump in those documents.

>> matt miller. what are you thinking tonight? >> well first of all, of course, i think chuck is usual lays out very well by the former presidents claims are likely to fail on executive privilege. i think the most damning thing, to me, and is pleading for the government, is the way that they recount that the former president concealed information from the justice department. i think that not only is it the most damning it's, the most potentially damning legal -- it's a piece of information to put some of the most legal jeopardy i think we had a case for a former president had taken documents, either by mistake or even willingly, and they were found to be classified and that former president didn't return them to the government, it will be very hard for the government to make a criminal case with that set of facts. but when you have the facts as they're laid out in this pleading, where not only did the former president hold on to those documents for months, delay giving them back to the justice department, then not return them when he got a subpoena.

not only that, he seems to have concealed them, and according to the justice department here moved some of the documents from the room where he said, where his attorney said they had been stored, and some of them chauvin's office and the government only finds them when they come in and executed a search warrant, that's a very damning set of information for the former president. and i think when you look at that evidence of potential obstruction, combined with mishandling classified information, it makes it much more likely that he ends up facing a criminal charge, then you would see if he had just returned this information the first time at the second time, or even the third time the government came calling for it. >> jeff, let me ask you about what must be happening in trump 's inner circle tonight. the department of justice said that they seized more than 100 classified documents originally, the national archives, they didn't look no they were looking for that many. it's almost impossible to believe that there wasn't someone inside trump's inner

circle, saying as an informant saying, you need to come back, you need to see what's in here. >> yeah, i think the answer, steph, to your question about what's happening within the inner circle, is damage control. preparing for damage control, and also possibly trying to prevent the president, or encourage of president not to go. on to his truth social accounts and go off. i spoke to a person in that orbit earlier tonight. who is dismayed by the presidents earlier remarks on truth social, or several hours ago about wanting to be reinstated, and saying that he was actually -- considered a good story with regard to hunter biden. and just kind of changing the narrative back to himself, and his false claims about the 2020 election tying all that together, steph, i think looking at these things, and

with the other panelists have just described, this is not good news for the former president. this is not a positive story. i think you'll see him and others, who prepared, this perhaps, to hillary clinton. that's something else i've heard from this other source i spoke to earlier, saying that the fbi's model with hillary clinton, is that they don't indict, i think others will argue that these things are not apples for apples at all. but i suspect, based on my reporting, is where you will see some of the comments coming from trump world, as part of that damage control. >> shock, forget team trump figuring out how to they protect him, how do they figure out the next communication tonight, intelligent off a lot of them, especially his lawyers, need to worry about their own hides tonight? i'm pretty sure months ago, some of his lawyers signed off on what they were sending back to the government saying, we are clean, we've got nothing here. are they worried that they will be on the hook? >> potentially, yes, and this

goes back to matt miller's really important point about obstruction. so if a lawyer told the united states department of justice, that there is nothing else here, there are no classified documents, there is nothing pursuant to the presidential records act, you have everything, we've turned it over. and that's not true, the next question is, why isn't that true, stephanie? is that not true because the really bad lawyers, and they didn't do due diligence, is it true because he asked trump, and trump lied to them, and they repeated the lie? did they know it was a lie? or did they not know is a lie? or, did they actually have eyes on these documents, and wrote a letter to the department of justice those false? again, this is why you do investigations. so could the lawyers be on the hook, conceivably yes, do we know that now, not yet. but matt's really important point, and i really want to put another sort of gloss on it, is that we've always talked on your show and others about how

hard it is to prove intent. it's the hardest thing to prove in these types of cases. not that someone did something, but that some someone did something intentionally. but when you cover that thing up, when you lie about that thing, when you conceal that thing from the department of justice and the fbi, it tends to prove intent. if it was a genuine mistake, you would say immediately, oh my goodness, stephanie, my bad, i realized that i had a whole bunch of classified information in my basement, here you go. i don't want it, it's yours, you should have a back and to matt's point, that's not really a prosecutable case anymore. when you lie and office kate, when you mislead the fbi about what it is you have, that's obstruction, and that helps to establish intent, which is the hardest thing to prove in these types of cases. so, matt, i understand why he was our head communicator, he's really good at this >> math, then, how would trump be able

