evan perez, cnn, washington. >>> a former special counsel at the u.s. defense department weighed in on whether citing executive privilege could keep mark meadows from testifying in this investigation. take a listen. >> if jack smith wants mark meadow's system, he will get mark meadow's perform. the judge in this case, cnn has reported, has decided against executive privilege, with the white house counsel, deputy white house counsel. that's done. the supreme court had an opportunity to grant executive privilege on the documents that the january 6th committee wanted. and they did not. and there's the same arguments. documents that included mark mea meadows' correspondence. there's no way that jack smith will not succeed on that one. >>> the republican field of presidential hopefuls could be expanding soon. so far, only donald trump and nikki haley have declared their candidacy. but more than a dozen others are reportedly weighing runs for the white house. some are already visiting the early voting state of iowa, including former vice president mike pence,

evan perez has details. >> reporter: a historic milestone in the justice department's investigation of donald trump and his allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election. special counsel jack smith has issued a subpoena to mike pence, speaking documents and testimony in the investigation. prosecutors want the former vice president to testify about his interactions with trump leading up to and after the 2020 election, and the crucial days before rioters who believed trump's claims of vote fraud attacked the u.s. capitol. this follows months of negotiations between the justice department and lawyers for the former vice president. among the issues that we expect to come up, donald trump's claim of executive privilege for conversations with his vice president. pence, who is considering a run for president, published a memoir in november, in which he described some of his interactions with trump, as the former president sought to overturn the results of his election loss to president joe biden. pence's team knew that the book's publication was that the justice department to seek in invest

evan perez, cnn, washington. >>> and cnn is also learning that special counsel jack smith is locked in at least eight secret court battles right now. >> according to sources and court records, smith is trying to uncover some of those closely held details about donald trump's actions after the 2020 election and his handling of classified material. almost all the proceedings are sealed and filings are not public. mike pence says he is prepared to take his fight against a subpoena from the special counsel all the way to the supreme court. >> investigators want pence to testify about his interactions with donald trump leading up to the 2020 election and about the day of the insurrection at the capitol when he was acting as president of the senate and spoke about the issue after a speech in iowa. >> i'll fight the biden doj subpoena for me to appear before the grand jury because i believe it is unconstitutional and unprec unprecedented. my fight is on the african-americanle of separation of powers and the constitution of the united states. >> meanwhile the fbi has reportedly searched presid

cnn's evan perez has more details now from washington. >> donald trump's former chief of staff mark meadows has been subpoenaed by a special counsel jack smith was overseeing two investigations of the former president. the subpoena is taking documents and testimony related to january 6th, and trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the move to subpoena one of trump's most senior aides in addition to the recent subpoena former vice president mike pence marks the latest significant step in the sprawling investigation. smith is investigating trump's handling of classified documents after he left office, and while the subpoena related to january six, meadows also maybe of interest in the documents investigation. he played a role in the months of discussion going on between the national archives, and trump's representatives over returning government records that were in his possession. special counsel sabrina could also set up a clash with the justice department, and meadows, and trump over executive privilege. now he was a witness to pressure officials in the states, and congress to h

evan perez is washington and he has details on all of this. evan, what is all of this about?well, kate, this has to do with what hunter biden and his legal team says are simply legal violations by a computer repair shopowner in delaware as well as a bunch of right wing figures who have been using what he says weaponizing his personal information to try to use it as poli poli political grudge against his father. and you can see the men on the screen there there, larry mcisaac, who is the computer store owner who got the access to the information on the computer, and i will read you a letter from abbe lowell who is his new attorney who is sending the letters to the state attorney general in delaware and the state attorney general and the irs, and he says this is a failed political trick directly, and directly resulted in the exposure, and manipulation of mr. biden and personal information, and mr. macisaac's unlawful conduct led to his information to be circulated on the internet. the backdrop, kate, it is that hunter biden is under criminal investigation by the justice departm

