tonight, we start with merrick garland. it's no surprise that republicans are not fans of the attorney general. ever since he arrived at the justice department, republicans have repeatedly accused garland of weaponizing the doj. and using it to go after president biden so-called political enemies. here's garland testimony before the judiciary committee in october of 2021. more republican senators had their say about garland's memo on protecting school board members, just to be clear that was a memo on protecting school board members. take a listen. >> a leave it at this, general garland, you weaponize the fbi in the department of justice, it's wrong, it's unprecedented to my knowledge in the history of this country, and i call on you to resign. >> this testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful. thank god you're not on the supreme court. you should resign in disgrace, judge. >> then, in august of this year when the fbi executed a search warrant because the federal judge agreed with the doj, that evidence of cri

tonight we start with merrick garland. it's no surprise that republicans are not fans of the attorney general. ever since he arrived at the justice department, republicans have repeatedly accused garland of weaponizing the doj and going after trump. here he is in 2021 where the republican senators had their say about garland's memo on protecting school board members. just to be clear, yes, that was a memo of protecting school board members. take a listen. >> i'll leave it at this, general garland. you have weaponized the fbi and the department of justice. it is wrong, it is unprecedented to this history in our country, and i call on you to resign. >> thank god you're not on the supreme court. you should resign as a disgraced judge. >> then in august of this year when the fbi executed a search warrant on mar-a-lago because the judge agreed with the doj that crimes, plural, could potentially be found there, this is what happened. >> it just shows how bad things have gotten at the fbi and doj. it's all driven by politics ther

the man was merrick garland. yes, merrick garland.ame merrick garland who, a few years later, in 2016, would be catapulted to superstardom within that liberal imagination after being rejected by mitch mcconnell and the senate gop as a nominee to fill not john paul stevens seat but antonin scalia's spot on the supreme court. you are forgiven if this slip to your mind. mcconnells smoke and mirrors routine has a way of fogging up the past -- that was not more obvious then with merrick garland who went from our inheritors small seats conservative strain trist to woke liberal pin-up almost on a level with rbg herself. you may be startled to hear that back in 2016, it wasn't garlands left-wing bias that was the top of the town, but his rather staunch habit of backing the blue, rolling in favor of law enforcement compared to his colleagues on the bench. and fortunately, those are precisely the type of details that are lost in history, when you become a side character in a racist republican hatchet job on the country's first black president.

all the people who were on merrick garland, where are you? where is merrick garland?taking too long, all of a sudden of that political pressure gets diverted he's at least charged. >> for all the time i said to you he is above the law, show me where trump has been held accountable for one thing ever, this that is what merrick garland probably hears every single day from folks like us and also folks inside his own orbit so this would be some, as you say a pressure relief. >> you made a really good point in the beginning, if there is an indictment, oh huge if, reaction will be through the roof both ways, you'll see unfettered joy from people who believe donald trump evaded the law too long and you're going to see fury, real anger from the other side, it's so important to keep in mind i've said this 1,000 times i'll say it again an indictment is the start of case, it's not the end. table can say turn. >> there will be fury if not an indictment, this is situation either way this goes it is both unfathomable see it play out and we've to get end this car to not go through,

is merrick garland, the famously cautious, the famously allergic to politics, merrick garland, going to end up in a situation where he gives the current president, his current boss, a pass, but he indites, not just the former president, but the man running against his own boss right now? i don't know merrick garland personally, but based on what i do, no that is really difficult for me to say. >> what you just heard was the sound of a lot of people, largely democrats, throwing things at their tv at you right now. saying, elie honig, he is playing, what about -- what donald trump did, even the limited amounts we know about both cases, it is just very different. he was subpoenaed several times. he obstructed. he did this. he did that, allegedly. how can you say that this is now the case that merrick garland will treat them similarly? >> it is not what about -- it is real world -- merrick garland, the platonic ideal of the prosecutor, which in many ways merrick garland's -- would not make -- the heart of legal analysis. but that is not reality. we live in reality and you need to think a

we do know that merrick garland referred the matter to john lash, a trump-appointed attorney in general. garland felt initial comfort in knowing a u.s. attorney appointed by donald trump, john losh, looked into the initial review. and david weiss in delaware is continuing his review of the president's son hunter biden. so right now nobody could be in a more difficult situation here at the justice department than the chief law enforcement officer. he's dealing with investigations of donald trump, of hunter biden, and now joe biden. the big question, will he appoint a special counsel in ten minutes, what republicans and some democrats are calling on him to do. >> john: ohio republican congressman mike turner, so much to unpack here, congressman, hardly know where to begin. maybe we start with what do you think merrick garland is going to do, he finds himself in very much the same position, jeff sessions did at the beginning of the trump administration. >> the facts and circumstances are absolutely outrageous. this is completely mishandling of classified information and documentation. when