to make the argument, if he chose to, i didn't pack the boxes, i didn't see it. it was already reported i want to see a couple of weeks ago, then he might not have read every word or every letter in those hundreds of documents seized, but trump already rifled through them, he knew what he had. he knew what was there, and as a former president of the united states of america, he damn well knew none of it belonged to him. >> we'll, if you didn't know, he certainly should have. i think that's actually the right point stay and funny, i'll add that as this document that the justice department made clear tonight, these documents that they seized from mar-a-lago were not just held in a storage room, where trump's lawyers had told the justice department they were going to be, but also in trump's personal office and it is personal desk. so the idea that he didn't know that he was holding on to classified information, and they were sitting in his desk in his office, not just in the storage room, it's very hard to make the argument. not just when you have made the, previously the points that you referred to, but when the

justice department comes in and finds evidence of top secret information, lying around your office, this picture that you have up on the screen right now. it's very hard for the former president to say he didn't -- i don't know how you would possibly make this claim. and i'd say, just looking at this picture, anyone who was worked in the national security establishment is very familiar with the documents that you see in front of you. these cover pages, mark, top secret and secret. they are obviously screaming at you, that these are documents that needed to be handled with special care. he'd be kept inside secure government facilities. i just completed a tour inside the government's national security council, where dealt with these kind of documents every day. if the fbi came into this office, my home office where i'm sitting now and found documents like that spread across my floor, you'd have no doubt what would happen to, me i'd be prosecuted for mishandling of classified information, and just about any other person, i would dare say

any other person in a similar situation could expect the same kind of charges from the justice department. >> ryan, you obviously covered justice for us. what does it say that the department of had a week, had a week to come back with a response, and it was all the way down until the wire that they came back, does that not say that they went through every single document, crossed every t and dotted every i meticulously, because they knew they were facing off against loads of baseless claims, like they got it down to the wire when they handed this thing in. >> yeah, what i always love about these nights is that all of us journalist get together and sort of rabble rousing about the idea that the doj wastes until the very last minute to file something, which is what journalists do every time to file something. i do think that they made a very strong argument here, and

this is how the doj likes to speak, they like to speak through the four pages of, not the indictment in this case, but the filing. they speak through the court process, they like to make their case in this matter, they are the facts as they see them. they're not gonna go on social media as truth social, and make all these claims that donald trump is going to be making. they're going to keep this within the confines of their court filings, and make a very compelling case here, and that visual element >> jeff, i keep saying to, you you've covered trump for years. you've covered him for years. over the last 24 hours, he's loved truth social, he's posting all sorts of things. this comes, out and we haven't heard one word from him. his last post was pumping people to buy jarred's book. >> so what's he doing? i can't explain that, unless

perhaps he was listening to some of the advice from people in the circle to just pull back. and not use some of the techniques he typically does. you referenced how much i covered him, and you cover him covered him, and you cover him as well from your

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special coverage, i'm stephanie ruhle. we are reviewing the department of justice is 36-page document that they have submitted to the judge. there are response to former president trump's request to have a special master, a third party review the documents, they were seized in mar-a-lago just three weeks ago. i wanna bring in andrew weizmann to discuss, former fbi general counsel, and former senior member of the mueller probe, he's now a law professor at nyu. andrew, i can tell you that since this news, broke my twitter feed is a flutter with people saying, we need weisman. so i'm just gonna sit back, give you the mic. walk us through what your takeaways are tonight. >> good evening, and good good

