and i think one thing here is that the department of justice is coming late to the game quite franklytee has done a ton of investigation and they have covered a lot of ground, especially at a time when the department of justice may be having a man power issue, just in terms of addressing all of the aspects of the january 6th investigation. from the thousands of the ground level minions that they profit to prosecute, from all these fundraising, the violence, the false electors scheme. having so much of this groundwork done by the house committee and having that shared and working in a way that they won't compromise each other and using the department of justices powerful tools, because remember people cannot stonewall a grand jury subpoena or get very far with things like executive privilege with the department of justice like they can with congress. i think this is a huge turning point. >> finally tuna renata, on this flurry of activity we've had in the last week, there's this doj policy around politically sensitive investigations and the traditional 60 days, there's a widespread expe

served as deputy assistant attorney for operations and management in the office of justice programs for the u.s. department of justice, and dr. greta el goodwin, and justice for the you -- it is the custom of the subcommittee swear in all witnesses, and at this time i will ask you to please stand and, raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony that you're about to perform before the subcommittee is the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and the whole truth, so help you god? >> let the wreckage of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. we will be using a timing system today. your written testimony is entirely printed in the record, and we will ask you to limit your oral testimony to five minutes. we will hear from you first, thank you. you may proceed. >> you will need to turn that microphone on. thank you. >> is it on no, can you hear me? >> yes, thank you. >> thank. you thank you making -- and distinguished members of the subcommittee. i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today about the work in the department of justice to implement the death and custody reporting act, and they wa

general, merrick garland himself described it last month. >> the central tenant of the way in which the justice departmenttigates, the central tenet of the rule of law is that we don't do our investigations in public. this is the most wide ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the justice department has ever entered into. we have done so because this represents the effort to up and a legitimate election, transfer of power from one administration to another, because at the fundamental -- cuts at the fundamental america democracy. we had to get in this fight. >> could be clear, garland is talking about the department of justice's investigation into january six. don't forget about that, there is still a grand jury in d.c. that has popped to a bunch of trump world lawyers. the procedure he outlines it depends there, we don't investigate public, plus across the board, is certainly applies in this case. the department of justice did not put out a press release saying, we are at mar-a-lago today, we are looking at the president stuff. no, donald trump did not, right? maga world has trie

purpose is to look at data about people dying in prisons and jails and give policymakers in the department of justice and of the wisdom based on the data to prevent those deaths to fulfill an t urgent humanitarian purpose not only is it six years late but the department didn't retain a contractor to produce the report. thank you for the question and it's a good question. they began collecting the data so october of 2019. the data needed to be collected to study. let's be forward-looking. can you give a date certain whn congress will receive the report that is now six years overdue? >> there are two parts of the study. one, we do havee a draft and it is discussed in the report that we put out last week that will be available. we are estimating by the end of calendar year 22 and the other is a multiyear effort that's not only using the data that is collected in 2013 but i will tell other sources the data elements collected is insufficient to meet the purposes of the study so we are expecting that in 2024. because lives on the line and at this isn't about shuffling paper and having these kind of exchang

thank you for inviting me to the department of justice to appear before you today to discuss election threats. again, my name is candace bullied and i am the assistant attorney general of the departments criminal division testifying today on behalf of the department. the department of justice is committed to addressing threats to the state and local election community. the courageous indicated debit men and women who are responsible for administering the most fundamental aspect of our democracy, our elections, should not face threats for merely doing their jobs. these victims often volunteers are people from across our country and across the political spectrum. these are people we have sworn to protect. through direct engagement with the election community, training of our federal state and local law enforcement agencies, grant funding for in his election security, and federal criminal investigation prosecution of election related threats where appropriate, the department is working intently to prepare and protect our election officials and their staff as we approach the 2022 midterm