>> you know, cory, i think this was a discretionary call by merrick garland. i think he took each step on the road that ended up with the appointment of special counsel appropriately, but i think the results of the first step boxed him in. the first step was he asked, the u.s. attorney out in chicago to just do a preliminary review to see if there's anything that needs to be investigated and whether he, merrick garland, should consider appointing a special counsel. i do hasten to add that was a trump appointed u.s. attorney, one of only three i think remain among the 93 u.s. attorneys. and once that u.s. attorney, john blouse, did his preliminary review, and he offered an opinion to merrick garland. he said i think there's enough here to investigate, and i think there's enough to appoint a special counsel. i think at that point, let's deal was sealed. had merrick garland rejected the very opinion he sought and said no, we are not going to appoint a special counsel, there would have been an uproar. so, i think it was almost inevitable at that point, though it w

remarks from attorney merrick garland and white house briefing.er president biden with escalating political crisis with his handling of classified documents. now, a second batch found in one of his two homes in delaware. this is >> gerri: . my cohost emily compagno, gerri willis, leslie marshall, and sean duffy. and bret baier, this is going to be good. the big news today, white house council sank the classified materials and the garage storage space of the president's home in wilmington delaware. in the garage just to keep up, the president said they were locked up next to his bed, he literally said next to his corvette when he was pressed by peter doocy. >> classified materials, what were you thinking? we will get a chance to speak on this god willing. i said earlier this week, by the way, my corvette is in a locked garage so it's not like down the street. but anyway -- yes, as well as my corvette. but as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified materials seriously. i also said we are cooperating fully and

i think this is an effort by merrick garland to ebb ensure a fair process. no one is above the law, even the president. especially when we have a former president under investigation for similar types of conduct. the conduct is very different, as we have already discussed earlier based on what we know. it's important that somebody investigate this and we do it by the book and do it properly. garland's goal has been to restore public confidence in the justice department as an objective agent in all of this outside of partisan politics. this was probably a necessary step for the purpose of fulfilling public confidence as opposed to any legal action that will take place, based on what we know, it sounds like it was a mistake. certainly, there could be political consequences for that for joe biden. but there's nothing to indicate what he did was willful, disloyalty to the united states and obstruction of justice was involved in the contrary. it appears that voluntarily called his own foul in the national archives and returned the dlts as quickly as possible. so

merrick garland will be very hard pressed to bring any criminal charges against trump.will try to claim perhaps he didn't cooperate enough. well, he didn't cooperate because he was following the bill clinton standard which the department of justice set. they went to federal court and said a former president has complete and unfettered discretion to keep whatever he wants. that was the standard until suddenly overnight merrick garland oh, with the exception of donald trump. well, read the presidential records act. there is plenty of latitude and discretion there to give trump authority over control and maintaining whatever documents he wants. it will be a hard case for merrick garland to bring against trump. >> tucker: to capitol hill, the same people on the left who turned election night into election month or election 6 weeks. no voter i.d. no signature verification. they are incensed it took 4 days for house republicans to decide on a speaker. the horror! in a perfect world these tense negotiations -- may argument it should have taken place before january 3rd. the end

merrick garland has more to decide now.ointing a special counsel is what republicans want and many democrats want. it would take things away from the department justice somewhat. a special counsel works for the department of justice but the u.s. attorney for the northern district of illinois may not cut it for critics who want this fully investigated. >> dana: it does something else, david. so karine jean-pierre is scheduled to do a press briefing at 1:30 p.m. today. merrick garland makes the statement at 1:15 and if he says he is appointing a special counsel the white house press secretary can say special counsel, i can't comment. it might be appropriate. i don't know if there were further answers beyond that. that's another thing that happens. the timing of his statement at 1:15 and her press briefing at 1:30 is very interesting. >> it is interesting. former press secretary you know. something else important to point out dana and bill. there is a special counsel right now looking into the mar-a-lago documents. a special c