thank you very much, evan perez. my panel is here with me now. let's just start where evan finished. ryan goodman, with you on the legal side of this. he's bringing up how executive privilege is going to be core to this. pence did not testify in front of the january 6th committee. he did allow marc short and others to, but he didn't. so he's going to use executive privilege, but you don't think that's going to slow this down or work? >> it certainly won't work. there's a u.s. supreme court case, united states v. nixon. it's a unanimous decision in which a sitting president is forced to turn over documents under a subpoena in a criminal trial. and the court says when it comes to a criminal trial, it's kind of game over. there's no such opinion for congress, so that's why pence was able to maneuver in that regard. but here it's just a done deal. the only question is how quickly it will be decided. but it's already been decided very quickly for his senior aides, who also tried to invoke executive privilege, but it was decided against him. >> one thin

evan perez has the details. >> reporter: his ttoric milesto in the investigation of donald trump and his allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election. special counsel jack smith has issued a subpoena to former vice president mike pence seeking documents and testimony in the january 6 investigation. prosecutors want the former vice president to testify about his interactions with trump leading up to and after the 2020 election and crucial days before rioters who believed trump's claims of voter fraud attacked the u.s. capitol. this all follows months of negotiations between the justice department and lawyers for the former vice president. among the issues that we expect to come up, donald trump's claim of executive privilege for conversations with his vice president. pence who is considering a run for president published a memoir in november in which he described some of his interactions with trump as the former president sought to overturn the results of his election loss to president biden. the president's team knew that the book's publication raised the prospect that the justice

. >> evan perez begins our coverage out front live in washington. , what more are you learning about the subpoena of the special counsel? they've been quiet from jack smith for a while and coming up now with a very significant development. >> this is a historic milestone really, erin, and the sophistication that's been going on two years, taken over by jack smith back in november but we knew that there would be negotiations going on between the justice department between prosecutors and mike pence's lawyers to try to work out and agreement for him to provide testimony. obviously, at this point now he is under a subpoena and expected to show up and provide documents, expected to provide testimony to the justice department as part of the investigation. he's a very important witness, obviously, because he had all the interactions with the former president trump, both before the election and in those key weeks after the election. there was a december meeting that mike pence the scripts his more between him and trump in which trump or suggests the idea th

. >> cnn's evan perez joins us live. evan, what's the pence team saying about this?rter: well, look, for the pence team, they want to try to get this investigation wrapped up as soon as possible. of course mike pence right now is not a declared candidate for president. that's one reason why his co discovery of these documents at his home in indiana does not pose the same type of conflict of interest for the justice department, at least that's the thinking inside the justice department. so for the pence team, they have been talking to the fbi and jamie gangel and i are told that they have been trying to arrange for a consensual search to be done both at the home in carmel, indiana, and at a think tank office which is right across the street from the fbi building here in washington. the idea being that if you can try to make sure that the fbi does these searches, doesn't find anything, they can try to complete this investigation as soon as possible. >> let's turn to some of your other reporting today about president biden's son and his counterstrategy against the repub

let's break this down with cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez and former federal prosecutor jen rogers. evan, so this is the first time that hunter biden's camp is saying it is his personal data that was being trafficked, although they aren't confirming the narrative out there on the right about how it all got started. lay out this new strategy for us. >> well, the strategy is to turn the tables on some of his accusers. these are people that he knows obviously have been going after him for the last four years. some of this was first surfaced back in 2020 just before the 2020 election. and that's one of the references you see in these letters that hunter biden's team has now sent to the delaware attorney general, to the justice department, to the irs, asking for investigations of a number of these figures. you showed pictured of some of these people that he is asking investigations of. and the view here is plain. you can see it in this letter from lowell where he says that this failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation and manipulation of mr

more now from evan perez.er: hunter biden is accusing critics of distributing his personal data reported to come from a laptop left at a repair shop. attorneys for the president's son sent letters to the delaware attorney general, justice department and irs seeking investigations of a number of right wing figures who they say, quote, have weaponized the laptop contents against his father. it is a distinct change of strategy by hunter biden after bringing on new lawyers to help him defend himself against an onslaught of attacks from republicans. in a letter to delaware attorney general kathy jennings, hunter biden's attorneys accused repair shop owner of unauthorized access of the laptop and distributing its contents to the new york "post" for a story published in the weeks before the 2020 election. mcisaac has said in interviews that he received the laptop at his store from hunter biden in 2019. the letter from hunter biden's attorney abbe lowell says this failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the

