the other thing is bob bower is telling us now, this is the first time we have heard from him regarding this. he says the president directed his personal attorneys to be forthcoming and fully cooperative with t t the nationl chthe national --archives and dl the american public about it for more than 2 months because that would be an issue of transparency and i'm going through my notes, comparing what i heard at the press briefing yesterday with what we are learning today and just a few things from my notes that we heard the press secretary say, keep in mind, the day after they knew even more documents were located steve said, this is a quote, we have been transparent. he said and this is a quote, this has been done in a transparent way and she said another quote, we are not avoiding anything here. they knew on thursday night that there were more documents, that's what they are telling us about today and yet on friday they claim transparency. we now know that that is just not the case. gillian: peter, this is gillian, we now know that there are at least 20 documents or 20 pages, we don't

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower and bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet a nother drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents, the bye didn't administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and it's largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in its ongoing investigation celebrations being held to mark the chinese lunar new year as people welcome the year of the revenue. these are the 1st facilities in china since the government lifted it 0 corporate policy. katrina, you is in beijing with more. the previous year was the year of the tiger. and according to chinese zodiac, the qualities of the year of the tiger were restlessness and disruption. then that's let me run through for many people here in china because it's coven, 0 policies. we had huge disruptions to income to the ability and to health, especially at the end

bob bower is a very good attorney, anita dunn is a very capable communications person.ws how to do this. and, to me, frankly, it's surprising how badly this has been handled. >> and also not to get out in front of it publicly, at the time they knew about the first documents, why not say something at that point in time? why wait so long for this to come out and then have round two, round three, of more documents being found? >> in terms of the time it took, i've dealt with these issues in the white house as an ambassador, supervising hundreds of people who had access to classified documents, and in 30 years -- >> you've never screwed one up like this. >> well, i think they did it legally by the book, evan. five weeks is not a lot of time. i worked on the enron case. in that case it took years to gather all the documents. when you think about all the people who had to be consulted, and when you don't want to taint or soil the searches, those five weeks, november 14th when m mr. loush was assigned, i don't think that's an unreasonable amount of time. and then they discover

this coming from bob bower. what do you make of that. >> it is a little bit of a cop out. the justice department doesn't care. they don't have any position on whether a person who is subject to an investigation talks or not. as a prosecutor, you would never tell the biden team or anyone investigating, you can't talk pblly. you understand as a prosecutor that it is completely up to that person. now, on the other hand, it is completely reasonable and i think smart from a legal perspective for bob bauer, for the lawyers for joe biden to say, we're not going to comment on this. this is an ongoing criminal investigation. and things will come out in the public proceedings. he but here the best move is to stay quiet. and there is a political balance that has to be struck as well. >> that is a good point. m.j. said they are referring all questions to the special counsel because they are now investigating. we've seen, we've seen the white house press secretary fielding continues questioned -- continuing questions. i have roberta gonzalez on with me last week and hep actually raised

and bob bower, who did not have a current clearance, i think he could have been cleared just by the fact if the president himself assigned this, he could have said, bob, i want you to go find what is going on here and then give him the necessary clearance by that instruction. >> jake tapper yesterday what chairman comer, he had an interesting conundrum for republicans here. yes, they have an oversight capacity, but at the same time, it is going to be hard for them to press just on president biden's documents issue when they didn't real liz express any concern over donald trump's document issue. >> that is right. congressman comer never asked for the visitor logs for mar-a-lago while he's asked for the visiting logs for president biden's delaware home and a lot of republicans including representative comer and speaker kevin mccarthy all rallied behind former president trump after the fbi went into search and are now they have -- sas a part of the new investigation they're launching, one is into the fbi. one is looking at the fbi and arguing that -- that it has been weaponized because of t

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower and bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet a nother drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents, the bye didn't administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and it's largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in its ongoing investigation, the celebrations are being held to mark the chinese lunar new year as people welcome the year of the rabbit. these are the 1st facilities in china and the government lifted it. 0 covered 19 policy. protests have been held against israel's new right when coalition government and its plans to reform the judicial system, they say the reforms will weaken the powers of the supreme court protested. we're back on the streets of the french capital, angry at a plan to raise the retirement from $62.00 to $64.00. the government is the change is vital to safeguar