you also mentioned john loush and we should note that merrick garland appointed him partly because he was nominated by former president trump, wanting to reinforce his objectiveness. as we're waiting for this, let's talk more about these classified documents. we know biden's legal team announced they found a second batch and we're learning more about where exactly they were located on his property. can you tell us more about that? >> absolutely. in a statement, the white house says these additional documents were found at biden's wilmington residence. they say these documents were found in two different locations at the residence. the first, they say, was a garage, a storage space contained in that garage. the second piece of this pile of documents, they say was a single document, a single page found in what was described as an adjacent room. but a lot of questions still outstanding. how many documents, what exactly were they, and how did they get there. in a statement the white house said it selected different locations to search, looking specifically at where files were shipped from

i think merrick garland is very, very cognizant of that. he was reluctant to do the first one, jack smith, and i'm sure probably felt the same way. but once he had done the first one, he absolutely knew he had to do the second one, which is rob hur. i will say, though, that there is an effort here to make clear in the appointment document, which the attorney general announced, in which he specifies what specific crime is being looked at. there is, of course, language that says any additional matters or krcrimes that may arise, especially if somebody was trying to obstruct or anything like that. one of the copkey parts of this going to be the personal documents found alongside the president -- the classified documents, right? one of the things that we heard in the last few days from officials is that these documents were found with purely personal things having to do with the vice president's family and so on. the question is the dates of those documents, right? they're going to want to know -- the fbi will want to know how far back are thos

and merrick garland gets to decide whether to make those public.eporting is accurate and i have no reason to doubt that it is, durham had some very difficult explaining to do. how he lost two d-order motions before judge howell and why he brought two cases to trial that he couldn't win. that is pretty unusual for a federal prosecutor. how he ended up flying to italy with bill barr, with whom he was seen to be regularly dining and having scotch to get the italians to dish dirt on the cia, i mean it is a very weird pattern of behavior and i think he's going to have to answer for it. >> well, barr, he's worked for merrick garland and lisa monaco for two years. and bill barr was the a.g. but the two failed trials happened while his boss was merrick garland. how much in the special counsel regs in terms of briefing doj, how much of this story do you think is news to the attorney general and how much of this would he have been aware of? >> i think that the attorney general most certainly has to sign off on significant investigative steps. so the trials t

but, yes, it does put merrick garland in a already tough position and in a tougher position. but again i think that it's fair to say that he's not going to take any action until both of those processes have been completed and we know what the results are. it also seems though that with all that you're describing the idea in a word or two or three, -for-tat, that it is a perpetual cycle at that point. because you're saying that in order for this to happen, these reactions and reactions happening is there in and game where the republicans and you have the majority in the house. and you've got of course the committee chair. what is the angle frustration? >> the oversight. this is what we heard. this is what we heard going into this commerce, right? there's gonna be aggressive oversight, the weapons of destruction. that >> that's just one committee. >> but that's the review of the public, right? jim jordan and many others feel that there is the department of justice that has been weaponized and they're gonna investigate it, right? it's all gonna get flushed. out so if you're merr

merrick garland sat on that news . now we have not one not two but three separate locations were found. about the money is the most disturbing. the money to the penn biden center the overwhelming majorit of it came when biden was there. he was being paid by the university. the university had their professors request from merrick garland that they dropped the espionage case with china. he dropped it. i am or meet about everything i'm reading. >> it looks like a quid pro quo where the equivalent of a bribery. joe biden is the new britney spears it oops, i did it again. and again. and again. three different locations with classified information in it. you can maybe rationalize it wa inadvertent once. may be accidental twice a. of three times? remember the criminal statute says the story removal and stor of classified information is a crime if it's either intentiona or reckless. this now appears to be the definition of recklessness unde the criminal statute. joe biden is at greater risk of donald trump because tromp as a f