there is no doubt that this has been poorly managed within the department of justice. that of a result, the congress and the department have been unable to take steps that could have saved lives. but as i said, i am here to work with you to fix this as soon as possible because it must be fixed. it must be fixed. i will just close with this. and this brings us back to be experiences of the americans we heard from in the first panel. jonathan, matthew, two americans who were sitting in jail pretrial detainees convicted of no crime died in the custody of their own government who died preventively in the custody of their own government. and there are thousands more. and tens of hundreds of thousands of family members who have experienced what our two witnesses today experienced. there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis. in americas prisons and jails. people are dying every week in americas prisons and jails. many of them, prevent blame. i hope that you leave this hearing, fully committed to tasking your entire team with the urgency, warranted by a crisis that is taking lives

d >> the central tenet of the wy in which the justice department investigates the central tenet of theof law that we do not do are investigations in public. this is the most wide ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the justice department has ever entered into. we have done so because this efforts represents -- to upend a legitimate election, transfer of power from one administration to another, cuts at the fundamental of american democracy. we have to get this right. >> to be clear garland theories talking about the department of justice investigation into january 6th. we, don't forget about that -- there is still a grandiose occasion going on in d.c. that has talked to a bunch of trump lawyers. but the procedure is outlining and defending their, we don't investigated public, applies across the board. it's only applies in this case. and so the department of justice didn't put out a press release being like, we are at mar-a-lago today, guys, we are looking at the presidents stuff, no, donald trump did that. mcgill world has tried, from the first moment, when

extradition practice is an important part of what the justice department does. the office of international affairs, criminal division, coordinates that for the entire department of justice. we have had cases, one case in particular comes to mind, where we indicted someone for torture. it turned out that bosnia and herzegovina wanted to try him there. in fact we stopped our case. we extradite him to bosnia and herzegovina so he could be judged in the community where the offenses occurred. also that would not require u.s. taxpayers to foot the bill. >> how about in the other direction? would there be circumstances authorized under senator durbin's proposal, or under existing law whereby the u.s. could pursue the extradition of those located overseas into the united states for prosecution here? >> of course people are extradited in any number of scenarios. >> war crime prosecution under the statute? >> i don't know that the bill, as i have seen it, would enhance that authority. where we are really lacking that ability is under the torture statute. if someone, god fo

it is our obligation to ask what tools the department of justice is using to protect the constitutional rights of the incarcerated. the hold doj accountable when it fails to use those tools and to furnish better more powerful tools with which the department can defend civil rights and civil liberties. there are some bright spots. for example, i was encouraged when the assistant attorney general announced doj investigation of conditions in george's horrific state prisons almost one year ago today. it has become clear in the course of this investigation that the department is failing in its responsibility to implement the death and custody reporting act. the department is failing to determine who is dying behind bars, where they are dying, and why they are dying. therefore, failing to determine where and which interventions are most urgently needed to save lives in 2000 and again in 2014, congress passed the death and custody reporting act. tasking doj with collection and analysis of custodial death data nationwide. the doj describes this as an opportunity to improve understanding of why

and again, we're sort of trying to anticipate what the department of justice would do. i think at a minimum it would -- current composition of the issue would influence the department's decision to potentially narrow the scope to a very limited window in hopes of getting quick resolution. >> and when -- so what they're narrowing is they're focusing even for their appeal around access to these 100 classified documents -- >> that's right. >> you're saying it was a friendlier -- >> that's right. let's be clear, i could be completely wrong right now. >> we could all be wrong. >> but if they were to file a narrow -- continuing the bred crumbs that they've shown us in their motions and actions before the district court, exactly right, which is just saying the judicial branch, this court, this special master, this private -- the judge, also a member of the judicial branch, by the way -- >> and a former fisa judge. >> and a member of the judicial branch. it should not be in a position to tell the executive branch they cannot use and possess this classified information. that is t

challenge the appointment of a special master into the inquiry of donald trump presidential records as concerns mount now over the justice departmenteing politicalized and the fbi of course, yeah, they're being politicalized as well and the weaponization of justice in america. here with reaction. the host of life, liberty. i call him the great one. great one, they had a taint team. they didn't want a special master. we know they took donald trump's private medical records. we know they got private tax information. we know that they got over 500 pages of attorney-client privilege information. we know that they took his passports. we know that they rifled through his son baron's room and his wife's room. and now they don't want an objective team coming in to see whether or not that warrant was so broad. this is in your wheelhouse. you are a constitutional scholar. what do you say about the whole thing? >> first of all, one of the things i say is i notice bill barr's out there trashing former president trump. i think he's on cable tv more than an erectile dysfunction at this point, sean hannity. i don't know what his problem is, but t