morning. so a quick read of this, on the boring side but it's important for the judges, they really get the law, it's dead on as to why executive privilege didn't work, why there is no special master needed for the handful of attorney-client documents. all of that is sort of less important, i think, in terms of big picture. let's just turn to the key here, which is that the department got approval from the d.c. chief judge barrel howl, to reveal some grand jury information, and they do. they also go ahead and -- >> i don't know what that means. >> so, good to interrupt me. grand jury material is protected by a rule, that the

government is not usually allowed to share grand jury material. for instance, a grand jury subpoena is not something that the government can usually go ahead and reveal. well, it is attached, here, so this filing to help explain the timeline, and what it is that donald trump received, when it is that he was told, he legally had to produce. and they got permission from the chief judge in washington d.c., to do that and one of the ways they say they could do that is say, look, this is been revealed by donald trump's counsel already, so we should be able to reveal it, and she agreed. so it helps fill in the timeline, which is that a grainger a subpoena in may, was given to the former president. why is that relevant? because, what then happened, and it's really clear from the search, is they found just tons and tons of classified material at mar-a-lago.

and not just in the storage facility, but in his personal home office. so the big takeaway, and i sort of buried the lead, is that they are just classified documents everywhere. the government comes out and says, the idea that they could've done a review, a search and certified to us that some of this material had been previously produced, is farfetched. what they are saying, on the second part of this, is that there was clear obstruction of justice. when they put a certification the department saying they had produced everything, and they did that in june, before the search was conducted saying, we have done a diligent search, and everything was found. but department says, we've developed evidence that that wasn't the case, and we know from the search and from the photos that your displaying,

that was clearly not true. so the key takeaway here is, donald trump and the two lawyers, corcoran and bob are really having to be sitting there going, this is not a good development. because, two lawyers certified, neither drafted or themselves certified that they've produced everything, and donald trump, the idea that this happened without donald trump knowing, is in implausible. you can be sure that those boys i'm gonna say that they did this completely without checking with our micromanaging client. so that picture that you're showing to me, speaks volumes, in terms of obstruction and the 50 19 charge. a failure to comply with the grand jury subpoena, which is 18 u.s. sea for a two, which is essentially contempt of the grand jury subpoena. and also just makes it clear

that the president had reams of classified information, even after he told the department that he didn't. >> okay, then role play with me for a second, you are corcoran, you are bob, you're either on conservative media tomorrow, they're welcome to come on tv with us here, or you are speaking to the judge, how do they respond to this quote that's in there. the fbi, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings, as a diligent search that the former presidents counsel and other representatives, had weeks to perform. you are bob or corcoran, how do you respond to that? is the ones who signed off and said, the up, nothing to see here. >> so let's roll play, i am now defence counsel, advising corcoran and bob, i tell them

you need to withdraw as council, i need to get the best defence counsel you can possibly get. and stop talking. because, they are clearly going to be interviewed, at the very least they're going to be -- on the issue that your flagging. you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know where to go with this. which is, they either themselves said that they did a thorough search, when in fact they didn't, which is perjury, and obstruction. or, somebody told them that if their search had been done, i.e. donald trump. so i think it's one of the other, so i don't see how they continue to re-council, when at the very least, there will be

witnesses. and i say the very least, because as you say, they could be in worse trouble here. >> do you believe not just trump's lawyers, but kind of and everybody who touched this, could they themselves being legal jeopardy? >> yeah, absolutely. so, one of the things that, if you have a client like donald trump's, you have to be willing to say no, and you have to have a strong moral compass as to what you will and will not do. you are not a hired gun, you are a professional with a duty to the court, and legal duties in terms of making representations to the government. and presumably they will say that they will not personally

do the search of somebody else did the search, we're told them that the search was done. and that is going to be a very small group of people. it's hard to imagine that that would not be donald trump telling them, either, i looked through everything there is nothing there, so just write that, or they have to follow their sword which i don't think that's gonna happen, and that's why i think they need to get council. but andrew, how does one keep passing the buck? i can't get on delta if i can't answer the question no one touched my suitcases, no one went into my suitcases, i signed off on what went into these bags. when i signed my taxes every year, it doesn't matter who prepared for, them i'm on the hook for them. as all these senior people in these positions, aren't any of them on the hook? are we gonna go back to it was