merrick garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of some classified documents. his appointment follows the development that a second set of classified documents were found, these in a storage space in the garage of president biden's home in wilmington, delaware. the president's lawyer said it was a small number of documents. watch. >> on january 5th, 2023, mr. laush briefed me on the results of his initial investigation and advised me that further investigation by a special counsel was warranted. based on mr. laush's initial investigation, i concluded that under the special counsel regulations, it was in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. as i have said before, i strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity, but under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. and to mak

so merrick garland knew that that, this was going to be something.smith was appointed in the middle of november. and here we are, middle of january, with a second special counsel. this one investigating what was happening with president biden. and you have got to wonder whether or not jack smith right now is perhaps angry with merrick garland that he did not tell him about this, or put him in this situation. walk us through what we were discussing here in this break. >> charles was saying before the break that he has all of the sympathy in the world for merrick garland. i think that we have a lot of sympathy for jack smith who has a test that is not what he thought he was walking into. on november 2nd, that is one of the first documents were discovered at the biden center. they were handed over to the national archives it has been a couple of days. by november 10th, that is when the president's lawyers got a call saying the department of justice is going to open a preliminary investigation. and it was eight days later that merrick garland came and an

merrick garland's choice was to appoint a special counsel, putting the trump and biden situation, even though there are many differences, it puts them in the same path in the sense that we have two separate special counsels looking into both classified documents here. special counsel robert herr taking the special counsel, unfolding by the hour. that's not an exaggeration. i'm told things got to a point where attorney general garland had to appoint a special counsel, because it involves his boss, the president of the united states. >> i am confident that he will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department. >> during his announcement today the attorney general stood next to the outgoing u.s. attorney in chicago, a trump appointee, asked on november 14th to look into the original set of biden classified documents found at the penn-biden center on november. 2nd. days after he was asked to look into that matter on november 18th garland announced the appointment of jack smith to look into the trump classi

merrick garland is acting as an a. g. to appease the pillow man.eel like, at some point, that that becomes ridiculous. >> elie mystal, as always, thank you for your time. next, the house is under new management and the gop is off to a rocky start. two former members of congress tell me what we have learned just this week. and later, former fbi special agent clint watts breaks down new details emerging from the proud boys seditious conspiracy trial. but first, -- is standing by with a look at the other big stories we are watching this hour. richard lieu? >> good evening, alicia. -- launched ukraine -- and hitting a high rise billions in dnipro, killing at least 12 people. dozens more were hurt in that and about 38 missiles were launched, in total, according to ukraine's commander-in-chief. those targeted ukraine's capital critical infrastructure. california is bracing for not yet another round of rainfall. meteorologists are expecting 5 to 6 inches of rain on sunday. there are fears this at rated so soil cannot take that extra precipitation, which c

so, who wants merrick garland's job?orse job and washington d.c., but let's look at the timing here. the fact that he knew this was looming on the horizon before he appoints jack smith as special counsel, looking into, among other things, trump's retention of classified documents in mar-a-lago, you think it's inevitable that a second special counsel is appointed for biden because that's what he has to do politically, at least? >> i don't think it's inevitable, but i think if it is even a close call then merrick garland is going to appoint that second special counsel. one of the advantages of special counsel is that they do explaining in the way that prosecutors generally don't. prosecutors generally say respeak two indictments and jury verdicts, not much else, but special counsel issued reports, and they talk about the investigative steps they've taken, and the attorney general can disclose those. that might be helpful here to have two of them because the public is going to need to understand what to me is still very cle

attorney in chicago assigned to this by merrick garland.ve to interview president biden? how would it determine all of this? do you have a sense? >> i think that will be way down the road. so far, they've done harm assessment, which is what you do when you find a national security documents have gone awry. now we turn to whether there should even be a criminal investigation. my understanding is that what the attorney general is thinking about now, and an investigation would look for the factors that i talked about, woefulness, obstruction, the types of documents, who got to see them, why did other people get to see them if they did, and the question of who might need to be eight witnesses so far away from any of that to me right now. >> how does this complicate merrick garland's movements behind the scenes? a lot of people set on its face, the mar-a-lago documents case is a case where you have a clear cut indictment of president trump. january six is another piece of special counsel jack smith's purview, but a lot of folks on the outside ha