therefore it's our obligation to ask what tools the department of justice is using to protect the rights of the incarcerated, to hold doj accountable when it fails to use those tools and to furnish better and more powerful tools with which the department can defend civil rights and civil liberties. i was encouraged when assistant attorney general kristen clark announced a doj investigation of conditions in georgia's state prisons almost one year ago today. but it's become clear in the course ofti the investigation. the department is failing toin determine who is dying behind bars and where. which interventions are needed to save lives. in 2000 congress passed theh reporting act tasking doj with a collection and analysis of data nationwide. then doj itself describes this s an opportunity to improve understanding and develop solutions to preventyo avoidable deaths. for nearly 20 years the doj collected and published the data. overru multiple administrations the departments implementation of the lawbl has failed despite clear internal warnings from th, inspector general and of the thu of ju

department of justice? >> senator, i cannot speak to the existence of any potential investigations. >> i am not asking you to. i am asking you a legal question, which is, if you had a plan that was designed to propagate a fraudulent lie that had the intention of inciting threats against election officials so as to interfere with the sanctity of american elections, as a matter of law, would that be beyond the reach of the department of justice? >> senator, we would certainly take that type of allegation seriously. it is a hypothetical, but in that circumstance, we would follow the facts and law as appropriate. >> we draft laws here and this is the judiciary committee, so if there's a gap of some kind in american law that would prevent us from defending our elections in that way, our election workers that way, and defending against persistent and deliberate fraud, i would ask you to bring that to our attention. >> i certainly look forward to working with you on those proposals, including gaps in terms of resou

because of the acknowledgment by the department of justice, in part that some of the documents may be covered by what's called executive privilege. which means documents that are, you know, to, sorry to take the weeds with this folks. but that are privileged and not public because they involve private communications between the president and other people within regard to doing his, his work. so given that is just is, is this inappropriate action by this judge, or is this a partisan effort or a favor that the judge is giving president trump? we have to see if everything is going to be fair and just moving forward. but some of the criticism has been around this decision and her just deciding, well yeah, he has some level of executive privilege and even post presidency. and i'm going to respond in that way that that's what i've been hearing as some of the criticisms around her decision trying to my reading of the judge's decision is it was an all a slam dunk for donald. that he didn't. she did not agree to return the documents to him. she did not agree to stop all the parts of the moveme

welcome back america we have a fantastic guest, jim trust y. 27 years as a prosecutor, 17 at department of justicehief of organized crime and gang section, jim. >> you have a historic case on your hand, department of justice will not give an inch. why d do you think they are conducting themselves this way? why wouldn't they want a special master. >> that is a fair question. you know you and i have been around the department for many years, i was very proud of my career at department of justice, i was proud of the approach we took on cases pursuit of small j justice, trying to do the right thing. we have in this situation is such a historical first. and i mean that in a very negative way. to have this search warrant based on failed narrow negotiations that allow the government to ransack the president's residents, you would think in thisser erthis era of attorney general talking about transparency he would say another sit of eyes would be fine. what is the harm, what is it that doj is so worried about, having an independent, established well esteemed person give a second look and give cl classifica

anchor: a former department of justice official and legal affairs columnist.ed if the president can declassify documents in the way that president trump aims. >> it doesn't matter. almost certainly not. it has never happened and there's no evidence it happened in this case. but this department of justice anticipated this argument by the former president and it specifically charged crimes in the search warrant that don't require classified materials and specifically asked in the warrant for documents marked classified. in other words, ones that had been that way. they finessed around that argument and it is kind of surprising that trump is still trying to advance it because it is perfectly irrelevant under the law. anchor: what are these documents? why would former president trump take him -- take them back to mar-a-lago? >> the first question, they include the most serious most damaging and most incendiary national security documents. things that could reveal secrets and even potentially get people killed. why would he take them back? that is the $64,000 quest