a lowly box handler? come on! >> this is a problem in criminal law all the time. as you know when a ceo certifies the to the best of their knowledge this is accurate, just to be fair, there is a certain amount that especially in a large organization you do have to be relying on other people. so you do insists or you try to make it is fair as possible but it can happen that you were misled or someone made a mistake along the way. that's a very different situation than here. the department of justice calls it out just the way you are, and you hit the exact or the right paragraph, where they said we don't understand when we had weeks and weeks to look for, and you managed to certify

this. somebody had to have done the search. i don't think the certifications identified who did the search and that will be the key thing for the obstruction crime angle. yet we are investigating who is responsible. you'll be very interested in who did the search that abiy corcoran relied on when they file that certification. >> but you right there have opened up an up and opportunity to remind us of your history. as difficult as it is, to go after a ceo of a major organization, it was andrew weissmann himself who took down and run where the most senior executives were jailed for their dishonest business practices. it is so difficult and you were

the person who didn't. i want to read something else from the documented stood out when they were talking about what they found. >> newspapers magazines, false phone, but the news articles, is it all pronounced, notes presidential correspondence, personal post presidential records. he would take those with them. of moos and a lot of classified records, a most significant significant concern with that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records and otherwise and properly identified. i'm fuller, new word for me, basically these highly classified documents in their folders had been taken out, thrown amongst other pieces of paper. is there any scenario on planet earth where documents like this would just be thrown asunder with other stories of trump, other highly classified

documents. would a highly rational before that what that happened. >> now. just to be clear, there is no rationale for anybody who is aware of the existence of the documents and that's why the location of them and the amount, after a long period of time that is laid out by the department of justice in this filing that they and the archive sought them. the idea that donald trump was unaware of these when the fbi could find them in a number of hours and the location of all of them included his own office and desk drawers and they were next to personal items. i thought one of the nicest little pieces of this is a footnote that says, by the way we were entitled to take his passports and they are relevant because it's relevant to note that his passports were intermingled with all of these documents. meaning that the idea that he somehow did not know about all

of this would be much less and will be a much harder argument if you show that there were personal items of the former president in her mangled with these classified documents. i must say recently as in february this year was low-level department of defense employee mishandled a very few documents in two separate occasions and she was prosecuted and went to jail. the idea that that is going to happen to her but there is not going to be an effort here i just find very, very hard to fathom because you are dealing with merrick garland who is a former judge who's gonna be looking at presidents. the idea to relate this to corporate executives that the

low level incoming intern but the ceo who does something far worse and doesn't that i don't think is going to fly with merrick garland. the picture that is painted in this filing is one of repeated floating of the law, the national archives, the department of justice, the grand jury subpoena. it plainly makes clear why a search warrant was needed because all of this material would not have come to light, if the department had been given a certification that was demonstrably false everyone everything a being produced in the photo that everyone can see right now which i thought was just brilliant for the department to include so people could see exactly what was

found completely shows that obstruction of justice. a highly not just the leaking of highly sensitive information belying about. >> let's bring chuck rosenberg back into this conversation. chuck, i'm thinking back when trump was in his office, and people be tearing your hair out and, they say why is a lot to do this? common people are, other members administration can't, but there was really a shroud around the president and their powers. so many things he couldn't be prosecuted for. the fact that all of this is happening now that he's a private citizen, one that doesn't even have private security clearance anymore, what does that mean the things will be different as to what he could be prosecuted for? >> things are different and we always talk about how nobody is above the law. but when somebody is president they have authorities and powers that simply you and i don't have. i can't pardon anyone, nor can you.