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower. and now bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when a biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents the by didn't administration, has attempted to take the heat out of it. and as largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in it's ongoing investigation. the you and deputy secretary general has told al jazeera, the women and girls of afghanistan could not be abandoned. i mean mohammed has just returned from high level meetings with the taliban engineers. main opposition party is held a rally for the 1st time since the gatherings were banned nearly 7 years ago. early this month, the government lifted a been imposed by former president john michael, fully in 2016. canada says it will help guide peace talks between cameron's government and s

in a statement the president's personal attorney, bob bower, said investigators had full access to the president's home including personally hand written notes, papers, and memorabilia. they took six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials from his time as vice president and senator. it's yet another political blow for the president who said thursday -- >> there's no there there. >> this has gone from just simply being irresponsible to down right scary. >> reporter: republican james homer chairs the house oversight committee and wants records from the secret service. >> any type of documentation that would help us determine who actually had access to those documents. >> reporter: he and other republicans allege a double standard between presidents biden and trump. but in trump's case the fbi executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago after he refused repeated requests for more than a year to turn over all his classified material. in all more than 300 classified documents were recovered. so far for president biden 25 to 30 known classified items

the biden's were not in the house at the time of the search, according to the personal lawyer, bob bower. and now bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents . the biden administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and has largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in it's ongoing investigation from the fight time that the 1st documents were discovered in november. they immediately handed everything over to the department of justice, opened doors to the f b. i told them they could look.

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower, and now bowers said as well that these documents appeared to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip and the ongoing process of finding these documents. the biden administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and has largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in its ongoing investigation. the un deputy secretary general has told al jazeera, the women and girls who have canister could not be abundant. amena mohammed has just returned from high level meetings with the taliban. some exemptions that being made to the edicts that have covered the health sector. and i think that's because the international community and particularly the partners who are funding this were able to show the implications and the impact of your women to women's services, particularly childbirth, the getting food across in very harsh winter conditions. not enoug

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower, and now bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents the by didn't administration as attempted to take the heat out of it. and as largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in it's ongoing investigation, the urine deputy secretary general has told al jazeera, the women and girls of afghanistan can not be abandoned. i mean mohammed has just returned from high level meetings with the taliban turns in ears may an opposition party has held a rally for the 1st time since the gatherings were bands nearly 7 years ago. earlier this month, the government lifted a band imposed by former president john michael fully in 2016. a danish far, i politician, has burned a copy of the corral side. the turkish embassy in stock comb. prompted anchor at a council plan

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower, and now bowers said as well that these documents appeared to come from a time when a biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents the by didn't administration, has attempted to take the heat out of it. and it's largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in it's ongoing investigation. turns in is main opposition party has held a really for the 1st time since the gatherings were banned nearly 7 years ago. earlier this month, the government lifted a band imposed by the former president and 2016 burkina faso. as military government has given french troops at one month to leave the country. it comes a day after hundreds of people demonstrated against the french military prisons. many say the former colonial power has failed to improve the security. well, those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after co

according to the personal lawyer, bob bower and bowers said as well that these documents appear to come from a time when biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet a nother drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents, the bye didn't administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and it's largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in its ongoing investigation celebrations of being held to mark the chinese lunar new year as people welcome the year of the rabbit. the found the 1st facilities in china since the government lifted their coven policy intensity. his main opposition party is held really for the 1st time since the gatherings were banned nearly 7 years ago . really of this month, the government lifted the band imposed by before the president became a fossil military government has given french troops one month to leave the country . it comes a day after hundreds of people demonstrated against the fre