were those concerning to the department of justice? >> the department of justice over the two, three years we have been collecting the data. we've seen the underreporting from states. under dcra2013, states are having to collect data from their local agencies and they are centrally reporting to bja. the states are reporting great challenges. i think jao's report will show this and we've heard the same thing from our states. the states have no leverage to compel the local-- their local agencies to report the data. >> thank you, ms. henneberg, i appreciate your take on the state and local issue. my question is a specific one, if you will, please. when bjs, your statistical office, having reviewed the first quarter of collection undertaken by bja, reported to omb and to the department that bja had missed state or prison deaths, state prison deaths in 11 states, jail deaths in 12 states, from october to december of that first period when bja was undertaking this collection and missed 592 deaths, was that concerning? surely that was concerni

back in the summer, the department of justice, the committee was the only game in town, the departmentstice was pretty silent, there was criticism, merrick garland had to testily knock that back a little bit. we're doing our thing and leave us alone. since then, we've had multiple high-level officials going in front of the grand jury, multiple subpoenas, to 40 people in trump's orbit. it's just a different world right now in terms of the maturity of the department of justice investigation. how and what does your reporting say in terms of where it is? >> in terms of the department of justice, we have reported that there are two parallel investigations, one is into the documents that trump got himself into town in mar-a-lago. that seems pretty well advanced, now we've seen the courts rule that the justice department can use those documents for classified is taken from mar-a-lago to do two things, to do its own assessment to see whether national security was gravely harmed and having those classified pieces of material in florida. and also so that the department of justice can use things

the justice department's manual, the bible of the justice department says you may never considerme is an astonishing fact. same with regards to the john kerry charges. seemed really flimsy. rather than accept the independent decision of the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york, they said, okay, we'll shop it to another attorney's office. in the case of greg craig, they accepted it the case of john kerry they said, we agree, there's no case here. troubling plilk worse driving these cases in the justice department in the trump administration. >> shocking but not surprising. this was your read on the barr doj the whole time. >> right. nicole, it's really chilling. it kind of puts the line to bill barr's current rehabilitation tour, where he's speaking about mar-a-lago be the classified documents, but it really shows -- at least the reviews i've read, the heavy handed nature of how he was going after anything that displeased trump and doing everything in his power to please him. we knew that the department of justice during trump's presidency was doing things l

i can't speak for the department of justice. think it's a matter of public record that the government of united states is supplying extensive military security and humanitarian assistance to ukraine as the courageous people of that country fight for their freedom, and for the rule of law. on the law enforcement side, our war crimes accountability team calls on the expertise of men and women throughout the justice department. we work with other agencies and homeland security. we are providing extensive assistance to the office of the prosecutor general in kyiv. just one week ago yesterday, the prosecutor general of ukraine was here in washington. the chairman mentioned you met with him. and while he was here, he signed a memorandum of understanding with attorney general merrick garland that will supercharged our already robust cooperation with ukrainian authorities. that's a two way street. we assist them in their work, and they are assisting us in our own investigations of potential war crimes where we may have jurisdiction under

department of justice -- offici department of justice -- >> that's how it starts. that's the very beginning. this was written by jeffrey berman who ran sdny in southern district of new york for half of trump's time in office. he was fired from that job at sdny and fired loudly in a way that made a difference. we'll have more on that in a second. that's important. but now since he is the former u.s. attorney, he has written this book. to put it in the public record how trump and his administration tried to force federal prosecutors to go after trump's political enemies to go after democrats, to help trump's allies. regardless of the law. regardless of the crimes committed or lack thereof. geoff berman was told to bring the prosecution before the midterm elections. told to do so because some republicans had been prosecuted and so now it was time to prosecute a democrat. he was told to even things out. berman refused to do it. he didn't bring that prosecution. so, yea rule of law for a second. what happened after geoff berman refused to do it is they found somebody el