cnn's evan perez joins us now with more. so what do we know about this search?s was a search of about 3 1/2 hours. the fbi agents were there today conducting this search. this is the third property that is associated with president biden that the fbi has visited. we know that beyond the one today, a couple fridays ago they also searched his home in wilmington. and we learned just yesterday that they had previously also gone to the penned biden center which is where those initial batch of documents had been found and started all this drama. now, we know from the search today that no classified documents were found according to the president's personal attorneys. >> is there any sense that there are more searches coming of properties owned by or associated by president biden? i don't know how many properties there are. >> yeah, look, that's a question all the reporters are trying to get the white house and his personal lawyers to answer. it is not clear. they're not answering that question in part because i think there is the possibility that perhaps there might b

evan perez and paula reid are "outfront" breaking this story.let me start with you first because i know you literally have just been able to confirm this that you've been working on this story. what are you learning about the new search for biden classified documents? >> reporter: the fbi has conducted two searches at the university of delaware in connection with the ongoing special counsel investigation into possible mishandling of classified materials at multiple locations connected to president biden. we learned that these two searches happened on two different days and focused on two different locations. one of the searches focused on the senate archive that is hosted by the university. and the president formally donated many papers related to his time in the senate to the university. the second search we are told focused on materials that he has sent to the university in recent years. we have learned that investigators did retrieve some documents from the university, but none of them appeared to have classified markings. but they are still

guys. >> manu raju, evan perez, thank you. >>> president biden is in florida today continuing his post state of the union tour. today he's visiting the university of tampa to drive home his pledge to protect social security and medicare. all while trying to draw a sharp contrast with his potential 2024 challengers. two of whom, we should note, are floridians. >> he focused on republican senator rick scott citing his plan to sunset all federal legislation every five years, senator scott tweeted this just minutes ago, about an hour ago. since you can't stop talking about me and lying to flor riddians about social security and medicare i'm sure you'll accept my invitation to debate the issue. cnn white house correspondent arlette saenz is with us now. so the president, did he say anything about that. >> reporter: he spent a big portion of his speech discussing senator rick scott and social security and medicare and the president really showed no signs of backing down from this fight with republicans as he is trying to paint himself and democrats as the defenders of those programs. now, th

our senior justice correspondent evan perez joins us now.his latest search. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. this is the third visit by the fbi to one of the properties associated with joe biden. today's was at his beach home in rahobeth, about 3 1/2 hours the fbi was there. according to the white house, and to the president's legal team, no additional classified documents were found. of course, you know a couple of fridays ago, they searched his home in wilmington. we also learned yesterday that the fbi visited the penn biden center where the first documents were found. the white house counsel's spokesman had a little bit of a gaggle with reporters today, answered some questions. what is still not clear is, are there additional searches to be done. listen to the answer. >> has the fbi conducted any other locations associated with the president that you or the white house is aware? >> i think we're answering questions and providing information as this happens. i don't want to speak too much to the doj's practices in an ongoing investigation.

let's bring in cnn's congressional correspondent jessica dean and senior justice correspondent evan perezat are you hearing from lawmakers as they came out of that briefing today? >> reporter: the senate briefing is the one that motor recently ended, abby, of course, lawmakers on both sides and both in the house and senate had been asking for information on this. they really wanted more information on this, and we're now starting to see them get that and get their reaction. as you would imagine, republicans, some of whom really in the house in the case of the house we're told railing against this as you mentioned were very critical of president biden and the administration but we're told the briefers really tried to outline the time line to explain exactly what was done and why it was done and it should be noted it was really those hard-liner republican, people like marjorie taylor greene. over in the senate we heard from some senate republicans who, again, disagreed with how the biden administration handled things but did hear from senator mitt romney a republican from utah and broke wit

cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez has our exclusive on the mark meadows subpoena. what are you learning? >> mark meadows has received a subpoena from special counsel, jack smith. he is doing to investigations. one of, them obviously, the january 6th investigation. he's also doing one into the alleged mishandling of classified information. at mar-a-lago. i would say mark meadows, because he was chief of staff, was a key witness to a lot of the things that donald trump is doing to try to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. he was on that infamous phone call with georgia officials trying to figure out how to find more votes. he was there helping trump trying to pressure the justice department, trying to pressure members of congress to try to help him, again, overturn the election results. so, what we expect now to happen is that, you know, meadows, because of his seniority, as an aide to the former president, it is likely to raise the issue of executive privilege, which means that we might see some litigation between trump and meadows as they try to fight

cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez joins us now. let's start with what you know about this search at pence's home. >> reporter: well, victor, this was a search that the former vice president and his legal team consented to. this is something that the justice department, that the fbi and the pence team had been working on for several -- for a couple of weeks at least and today's finally the day you see there the pictures, the state police blocking off the driveway and they're doing a search there, trying to find -- trying to see whether there are any more classified documents. for the pence team, they want to try to get this over with. they are hoping that at the end of this, after this search, that there are no more documents found, we expect that there is going to be another search of his office, a think tank office he has here in washington, right across the street from the fbi building, in downtown washington. and if at the end of this there are no more documents found, they hope that the fbi can wrap up this investigation withou

let's begin with evan perez. evan, so much you to keep track of in the news, literally this past hour or two, breaking one after the other. let's start with mark meadows. what more are you learning there? >> well, meadows is being asked for documents and for possible testimony, and, of course, erin, you know he's key in two parts of this investigation that is now being led by jack smith, the special counsel. obviously, he knows a lot about, you know, the way the documents were found in mar-a- lago, classified documents. he knows a lot about the process, though, that involved there, as the former president was shutting down, believing the white house. and, of course, he was, as you said, a key witness in some of the activities as the president was trying to overturn the 2020 election. so you can see why jack smith would want to talk to him on both of those investigations, and we know that meadows had previously turned over documents that he had already given to the january 6 committee, and they anticipated, meadows

evan perez is "outfront." evan, what more are you learning about this folder? there. the folder that had classified markings that was found at mar-a-lago? >> reporter: right. so these documents actually were found by trump lawyers who were going through boxes at mar-a-lago. and they turned over this material as well as a laptop and a thumb drive. it turns out that an aide to the former president who works for his pac was apparently copying some of these documents onto a thumb drive and a laptop and didn't realize that these items were classified. and so the laptop and the thumb drive, of course, then suddenly are now classified. and so all of this, erin, has now been turned over to the fbi, to the justice department. this was done in december and january. and what it tells us is that the effort by the justice department to repossess all of these things that were marked as classified and that they have to investigate, that is still ongoing many months after the former president was subpoenaed and told to turn over everything. >> right, subpoenaed, told, said he

but first let me bring in evan perez. ificant is this move now by jack smith, the special counsel? >> well, it's very significant because obviously the former president's daughter and his son-in-law were very close advisers to the former president. they were there for a lot of the conversations, especially ivanka trump was there for a lot of the conversations in the leadup to the events of january 6th as the former president was trying to figure out ways to challenge the elections, to try to find ways to pressure people to help him remain in power despite losing the election. and of course we, as you saw there, ivanka provided some very important testimony that the january 6th committee played during some of their hearings. she also did a sit-down or a very lengthy sit-down with documentary filmmakers. we've seen her talk at length about all of the things that were going on up to january 6th. so she has a lot of story, a lot of important information that jack smith and his investigators are going to want to know. and one o

evan perez, cnn, washington. all right, for more on this i want to bring in areva martin, who is a civil rights attorney and legal affairs commentator. joining us live from los angeles. thank you so much for being here with us. so, how critical do you think this could be in terms of getting a possible indictment against donald trump? how big do you think this is? >> i think this is a really big deal, kim. presidents who have been subpoenaed, you can look back to bill clinton, richard nixon, even thomas jefferson. but i don't think in the history of this country we have seen a former vice president subpoenaed to give testimony against a former president that he served under. and i think that this move, this very aggressive move by the special counsel signals that he's getting close to the end of this investigation. we know that pence would not give testimony to the national congressional committee that was investigating the insurrection. but now he has been issued a criminal subpoena and it will be interesting to