the biden's were not in the house at the time of the search, according to the personal lawyer, bob bower. and now bowers said as well that these documents appeared to come from a time when a biden was in the senate, as well as some documents that were associated with him while he was vice president . so not clear exactly what these documents were, but this is yet another drip drip in the ongoing process of finding these documents . the biden administration has attempted to take the heat out of it and has largely succeeded by giving an open door to the department of justice in it's ongoing investigation from the fight time that the 1st documents were discovered in november. they immediately handed everything over to the department of justice, opened doors to the f b. i told them they could look where they want to to when they want to. to said there's been complete cooperation from the biden administration, with the officials as a continue this investigation, remembering as well that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the matter. just as there's a special council investiga

dunn recommending to president they keep this a secret until after the midterms, she is married to bob bower. the president's attorney you see quoted that is relevant. this whole point about fbi, we have all kinds of independent people who could be searching and looking, yoke i don't think we have even scratched surface. elizabeth: majority of americans, say this is serious. the president still maintains it was in in inadvert annually his handelled. let's get your reaction on how the mead and and democrats are turning on him. >> can you give us a sense of how many classified documents we're talking total? >> sure, a good question. the answer is complicated because of this point i'm making about integrity of on going justice department investigation. >> search of a sitting president's home escalates the political fallout, if not the legal problems after the white house tried to downplay the significance all week. >> it is obvious at-this-point that people in leadership roles of part don't know what the next turn of the screw is in this investigation, including people who worked in the white h

then, they told him the leading story only mentioning the initial set of 10 documents the lawyer bob bower said biden has tried to be forthcoming and cooperative the president's personal attorneys attempted to balance the important of public transparency where appropriate and the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity. we should note that the justice department didn't prohibit the white house from disclosing everything that the president's team turned over. we don't know the level of classification of the latest record that were found, we do know that among the initial batch of ten were documents that were marked tssci, sensitive compartment information. these are among the most sensitive government secrets which raise concerns about the exposure of sources of methods. now, one of the questions that the new special council rob herr will have is are there any more documents out there that have not been accounted for? evan paris, cnn. washington. >> earlier i spoke with document scandal with charlie dent, a cnn political commenter and former hous

>> we're limited to what bob bower said in a statement announcing the fact that we have this unprecedented the fbi conducting a full and complete search of the personal home of the president of the united states while he's in office. bower in that statement saying they had access to materials that included handwritten notes, files, papers binders not just from his time as vice president, saying it also included handwritten notes from his time as vice president and paperwork going back to his time as a senator. this is what's significant to me, lindsey, by what we learned over the weekend, the development is that the white house and the president's attorney is no longer in control of what is being reviewed here. the last 2 1/2 months we had the president and his team making voluntary disclosures to federal officials about what they had obtained and now even before the special counsel is fully in place, we have his team now taking steps with the invitation of the white house, but certainly the beginning of a phase in which they're going to be directing the steps from here on out. the preside

just this evening, the president's personal attorney bob bower released a statement saying they facilitated turned up six additional documents with classified markings. according to the attorney, this search took almost 13 hours. the white house special counsel to the president said that neither president biden nor first lady jill biden were on hand during the search. i want to read you a bit of the statement where bower says the justice department was offered and provided access to all of the living, working and storage areas in the wilmington home. he detailed how this search was conducted, saying, doj had full access to the president's home, including personal handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to do lists, schedules going back decades. doj took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the president's service in senate and some from his tenure as vice president. both the personal attorney and the special counsel at the white house said the

have an investigation of this kind, you need to be sensitive as the president's personal lawyer bob bowerneeds of transparency on the one hand, but to preserve the integrity of the investigation on the other. so, for example, if the department of justice is interviewing witnesses, you may not want to make public statements that tip one way or the other that you could be accused of attempting to influence those witnesses. so while in this case, hindsight really is 2020, and some of the criticism is fair, the complexities from the inside, when you're dealing with this are substantial. >> i also wanted to get your perspective on an attack that i got from a right wing partisan on social media. i asked one of our guests saturday morning about the differences between the trump classified documents case and this one, and they argued that because trump was president, he had the power to declassify the documents that were found at mar-a-lago while biden as vice president didn't have the power to declassify documents that were found. i'm curious to get your response to that argument. >> a two -fold