who spent 27 years as a prosecutor, 17 of those years at department of justice. 5 or 6, chief of organized crime and gang section, that is a big deal. jim tru trusty, you have a historic case on your i notice that department of justice is throwing every resource it has at this, it won't give an inch. even when an independent special master, why do you think they are conductingti themselves things way? why wouldn't they want aecia special master, are they covering something up. >> a fair question, we'vet been around the deputy for many years, i was very proud of my career at department of justice, i was proud of th e approach we took on cases and pursuit of small j justice, doing the right thing, we have, such atori historical first. i mean that in a very negative way. w to have this search warrant based ont failed narrow negotiations, i suppose that allow the government tont basically ransac tk the president's residents. you woulsided think that in this era of attorney general talking about rule o of law, and transparency, that hee would be first one to say,eral s

but i think knowing the department of justice and knowing even some of these prosecutors how small c conserve, they are there, they're not going to stick their neck out. they know what uproar this is going to create. i think it's fair to assume they have very direct evidence in that by now, at least they know they've looked before the judge halted them. they've had time to look through these documents. they know is there a potential story to tell? are they related, or are they just re, right? did it look like you just randomly compiled some documents, in which case still crime, but there's not a story to tell. or are they all related? are they all about, or is a significant talk about mac crone or, nor 3 or saudi arabia. if they see that combined with all the information that we don't know, and they have a story to tell, and i think it is going to be very bad for donald trump. could you let me ask you? you noted that donald trump has called the f b. i vicious monsters. and we don't know what will happen in the upcoming mid term elections in november of 2022. but a lot of people specu

this just in, the justice department has officially asked an appeals court to stay, or to block part ofnted judge aileen cannon's ruling granting trump's request for a special master to seize records from trump's club. in their motion, the justice department is specifically asking the 11th circuit court of appeals to hold the special master from reviewing the 100 classified documents, that is a small subset of the roughly 11,000 government records. because they are going to conduct -- they are conducting an ongoing criminal investigation and intelligence assessment. that is how the doj stay request begins. quote, the district court has entered an unprecedented order and joining the executive branch's use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security. the adept government continues, quote, trump has identified no cognizable harm from merely allowing criminal investigators to continue to review and use the same subset of the seized records. the justice department does not hold back in this filing, quote, trump's only possib

it's laying bare at trump's cravenness. >> also, look, i think it is very heartening that the department of justice did not blink in the face of a visibly bad decision. 24 decision wasn't even workman like and it exposes the flaw in her legal reasoning and understanding. i don't think the department of justice had any -- any choice other than to appeal that ruling. it's also an indication that they regarded the stakes as so high that they couldn't let something like this stand. so for people who are wondering will merrick garland's department of justice back down in the face of what will be considerable blowback and perhaps rulings from trumpist judges? the answer appears to be no, but again, the stakes are very grave for national security and the department of justice took a dramatic step by executing the search warrant at mar-a-lago because they thought so much was at stake, and they got a judge's ruling that just cannot stand. >> so i understand the people who say it's very risky. at had point, department of justice does will carry some sort of political or legal rick, but the risks of not going

enemies and to benefit his friends, and he appointed individuals to the department of justice and other departments who will do his bidding, we are lost. >> final quick question. after you and nicole wallace, some people have written the justice department, say why didn't he bring this to the office of professional responsibility? what about the internal mechanisms within the justice department to deal with the problems you are having. do they work? >> so my problems were with attorney general barr. the idea that i would be referring a case to the office of responsible profession ability dealing with bill barr who was his boss would not go anywhere. it doesn't work and that's why our system requires people of good faith who will abide by their oath to keep the department of justice independent from politics. >> geoffrey berman thank you very much for delivering us the final story about this. it's gonna be fascinating to see what the senate judiciary committee asked of you and asked of others who are named in this book. thank you very much for joining. >> thank you for having me. >> comi