there is a department of justice policy that says you can't charge and indict a sitting president. they can charge you or me. so there are factors and facts about being president that just don't pertain to anyone else. but he's not the president now. and i think andrew makes a very strong case for why he should be treated just like anyone else and why the obstruction of justice piece of this you and i have talked about really demonstrates intent. that is such an important thing because it's hard to prove intent. andrew knows this from his white-collar work. it's hard to get the ceo. and when the ceo lies or shreds documents or mislead's investigators, that suddenly becomes easier. there is still a whole bunch of work for investigators to do and a whole bunch of people the fbi will need to interview including possibly, quite likely mr. trump's lawyers in this very case. i agree with andrew that they

have at least become witnesses. with all that said stephanie, he is not a's president, and all those rules don't apply. he is now a former president is the same authorities you and i. he can't retain classified information, he doesn't even us even have a security clearance. the documents don't belong to him, they belong to the national archives in the american people. and he doesn't get to lie to the fbi, and there's no nothing that precludes him from being charged by the department of justice. >> andrew, this argument that trump could make about these documents being his or should be returned to him. now that you are seeing them in plain sight, how could his team possibly say, now time to send them back to him. they don't belong him, little on to us? >> certainly, the department addresses that really strongly in language that i don't think

you need to be a lawyer to understand. basically, the department says the argument that these are presidential papers is precisely why they do not belong to him. they cite the presidential records act which is a congressional statute, which says these are not your documents. so no matter what these documents belong at the archives and they say look if former presidents had an issue, the issue would be candy archives give the documents to the executive branch lawyers at the department of justice and the fbi. but it's not the end of these documents will go back to donald trump, and that says that's why you don't need a special master to review them, because they're not yours. normally you have a special master to try to sift through

documents that are yours. these are documents the blog to the executive branch. >> i want to bring ryan reilly back in. ryan, as i'm sitting here thinking, they had over 100 documents seized. the stuff was rifled through, out of its folded, willy-nilly, passport thrown in there, some pictures, the time magazine cover and that's just at mar-a-lago. trump as a whole all of other properties, trump tower, bedminster bedminster, the place up in westchester. do we think those other residences of trump's are gonna get searched anytime soon? is there any reason to think you can only keep all this jazz down there? >> there's no indication of that so far but i want to point out one part in the timeline that i think is important here. one thing we have learned in addition to this filing is just so many classified documents were turned over voluntarily quote unquote in response to the subpoena that was issued in may, and was acted upon in

early june. remember, this is this initial 15 boxes that were turned over to national archives, a whole bunch of classified documents that were supposed to be there, he wasn't supposed of any of those documents to begin with. fast forward, he wants five months down the line to may when they issued a grand jury subpoena. in response to that subpoena, the presidents counsel hands over bunch more documents. guess what? lo and behold, as a whole bunch of low classified documents near that he's not supposed to have. fast forward two months later. and they do this actual search warrant and there are additional classified documents he's not supposed to have. i think we've learned more in this new filing about that visit in june and almond documents were found. i'm looking at the document now, the preliminary document revealed and it's speaking about the june incident, 38 unique documents bearing classified markings including five documents marked is confidential, 16 documents

marked a secret, and 17 documents marked as top secret. furthermore, the fbi agents observed markings that so sensitive compartments. counsel for the former president offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records including 30 documents with classification markings remain at the presidents nearly five months after the production of the 15 boxes and nearly one and a half years after the end of the administration. so this is really a three-part story at this point. it's after a year of the national archives trying to get these documents. they got that initial set of 50 documents including 14 documents and had classified information in them in january and then in june, more classified documents, and then finally when they searched the place they got more classified documents that donald trump wasn't supposed to have. setting aside the fact that he wasn't supposed to have any of these records under the