i'll read you a part of what the president's personal attorney, bob bower, explained why this has come out in drips and drabs. he says the personal attorneys have tried to balance the importance of public transparency, where appropriate, with the established norms established necessary, to protect the investigative integrity. the justice department did not tell them not to disclose all of this. as a matter of fact, we learned a lot from the attorney general, when he had a press conference on thursday. >> and has the president's team said whether this is everything? this is it? or is that hanging out there as a possibility this may not be it? >> that's the issue. they previously did tell us that they searched -- they completed their search. that's the impression we got from that statement was, that there was nothing more. it turns out that almost as soon as they said that, they had additional documents that they had not yet accounted for and had then been turned over to justice department officials who accompanied the white house counsel, special counsel, who went to wilmington, to hand

the president's personal attorney is a man he's known for years named bob bower.ng-time trusted aide of buy ken. she worked for the white house, came back at the request of the president. republicans in congress are pushing and pushing hard for delaware visitor logs. >> historically presidents have not maintained visitor logs to their private residences. it's true that presidents and former presidents wouldn't use their house as a repository for the nation's secrets. >> no comment from bob hur, the special counsel. his on the first week on the job. you have two special counsels investigating two presidents, the current and the one prior. >> neil: what is wild, david, republicans given the back and forth on the log issue. they said the next step is to go after the president's family members and sort of work backwards as to who was there and when and who might have accompanied them. this could get involved. >> it could. there's no visitor logs for wilmington and apparently novice or the logs for mar-a-largo. you have to remember around the 10 classified documents fo

so the president's personal attorney bob bower, he stressed in a statement that they did provide prompten's wilmington home, and it's clear that biden's attorneys have been communicating with the team for the u.s. attorney who has been handling this investigation out of chicago, john loush before that's handed over to the special counsel hurr. crucially here, friday's search was not conducted with a search warrant or a subpoena. of course, that marks a stark contrast to the search that was conducted in august at mar-a-lago. that was undertaken after months of back and forth with doj officials and trump's team. and it was after a subpoena and then ultimately a search warrant was issued all because trump and his team were not handing over what turned out to be national defense information, also classified material. so that's why possible obstruction has been raised as a possible offense in that case. you contrast that with biden's team. they've made very clear that they've been working with federal authorities on this since november when some of this classified material turned up from the

bob bower, president biden's personal attorney writing his team has, quote, attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity. as republicans vow to investigate thoroughly, house oversight chair james comer saying saturday the biden white house secrecy in this matter is alarming. many questions need to be answered but one thing is certain, oversight is coming. and as president biden considers another run, the state of georgia will likely be critical again in that race. that's where he traveled to today to speak at ebenezer baptist church ahead of martin luther king jr. day making him the first sitting president to ever deliver a sermon there. willie? >> monica alba starting us off at the white house this morning. monica, thanks so much. chuck todd is nbc's political director and of course the moderator of "meet the press." chuck, good morning. we've been talking all week about the differences between president biden's case with classified documents and that of form

and a part of that calculation clearly comes from bob bower himself.onal lawyer to president biden who has been taking lead on this. you saw that statement from him over the weekend when he tried to lay out how he has been trying to balance transparency and not interfering with an ongoing investigation as part of that he said, look, i think it is important to not be publicly sharing information about the investigation as it is ongoing. and we've seen this comes from the president himself. yesterday he went to this mlk day breakfast event and he had a private conversation with al sharpton and when they had this private conversation the president didn't bring up this issue at all. and when he did bring up house republicans in that conversation, it wasn't to talk about the investigation that they are promising. sharpton said it was to talk about how he wanted to reach out to them to talk about issues like voting rights. so sort of a telling exchange that i think goes to show how the white house is operating right now. >> m.j. lee, thank you so much for sh