merrick garland, what he knew, what he has been doing. fully expect merrick garland knew these documents existed was hoping to run out the clock, this would never see the light of day and you know, now he is caught in a really difficult question because, as we have talked about he have there is a two-tiered system of justice they come after donald trump and his associates with much more power and enthusiasm than they do joe biden hunter biden and what appears to be the at least similar acts, again we don't know enough on the joe biden piece. the second tranche found in a locked garage in his corvette is outrageous. these are classified documents. there should be some care taken to protect the contents. neil: do you think he knew they were there? they are very clear, biden administration people, when comparisons are invariably made, who are you to criticize donald trump and documents found at his mar-a-lago home around they were quick to respond in defense of the president, at least he didn't have them stashed at his home. turns out he did

what he just described is exactly what merrick garland has done. he's said no prosecutor worth their salt allows larger political -- that's what merrick garland has been doing. he said i don't want to look unfair. i don't want this to appear to be partisan. i don't want to do this while somebody is running for office. we have seen that going on. my concern is there's so much concern about appearing to be fair, no one is concerned about the fairness to everyone else in the country that we're having our country takeben over by people who will do it illegally or by violence. if you're talking about the danger, it's not just danger to democracy. it's danger to the men and women bringing these cases. we saw in the january 6th hearings last summer that you saw local election workers who had death threats, who had to leave their homes and everything else like that. what kind of protection does fani willis have? is brian kemp going to keep her safe? is brad raffensperger going to keep her safe? these are very realistic concerns. we have mass shooters in th

so merrick garland knew that this was going to be something.was appointed in the middle of november, and here we are in the middle of january with the second special counsel. this one investigating what happened with president biden, and you have to wonder if jack smith right now is perhaps angry with merrick garland that he didn't tell about this or put him in the situation. let's -- what we were discussing in this break. >> charles blow was saying that he has -- charles collbran and i have a lot of sympathy for jack smith. we he has a test now that he -- that's when the first batch of documents were discovered at the penn biden center, they were handed over to the national archives in a couple of days. by november 10th, that's when the president's lawyers told the department of justice gonna opened a preliminary investigation. and it was eight days later that merrick garland came and announced to the public he was appointed special counsel jack smith taking two investigations in respect to trump. the first was january 6th, the second the mar-

do you expect merrick garland to do that?i think the bright line is not to turn over anything in any way that will interfere with the investigation. that's a decision the department needs to make. there are legitimate congressional oversight requirement that the department can accommodate, but there's a bright line that comes to anything that might interfere. the fact that they have already sent letters demanding certain things, in your mind, there's nothing justice can do. >> i wouldn't say that. there are, as i said, legitimate oversight issues that can be resolved. fox, one bright line would be investigating the prosecutor while a case is ongoing. i think that's a case where the department needs to draw a line. >>> let's go back in tine. in hindsight, appointing a special counsel, is this a slippery slope that many previous attorneys general have already feared, that once you appoint one, you essential can't stop appointing them? once you claim a rationale of a perception of unfairness -- >> that was true until the statuto

more than a year and a half passes the national archives first raised the issue of -- for merrick garland got around to picking a special counsel to investigate further. it took garland 72 days to assign a special counsel to biden after biden's team first alerted the national archives. althe talking points memo points out, with its pick to investigate biden, garland carries on with a tradition of democrats and of this, picking republicans to either run the fbi or do special counsel investigations. did you know there is never been a democrat appointed to be fbi director? anytime a democratic president gets to trump's to pick an fbi director, they pick a republican. republicans do not reciprocate, he'll be shocked to hear. i mean, do you think a republican a.g. working for donald trump would have picked today democratic special counsel to investigate, say, hillary clinton, or barack obama? if merrick garland really is trying to appease the right with what he sees as a non partisan pick to run the biden investigation, well, it's not working. listen to your trump ally kash patel explain what

what merrick garland is doing is drawing a line in the sand.rsight exists, congress, you have oversight powers, doj can and should go up to capitol hill whether it's the a.g. or somebody else and answer questions about their enforcement initiatives. but the line is in the sand we cannot talk about pending ongoing investigations whether you want to know about donald trump or joe biden or hunter biden or rudy giuliani or anybody else that is off-limits and important that merrick garland is drawing that line and an enormous problem if he were to testify about those cases but signaling here i'm not going to go down that road. >> what is important is one thing you wrote about in your piece, apparently you had a premonition, you talk about the importance, though, of merrick garland answering questions in the broader sense but it's okay if the house asks him to come in, it's actually helpful for him to go there and testify about perhaps, you know, practices, how things work. but it's the specific investigations where you have to be careful. >> exactly