presidential records act stephanie. >> you know matt, we keep talking about classified documents, but we don't actually know what those documents are. talk to us -- without knowing the specific content, help us understand the type of documents they would be. what kind of national risks does it pose? national security risks? >> could be a number of things. the department's previously said the former president retained documents that were retained from signal intelligence, type of work we do to penetrate foreign government emails, and if that information is exposed, you would see a foreign government target maybe stop using a phone or email account they're using. the government has said it contains documents derived from human intelligence which is information derived from other american intelligence operatives or people in foreign governments or foreign countries with whom they

interact. of course their identities are exposed, you can see those people arrested or even worse. one of the points i found very compelling that the government made in its filing is that if the judge were to proceed and appoint a special master to delay the revealed documents in this case, to delay the government in doing its job, as doesn't just have an impact on the justice department's case. it could slow down doj's ability to bring up the case which is not insurmountable, but there is an immediate harm if those documents have to be taken away from the director of national intelligence who's doing a classification review right now and risk assessment. if these documents we don't know yet who has seen these documents. we know there's a risk that he's been exposed to either foreign sources or people who can make them available to foreign sources. what the intelligence community has to do these documents has to go through and find it when information was potentially

exposed. then if there were steps they need to take to mitigate the harm, they need to be able to do that. if they don't have those documents, if they're taken from them and given to a special master they have to delay the review, that does impact national security in a serious way. chuck, what else are we missing here? >> stephanie, let me just remind us a bit, remember this is a motion by mr. trump's lawyers to appoint a special master to review the special documents that the government seized, pursuant to a lawful search warrant, when the government applied for the search warrant, they told the federal judge who authorized it, precisely what they were going to do with the stuff that they found, that they would use a filter for the privilege and non privilege stuff would be thrown over the trans into the investigative team. the judge approved that process, stephanie, he's off on it. that's precisely what the government did. so here is the really practical

argument, that the government is making, and we ought to keep in mind. it took the trump team 14 days, to file this motion, half baked, for a special master. during those 14 days, the government finished the review. they did exactly what they told the federal judge they were going to do, and they did exactly what he approves of them doing. they finished. and so they're practical thing that the government is now saying, in response to this motion to appoint a special master. we told the judge what we are going to, do we did, and were down. we met our obligations, fully. we have a very small subset of privileged documents, and we set them aside. the investigation is important for the reason that matt miller was just describing, and it needs to move forward. so let's go, your honor. there's no need to appoint a special master at this point, we did everything we said we

would, we did it properly >> but chuck, what if there is a way to ensure. let's say they appoint a special master that they can ensure that this thing is going to get done, wrapped up, sealed, finished, and let's say a month or less. because the doj went through all of this in three weeks or less, is there an argument to be made that could make sense to silence the naysayers, and surely show the public that we've done every possible thing, to cross our t's and dot her eyes. where they shouldn't have to? >> well, so a lot of sensible arguments over the last five years haven't quieted the naysayers, stephanie. so i'm not sure we need to play for that audience. but i take your point, that by bringing in a special master there is an imprimatur of neutrality, and that's valuable. but don't forget the department of justice has an enormous incentive to get its privilege review right. because at the filter team mess this up, if they get it wrong.

if there is actually a document that's covered by attorney client privilege, and there is no exception to it, and they pass it over the transom to the investigative team, they could do harm to the investigation. whether it's the doj internal filter team looking at it, or a special master looking at it, everyone has an incentive to do this right. but, your point is a good one, we might be a point that for some people there might be an incremental or of neutrality a third party does it. i get that. but the department of justice gets it, because in this response that they filed just before midnight, yesterday. they said, if you are going to appoint a special master, your honor, here is a couple of things that you'd be like you consider. set a deadline. make sure it's somebody who already has a clearance, so we don't have to delay and getting that, we want to move this forward as quickly as we can. look, in the end, the documents the investigative team of to