let's bring in evan perez and elie honig. good to see you both. ie has a new book out "untouchable: how powerful people get away with it" i can't wait to read it. evan, what exactly is hunter biden doing here with the shift in strategy? >> reporter: good morning. he's trying to turn the tables on these right wing figures who have really made him a target for the last couple of years, the last four years or so. trying to use some of the contents of this laptop that purportedly he dropped off back in 2019 at this computer repair shop in delaware to essentially use that as an attack -- as a vehicle to attack his father, president biden. he's asking for state and federal officials to launch investigation for not only computer crimes but also for basically violating his privacy. so what we are hearing, though, from his attorney, abbey lowell is a full frontal on all of the figures including this computer repairman as well as rudy giuliani and others. i'll read you a part of what abbey lowell, his lawyer said in a letter to the attorney general. he said

. >> evan perez is out front live in washington. evan, this is extremely significant.about a former vice president of the united states, right, subpoenaed in the january 6th criminal investigation into the former president of the united states. this is important. what more are you learning? >> reporter: that's right. this is an important moment certainly in this investigation, erin. it's something that certainly we knew there were negotiations behind the scenes. we reported back in november that the justice department had approached the vice president's team about trying to get his testimony. and we know that he has certainly a lawyer, emmet floyd who is a hawk when it comes to issues when it comes to executive privilege. we knew this was going to be a difficult conversation certainly for the justice department to try to get to some of the things that mike pence knows. as you just played some of those clips, you can see that he knows a lot. he is an important witness to this investigation. and the justice department and jack smith, the new special counsel, absolutely w

>> "outfront" with me now evan perez, cnn's senior justice respondent, and ryan goodman, co-editor insecurity," and former special counsel at the defense department. evan, i was really fascinated by what she could speak to. you've been following this secretive grand jury investigation in georgia from the very beginning. what stood out to you? >> a couple of things. it's so unusual to get this window into something, a process that, you know, really is still ongoing, this investigation is still going, this grand jury doesn't have the power to indict anybody, but these recomme recommendations was the product of their work of eight months of work. the stunning thing that she says is that the grand jury heard donald trump's voice on multiple tapes. we know obviously the infamous tape involving brad raffensperger and his office, you know, where he is asking the former president is asking for 11,780 votes. and there was another call which she may be referring to, which sharon watson, who is also in the georgia secretary of state's office, that that's another call that exists. we don't know o

evan perez now. good morning to you, sir. hunter biden thing just keeps legs, more legs, more legs. this is quite the tone shift for hunter biden team. >> it really is. what he's trying to do is he's trying to turn the tables on the people who really have been attacking him over the last couple of years. and in these letters to the delaware state attorney general, to the justice department, to the irs, what hunter biden and lawyers are asking for is criminal investigations of the computer repair salesman that -- the shop owner and rudy giuliani and a number of right-wing figures. in the case of john paul, he is the one that actually accessed the personal data on a laptop that he says hunter biden dropped off back in 2019. reading a part of what hunter biden's attorney says in his letters, he says that intentional, reckless and unlawful conduct allowed for hundreds of gigabytes of mr. biden's personal data without any information to be circulated around the internet. he said this is a dirty trick that was used -- trying to use

we're covering all the angles with cnn's sara murray, kristen holmes and evan perez. sara, let me start with you. what are we learning from this grand jury report? >> these are really just snippets. the meat of what we want to know is who, if anyone, they recommended for criminal charges. of course that is not part of what we got today. the judge made clear that he thought it was too premature in the interest of fairness and due process to release that. we did get the introduction, conclusion and concerns about perjury. we also got a point the grand jury felt they needed to note, they said we find by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election. that's in their introduction, it's where they run through that they talked to poll workers, investigators, they talked to georgia officials, and this is the conclusion they came to. obviously not the conclusion held by the former president and a number of his allies, but what this grand jury reached after months and months of inves