. >> attorney general merrick garland announced the appointment of robert her to the special counsel to investigate the documents of president biden's former office and his home. the documents in question reportedly date back to when mr. biden served as vice president. rney general merrick garland. >> pursuant to department of justice regulations governing such matters. in keeping with those regulations, i have today notified the designated members of each house of congress of the appointment. i'm joined today by john, the u.s. attorney for the northern district of illinois who conducted the initial investigation into the matter that i will describe today. on the evening of november 4, 2022, the national archives office of inspector general contacted a prosecutor at the department of justice. it informed him that the white house had notified the archives that documents baring classification markings were identified at the office of the penn biden center for diplomacy and global engagement located in washington, d.c. that office was not authorized for storage of classified documents.

>> well, merrick garland, the attorney general appointed john lausch, a u.s. attorney in chicago, one of two u.s. attorneys that were appointed by donald trump that are still serving in the justice department. he was kept on to handle a couple politically sensitive investigations and this one is now, you would say, probably among the most politically sensitive that is going on. he is -- he has been looking at doing a review of the documents with the fbi and what we have been told, abby, is that he has completed at least the preliminary part of this. has come back and has briefed the attorney general and now the decision rests with merrick garland and, you know, whether this becomes a full-blown investigation, you have to think that, you know, we've watched merrick garland operate and we've seen how chris wray at the fbi operated. you have to think that they're going to try to do things by the book, make sure that they handle this in the same manner that they handled the trump investigation which is still ongoing. >> we should note that merrick garland is with

november 14th, merrick garland assigned john laos, and everything goes silent and the 20th, laos wasnformed they found additional documents. if he is supposed to lead an investigation, why are lawyers leading the vgsz? laos should be in the home. he calls on december 20th, buddy, you're investigating me, right? i'm turning over documents for you. okay, great. enjoy christmas. see you in january. >> uh-huh. >> doesn't make sense. i don't know why it started yet, why did they go to the closet? >> any chance laos would have said, you need to check his house. >> why wouldn't laos do it, why are you letting his lawyer -- >> ainsley: maybe they didn't want to, why not get jim -- >> treated differently than donald trump? >> what about get jim to go over there and rifle through papers? >> how do we know that didn't happen in the garage? we don't. hi, carley. >> carley: also merrick garland's appointed special prosecutor for trump when he knew about the biden documents, interesting timing there. yeah. a lot being revealed. >> he knew he would face the same thing with the president and went ah

at the time when merrick garlands justice seriously. ustice department has had to navigate fraught political waters while trying to remain neutral. remember it was merrick garland who signed off on the search warrant to go into mara lago to search for president trumps set of classified documents. it shows that this is a very independentjustice department. very independent justice department. what very independentjustice department. what does this mean for president writing? it what does this mean for president writin: ? , ., ., ., ., writing? it is not good for president _ writing? it is not good for president biden - writing? it is not good for president biden right - writing? it is not good forl president biden right now. writing? it is not good for. president biden right now. i writing? it is not good for- president biden right now. i don't necessarily mean it is a doomsday scenario for his administration but is not what his administration wants to be dealing with at this time. he is expected to announce a 2024 presidential run. he is

with merrick garland, compared parents to domestic terrorists for attending school board meetings, irtiality. >> carley: fbi is just getting around to investigating pro-life centers attacked eight months ago. this tweet is not going to come as surprise to you, former fbi agent strzok posted this tweet yesterday saying applying the facts of what we know of biden and trump document saga, including yesterday's search of biden residence to doj past practice yields two conclusions, trump should be prosecuted and biden should not. he didn't say what drew that conclusion, but he is former member of the fbi, same organization merrick garland just defended as being impartial. >> lisa page and peter strzok, what kind of relationship was that? how do we stop donald trump from becoming president. when we see former intelligence officers who were supposed to be impartial in their job, think of what we've seen since 2016. james comey, john brennan now at msnbc, can't tell the difference in him and keith oberman. lisa page is at msnbc and peter strzok gets book deals. these people now, when you hea