have, they will have. the question is, whether they can just move forward as they have been doing in that two week period, where the trump team utterly failed to respond, or whether they have to top on the brakes for two or three or four more weeks. either way, stephanie, they will get the documents they needed for this investigation, and i don't think folks ought to lose sight of that. >> jeff, we had very busy for years during the trump administration. it was a very leaky white house. you said, just a couple of minutes ago, earlier tonight you are talking to some people from trump's inner circle. i want to read a tweet from our colleague and legal analyst katie fang, where she says after reading the doj's response tonight, i'm even more intrigued about how the fbi found out that there are more classified records of mar-a-lago, including outside of the storage room. all of which led to the search warrant being obtain. she ends with who added on

trump to the feds. to as a reporter who cover trump for all these years, is that the next that you're gonna try to pursuit, after reading these 36 pages. is the next thing you are going to look to report on, how on earth the department of justice, why would they know to go back and get the search warrant, why do they keep pushing. >> it certainly intriguing, i'd say for sure a lot of reporters will be chasing that. but some of it is, there are no secrets, in terms of why the fbi went that way. i was just reading the reuters story, from my colleague sarah lynch, and there is a quoting here where they say, a trump lawyer, quote, specifically prohibited fbi agents from looking in boxes in a storage room at trump's property to run in june search, that the department said during a court filing today. so you don't need an informant to say, you can't look here.

this was done, they were told specifically you can look in these boxes. of course if you are the fbi, that is going to raise eyebrows, and it's gonna make you want to go back. so it's almost remarkable in the transparency there, or the lack of transparency. the fact that the trump team, specifically denied that request. so yes, i think to your question its spot on. there will be a lot of interest in how the fbi found this out. but some of it is also laid out in his filing tonight already. >> yes, but andrew weizmann, in the last few weeks in the reporting, it was reported that trump over the last few months, was more concerned about who is in his inner circle. he voiced concerns and maybe mar-a-lago is bugged. if it were bugged, and he didn't do anything, who cares, people will just hear you arguing with their spouse and gossiping.

>> i don't think it's a bug, but it's clear from this filing that they say that there was evidence that was developed, or -- at that june timeframe, that should've been turned over already. the department of justice in the fbi went to get in june, developed evidence that still has not everything despite the certification. yes, there will be a lot of speculation in the media, but i want to take it back stephanie to one thing you are asking in the discussion, about having to appoint a special master. i think it's really important to separate out the executive privilege issue, and the attorney client privilege issue, in the filing the department says yes, there is a small number of potential attorney-client privilege

documents. they claim, they basically say look judge, if there is some issue, there you should deal with it. that's with judges are for. we don't need to have a special master, we're talking about a very finite member. and i think that would provide what you are asking upload, stephanie, which is that this idea that there's a third party, a neutral and detached a judge, who to make the decision about are these protected by attorney client privilege or not. but it doesn't, then, interfere with a claim of executive privilege, which gets to whet matt was talking about, that there shouldn't be anything that slows down that review, and the national security interests. and i think it will be really stressed to the judge not to delay things. and my whole point is just, this in, the big picture, this is a huge misstep on the part of donald trump. having filed this motion, whether because of a fox news

interview, whatever led to the filing, the doj would never have had the opportunity to lay out all this evidence out. the photo that we just saw would not be laid out. all of the things, and of course we have more questions, but so much of what we have learned is because it's in response to positions that donald trump team has taken. so, to my mind, this was a very big misstep. because it's highly unlikely they will lose, in any significant way in court, on this whole special master issue, which is really a speed bump and most. and instead, we have really learned a lot about white refutes the donald trump spin. >> all right, then, we will leave it there. and your weisman, chuck rosenberg, my goodness who else is with us matt miller, jeff

mason, and ryan reilly. it's almost 1 am in the morning, thank you all for joining us and for sticking around for this hour, for sharing your expertise, we needed it now, thank you for sitting of been watching our special coverage this, it's gonna continue right after this break. after this break how? the lower the temp, the lower your bill. tide cleans great in cold and saves money? i am so in. save $150 when you turn to cold with tide. if you're turning 65 soon or over 65 and planning to retire...

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