>> that's a great question, stephanie, it might be helpful to understand exactly what the department of justice policy says with respect to elections and investigations. the department cannot take any overt steps near the time of an election, and this is important language, for the purpose of interfering with the election. you can take covert steps, and you can take steps for other purposes other than to interfere with an election. let me just simplify that. there is a lot that they can do, and there is a lot that they have been doing. they can continue that, they can continue their investigation. what i don't expect to see in the run up to the midterm elections are indictments, or charges. understand that mr. trump is not only on the ballot, but that said, but i would think that the department would be very cautious, and conservative about bringing a high profile charge in the run up to the election remember,, covert steps are fine, and steps taken not for the purpose of interfering in the election are fine. there is a lot that they can continue to do. >> carol, trump, scavino, kerik, epstein,

and the book was put through prepublication review by the department of justice. the rules still. i have never violated an internal doj rule or statute to this day. i am in compliance with every rule and statute. the book has been entirely vetted by the department of justice and i have gotten permission to publish it. that's i think why you don't hear more department of justice people talking about the cases they're working on, investigations, conversations with other people, because they're restricted from doing so. if they're to behave in an ethical manner, they can't do so. >> you do say towards the very end of the book something that has -- that resonates very loudly. you say that you believe the reason you were forced out is based on politics, the timing five months before the election, was not an accident. and you say that you believe barr forced you out of that job at sdny because he no doubt believed by removing me, he could eliminate a threat to trump's re-election. how was your work as u.s. attorney a threat to trump's re-election? >> at the time i was fi

explaining that the executive privilege claim here just makes no sense and in part, saying the department of justiceds to be able to continue its work because the national security community has had to pause its work as a result of that pause on the department of justice and then asking for that partial stay from from the federal judge in florida. they are making the argument the doj is that there is a risk to national security. how strong do you believe that argument is so i actually do believe it's strong because what the judge said last week when she made her ruling is well the national security community can continue with its investigation to determine basically what happened to these very documents and whether or not our national security is at risk. as a result, she said, that they can continue but the department of justice they cannot continue their investigation with the documents. now that makes no sense and it doesn't work and that's what we heard from the national security community this week, they said. we've had to pause as well because we need the fbi and the fbi is part of the doj. it

and a decision from judge can and will likely significantly delay the department of justice's probe, is looking into just how exactly classified material ended up at trump's residence. according to new reporting from the washington post, in a call last year with members of trump's team, nationals archives officials were told that none, none of the material in trump's possession was sensitive or classified. and that trump had only 12 boxes of quote, news clippings that he stored at his home. now, since that call, federal officials have recalled 42 boxes of records from trump's offices, including 15 boxes handed over by his representatives to the archives last january, and in an additional 27 boxes retrieved by the fbi last month. and as we now know, some of that material was marked with the highest, and i repeat, the highest classification levels, suggesting those documents contain some of the governments most sensitive and secretive information. now, so much for news clippings. and this is not the only legal battle team trump is fighting with the justice department. this week, we lear

interestingly the one part of the dispute with the justice department that's not in writing because a lot of what we know about this and the timeline, katy, is between letters exchanged between the two parties, the national archives and trump's own attorneys, the one area that isn't papered, so to speak, that we don't have memorialized in writing is a meeting in june that trump's attorneys are disputing of the characterizations of the justice department. it will be interesting to see if we hear more about that meeting during today's meeting. >> that's what i was going to ask next. i do want to ask you about who is arguing for the justice department. i'm going to read your title again because it's relevant. you were the former chief of counterintelligence and export control in the d.o.j.'s national security division, the man who is arguing today is a man named jay bratt. he is your predecessor or successor, i should say, and he has that exact same title. so what does it mean that he's there? >> well, first of all, it means that the government's case is in strong, steady hands. jay is a

back on june, two months before the search of mar-a-lago, trump's legal team told justice department tion here according to the department of justice is that they were told false facts. they were told all the documents had been turned over when in fact their evidence they developed showed they hadn't been turned over. and when they executed a search warrant, it turned out they had not been turned over. >> reporter: responding today, trump slammed the fbi's handling of the search, and claimed he declassified documents at his home. but in its filing, the government stated that trump's lawyers never asserted that trump had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege. marc short, a long-time republican and adviser to vice president pence in the white house said trump made a mistake. >> president trump likely should not have been in possession of those documents. i don't think that's too far of a stretch for a rational person to say. >> reporter: some legal experts say while the probe is ongoing, criminal charges could follow. >> an indictment on obstruction of