i get that joe biden is in some sense merrick garland's off. garland is supposed to be pushing the narrative of doj's independence and demonstrating his integrity by picking the hard cases. it seems to me that now we're on a slippery slope. it's going to be tough for garland to backtrack and say i'm going to draw the line here. we did it once. no more special counsel. doj can certainly handle this. that's what he should do. as long as political optics don't continue to interject here. >> i think political optics are the driving force at this justice department from the outside. that is a fair read. i want to follow with you, though, on the point that andrew made. all "the new york times" and the "post" and the timing of the special counsel for trump has the announcement to run for president. sort of a triggering event. part of the reason everyone he understands he wasn't cooperative with the profession inquiry into the assassination for him and his family's life is for political considerations. mike pompeo was going to run for president. nikki h

what more can you tell us about merrick garland's thinking on this?now is looking at, is the circumstances of this case, which is mike pence's documents , these are classified documents found at his home and they view him in a different place from the former president trump and of course joe biden. and in this case, mike pence has not declared that he is running for president so it doesn't necessarily present the immediate conflict of interest issues that the former president trumps case presented to the attorney general. that's one of the reasons why he said he had to appoint a special counsel, it happened just a couple days after trump publicly announced he was running for office again, against merrick garland's own boss. and of course once you do that, and of course these documents were found in the home and in the private office of joe biden , they felt they had to do a special counsel in that case as well. so, right now, as you pointed out, this is being handled inside the justice department. they feel obviously that the circumstances could chang

i don't know was merrick garland out of spite over not getting the supreme court nomination, was that -- what the hell is going on here? >> martha: their people out of this office would miss held government documents and spent six months in prison. what i am saying is to a point of special counsel you need to have evidence that shows a crime may have been committed. a crime may have been committed. you're talking about the espionage act and i'm talking about the second definition which is mishandling government documents. to these rules matter or only for some people? what's the deal? >> geraldo: i challenge anyone to give me an example of someone who negligently handled innocently but negligently handled a federal secret documents and went to jail. 's eyes people with criminal intent. the diagrams of the submarines, the nuclear triggers or some like that. to use that kind of language in the context of the president of the united states and the former president of the united states i think i think a pox on both houses. this is not what we should be obsessing about right now. i just go

i'm paul gigot attorney general merrick garland announce appointment of a special counsel to investigateresident biden's handling of documents with classified markings found in his home and his are garage, in wilmington, delaware and private offs in washington, d.c. garland tapping robert heard top prosecutor during the trurp administration to lead the probe saying that justice department is committed to an independent investigation. >> the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability and particularly sensitive matters. and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. >> let's bring in wall street journal columnist dan henninger and kim strassel do you think merrick garland had a choice here or was he boxed in and really had to appoint a special council or is he just trying to build in some political insulation here for the hard choices that -- may come? >> well i would say all of the above, paul. [laug

merrick garland's and we have to have a special prosecutor for trump. that means we've got to have one provided in. >> as you can well imagine, g.o.p. critics are questioning why the white house didn't disclose the discovery of the first batch, which as you don't happen before the midterm elections. but that wasn't known to the public until just this week. other questions had to come, trace. >> trace: like when did they find the second batch? >> and where? >> trace: and where did they find the second batch? kevin corke, good stuff as always. let's bring in the political panel. richard fowler, mike davis. thank you both. mike, i want you to listen to the house until chair mike turner and then i'll get your response on the backside. watch. >> it's very troubling that the search continues and yet the department of justice is standing down where they read donald trump's home. there's also questions we need to have answered about what's in these documents. why did he have them? >> trace: what's in the documents? why did he have them and wise information bein

but why is attorney general merrick garland moving so quickly to appoint a special counsel for the biden documents when it took forever to do the same for trump? also tonight, the quote of the day coming from george santos who said with a straight face, i have lived an honest life. and now, there's new reporting on the multiple investigations into his questionable finances. and did you hear? joe biden's coming for your gas stove. no, not really, but two weeks into the new year, it's a top republican priority to talk about it along with ending so-called wokeness and crt and counting fetuses in the hov lanes. we begin tonight just a little over two months since president biden's team discovered and immediately returned a small batch of classified documents from his time as vice president to the national archives. we further learned today that at the end of december, the president's team discovered that additional documents were found at his delaware home. those too were immediately turned over. and today, we also had this announcement from attorney general merrick garland. >> i'm here toda