a source confirming that bob bower will be representing president biden in a personal capacity in thisocuments case. they have a long working relationship together as bower also worked for biden during the 2020 campaign. and it is that set of lawyers that will be working with the special counsel as they conduct this investigation into the handling of classified documents. officials here at the white house have repeatedly tried to stress that they are cooperating every step of the way with the national archives, the justice department, and now the special counsel. there's still so many questions about these classified documents that were found first at that penn biden center office that president biden used after he left the vice president's office, as well as documents that were found at his residence in wilmington, delaware. of the documents that were found at the penn biden center here, ten of those were considered classified documents, which included information regarding ukraine, iran, and the united kingdom. there were also some memos that were found, one from then-vice president

now, bob bower, the personal attorney for president biden has tried to respond to some of that criticism saying they can't release all the information at once. he said in a statement quote, the president's personal attorneys have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established enormous and institutions necessary, or sorry, norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity. this all comes as the white house is really facing a political and possibly legal headache especially now that the special counsel has been appointed. >> and president biden is headed to where you are in atlanta soon. he's visiting a very important church. tell us about that visit. >> reporter: in just a few hours, president biden will be speaking here at ebenezer baptist church, the church where dr. martin luther king was pastor at the time he was assassinated. biden will be the first sitting president to deliver a sermon here, expected to touch on both dr. king's legacy, and talk about voting rights and access to democracy. it's an official trip

publicly that could jeopardize the investigation, that has come from the president's personal lawyer bob bower. and really we have seen the president adhere to the rule. the few times that she has addressed the issue, he has stuck close to the script from his lawyers. >> m.j., thank you. >>> and joining me now is correspondent jeff zeleny. so, jeff, in every white house that faces an investigation, even somewhere along the lines of this, not necessarily related to classified material, but an investigation that is becoming a bigger and bigger deal, there are these competing priorities always. the legal strategy and the political one. are you seeing that tension here? how does biden navigate this successfully. >> the tension is absolutely spilling over. and you're right, there are all two strategies in this playbook approach of how things like this are dealt with. the legal strategy is to say nothing at all and to cooperate with investigators and to sort of let it play out in its own time. the political strategy is unsustainable. so you saw last week as m.j. was just saying, it is remarkable and

and over the weekend the president's personal attorney, bob bower, tried to defend their information sharing approach saying that they don't want to impact the investigations under way. bower said in a statement, quote, the president's personal attorneys have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity. these considerations require avoiding the public release of detailed relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing. there are still so many questions facing this white house as it is increasingly becoming not just a political problem but also potentially a legal problem as the special counsel investigation gets underway. >> to that point, evan, in terms of the legal issues, these latest documents that we've learned about, are there any new legal questions that come along with them that we know of? >> reporter: absolutely, and one of the important new things that happened over the weekend is that we learned that dick sauber, this special counsel inside the

and here's the statement we got from the president's personal attorney, bob bower, who says, they were looking through notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to do lists, schedules, reminders going back decades and i think why it is so significant, when they took certain items in their possession, they included not just documents from biden's time as vice president, which has been where we've been focused this entire time, but they went on to say, items that included time from his tenure in the united states senate. now, that potentially represents a real expansion of this probe, and even as the white house officials are saying that this was done at the invitation, the search on saturday, at the invitation of the president, and his team, it's worth noting that this is the beginning of the end for biden's team really being in control of this special counsel search as it is ramping up. and that really leads to nor questions that we are going to keep posing. are there additional locations they want to search and why are they looking all the way back to his time in the u.s. senate and

. >> bob bower is one, james garland, robert -- >> so i, look, again, i don't want to, i want to saym here, so we would have to, i got to talk to the white house counsel or you will have to reach out to the white house counsel to talk about who are the personal lawyers. who are the personal lawyers. >> the first set of documents were found in november here in washington. why did it take until yid, until this morning, apparently, for whoever it is, to inform robert, that the final document was found? was that because there were press reports earlier this week and hoping nobody would find out or was it because -- >> there is a process that is an ongoing process that is considering. they did this by the book. and what i mean by that is the moment that the lawyers discovered that the papers were there, or the documents were there, they reached out to the archives. they reached out to the department of justice. and they immediately, rightfully so, reached out to them, to let them know what they had discovered. and that is the process. that is what we, that is what his lawyers did. and aga