justice department just yet. obviously, the junior six committee has a lot of information. it can't just go to the justice department and the justice department uses that for prosecution. the justice department would have to do its own work. i guess they both understand that this is not close to the idea. >> yeah, and we have to note that the justice department is pretty busy with a handful of other investigations, including now the grand jury investigation to whether or not trump has handled classified documents. we've been told that that investigation is further ahead for the justice department then the january six investigation, even though the justice -- this investigation has been going on now for almost 18 months. we also know that the genie six committee did, earlier this summer, provide the doj some transcripts for them to reference. regardless, the justice department would want to do their own depositions, questioning, subpoenas, and their own evidence. when all is said and done, get the january 6th materials to backstop them. as we've been told countless times now,

it is worth noting that the reason the department of justice has made any aspects of this investigation public is because donald trump urged the d.o.j. to make said aspects public. tomorrow, the judge will consider both side's arguments to determine whether to appoint that the special master. joining us now is barbara mcquade former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. thanks for joining us. i have many questions about this latest filing. and the need for a special master. trump's team is unsurprisingly vociferous in its argument here. it's predominantly on why it deserves a special master here, and very much lays criticism on the shoulders of the department of justice. suggesting that this is a politically motivated, and the wordd, witch hunt isn't in ther butis it is the subtext of this. what did you make of the filing and how likely is it that we are going to see a third party appointed, and trump's wishes granted? >> alex, there wasn't much new in this document other than as you say some insults hurled at the justice department. we saw in that initial brief, the reque

the department of justice. >> they owe us one. >> or they know they got worked by the department of justiceepartment of justice might look at this if i would if i was back there and say look, we didn't handle that well. if we're going to put out everybody that looks at that and says that was flawed, we're going to eliminate everybody in the legal process because anybody looking at the carter paige fisa will say that didn't work out well. >> i want to ask you about the justice department's investigation into trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. officials have issued more than 30 subpoenas that in venrecent s to trump aides. what do you make of that? >> let's do the boring part and finish with the fun part. if you're at the fbi you want to do timelines. i want to know everything that happened on january 5th, january 4th a month before. the only way to do that is look what people say, interviews and look at phone records, whom called whom, who called the white house? you're getting that information to come up with a factual timeline. now let's go to the fun part. i walk into an inter

back on june 3, two months before the search of mar-a-lago, trump's legal team told justice departmentfficials that all sensitive documents had been returned. >> obstruction here, according to the department of justice, is that they were told false facts. they were told that all the documents had been turned over, when in fact their evidence they developed showed they hadn't been turned over. and when they executed the search warrant, it turned out they had not been turned over. >> reporter: responding today, trump slammed the f.b.i.'s handling of the search, and claimed he declassified documents at his home. but in its filing, the government stated that trump's lawyers never asserted that trump had declassified the documents, or asserted any claim of executive privilege. marc short, a longtime republican and adviser to vice president mike pence in the white house, said trump made a mistake. >> president trump likely should not have been in possession of those documents. i don't think that's too far of a stretch for a rational person to say. >> reporter: some legal experts say while th

is it the department of justice? is it the former president? is it the court? i think tracy and cynthia would agree with me, it's the department of justice that ultimately gets to control the investigation because they are the ones that ultimately get to decide whether to bring charges or not. the second point is important because this by all that, the justice department is not to be here. they don't want to be in a position where they're at to expose parts of the investigation. it's not normal, they're not used to it, they don't like it. that being said, what the former president is doing on his social media platform is he is severely handicapping his ultimate defense team. he's putting them in a position of not being able to take certain positions that they would perhaps like to take, maybe saying that he did not know about these documents, or something like that. they have made it very difficult -- he has made it very difficult to take those positions in the future. no defense attorney wants a client that is difficult to control and that is what they have in