reports to merrick garland so he make a cities and ultimately term determine if any of them need tocriminally prosecuted for this type of conduct. i think it is a good idea to have it separate to protect the integrity of the department of justice. that is what he is trying to do. neil: well-said, well-explained. i evened into what you said, well-explained. ronald chapman, federal attorney looking at all of this. there are a lot of bears in the market when it comes to peter elias no one has a voice like him. it is so thunderous, when things look bad, you pay attention, he will scare you with just his voice. he is actually a very nice guy and he is next. earning on my favorite soup. aaaaaah. got it. earning on that éclair. don't touch it, don't touch it yet. let me get the big one. nope. - this one? - nope. - this one? - yes. - no. - what? - the big one. - they're all the same size. wait! lemme get 'em all. i'm gonna get 'em all! earn big with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. my dad was a hard worker. he used to do side jobs installing wi

what does merrick garland do?he has to decide whether a criminal investigation is warranted here. as you said, it may be a violation of rules but not all mistakes, particularly innocent mistakes, are crimes or need to be investigated criminally. it may well be here that there is no need for a criminal investigation. by the way, this review is done under the special counsel statute. really, if everything we are hearing is correct about the circumstances here -- there's a lot we don't know -- it's so different from the mar-a-lago situation. not necessarily a criminal matter. but still as peter laid out, very important political questions to be answered. a lot of haziness around, were there classified documents in other places? has the biden team conducted searches of other locations given they found documents in this one place? parsing president biden's statement last night, he said he didn't -- he was surprised to learn about the documents and appears to not know what's in the boxes. that doesn't mean he didn't kno

>> well i'm not a big fan of special counsel but merrick garland had no other choice.ig deal out of trump's handling of classified documents. they appointed a special counsel to investigate that. he had no choice, but to appoint a similar counsel to investigate joe biden. i would say that the democrats chickens are coming home to roost, so they had to respond in kind with that, but let me be clear. this special counsel better be just focused on biden's classification or his handling of classified documents, not on our investigation. we're investigating the biden family influence. i think you see with what we've learned about the biden center center for diplomacy their major donor were anonymous donors from china. if you look at where hunter biden's money was coming from for his so-called investments, they were from anonymous donors in china. his art work that he's selling in new york city supposedly going to china to anonymous buyers. there's a pattern here with the bidens and china that's very concerning for national security so i'm concerned about biden's mishandling

merrick garland sat on merrick garland sat on that news he had this november 2nd. he did not tell the american people that in and of itself needs to be investigated. now, we have not one , not two, but three separate locations where these top secret and classified documents were were found. bu fot the money is the most disturbing. you know, the money to the penne biden center, the overwhelming of i of it came when biden was there. he was being paid by the university. the university then had their professors request from merrick garland that they droppe an espionage case with china. he dropped it.r meet i'm worried about everything i'm reading here. yeah, it looks lik e a quid pro quo, doesn't it?lent of a were the equivalent of bribery . >> you britney know, joe biden s the new britney spears. oops. i did it again and againd and again. three different locations with classified information incb it. was you can maybe rationalize. it was in inadvertent once mad. the accident twice, three times . three tim remember the criminaes?l statute says that the storing, removal

comey and merrick garland do not understand. and they don't need to. they're not supposed to even because it's not supposed to be their focus or a big part of that job. i always try to keep it clear with you. let me say it like this, the point tonight is not that mr. garland or anyone around him should shift to studying and become experts on how the modern gop works. the point is they judd just do their work and put in place qualified people to do the work and stop once and for all trying to appease people through these optics exercises. just pick good people and do the work. but this has become a pattern for this attorney. in selecting mr. hur "the times" reports garland is continuing a pattern of asking current and former trump appointed u.s. attorneys to handle politically sensitive investigations to allay any concerns about political bias. again, whose concerns? not people who know how this works. not legal expert, not doj veteran, not judges who are not supposed to check your party i.d. when they oversee cases. not people in what we call our fact-