let's start there with evan perez. what are we learning? >> reporter: john, the fbi i think like the intelligence community is hoping they'll get a lot of information from examining the remains of this balloon at this point. a lot of it remains underwater. this is the first time the fbi has been able to examine any parts of one of these balloons, obviously we've learned in recent days there have been a number of them that have been detected crossing u.s. territory at this point right now at the quantico lab, the fbi lab in virginia, they have the balloon canopy and have wiring, some small electronics floating at the top of the ocean, the rest of it is still underwater. fbi and the navy divers are still working to try to get some of that equipment up to the surface and bring it to the lab. the obvious thing for the fbi, you know, since they learned about this back on february 1st has been to try to figure out what counterintelligence could be gleaned from this. what were the chinese trying to do collecting signals intelligence floating over

cnn's evan perez joins our panel. i'm baffled by this one.ll is part of hunter biden's new strategy. he has represented a lot of political clients, if you will, over the years and he is aggressive, he is a boxer. but what are they up to here? >> knife fighter. i think what he's trying to do, hunter biden is trying to change -- he's trying to turn the tables really on these people that have really spent the last four years trying to make him the punching bag, trying to use him as a political cudgel really against his father. and i think, you know, certainly for the last few years, whenever we tried to do stories in the context of this laptop, you didn't hear very much in response from them. so now they're saying that these people committed crimes, they want the state attorneys general, and the attorney general in delaware and the justice department to investigate these people. but it does represent this huge strategy shift because they know now that republicans have the gavel, they're going to be doing hearings, they're going to be doing inves

evan perez is "outfront." the reason this matters is multiple reasons, i guess. get there on its own. what is happening here? >> right. well they're saying that this is his data and that it is purported by these critics that it came from a laptop that he allegedly dropped off in 2019 at this repair shop in delaware. what he's saying, though, erin, is that his data has been weaponized by this computer repair shop owner, and rudy giuliani who he was working with, as well as a number of other right-wing figures to essentially use this information to try to damage his father, joe biden, president, ahead of the 2020 election, and that continues to this day. obviously republicans have spent a lot of time focusing on hunter biden, promising to do investigations, congressional investigations of him and his business dealings and trying to tie that back to president biden. that's the reason why you see this change in strategy essentially that has now occurred. what he's asking for is for investigations to be done by the delaware state attorney general as well as the justic

with me to share reporting and insights, evan perez, former federal prosecutor elliott williams, and paula reid. this was negotiated. this is not a warrant at the pence house. but still the fbi wants to go in, the vice president, they found classified documents there. they want to go through the house to see if anything else. >> to see if there's anything else. you know, in the case of the vice president -- former vice president, he and his legal team have been trying to bend over backwards to make sure that the fbi can come in, do this search, and hopefully find nothing else. and then perhaps he can then move on to his political duties that he wants -- you know, he has plans to go to iowa and so on. so this is the best way for him to get this over with as soon as possible. you will note right now this is still being handled by the justice department. it's being handled by the fbi, not by a special counsel. they are doing everything they can to avoid that. we also expect that in the next few days we're going to see another surge of pence's think tank office, a private office across t

evan perez is with us. when might this search happen? >> it could happen as soon as tomorrow.een tracking this for a number of days, and we've been tracking this conversations that have been happening between the pence team and the justice department. pence team is trying to project that they are verycooperative. they believe there are no more documents that would be of concern, no classified documents, so they've invited the fbi to come and do a search, not only of the home in carmel, indiana, but this think tank office that he has right across the street from the fbi building here in washington. they hope for the pence team that if the fbi doesn't find anything else of concern in those searches, they can try to wrap up this investigation that is ongoing right now and avoid having a special counsel do a longer term investigation, as you have going on with president biden and, of course, with former president trump. you know, obviously mike pence is thinking of running for office, we all know that, but because he's not a declared candidate right now, it doesn't present some of