and here to discuss this further is michael zeldin, the host of "that said" with michael zeldin podcastod morning. >> there are so many questions about these classified documents, the lie and what were in these documents. what is your thought process? >> so two things. one is for the current white house, they have to be very concerned as was just reported about what those documents are and what they contain and who had access to them. so from a national security threat analysis standpoint, there's -- that's the white house's view. from the prior white house, then you have to think about what liability do any of them have for getting those documents that were classified from the white house to trump's basement? we saw in the mike pence operation how systematic they were in going through the documents to make sure that nothing classified moved out of the white house. in this case, mark meadows who would have been in charge of this, seems to have been missing in action. that's why all these documents perhaps vanished from the white house without security around them. and so, if i'm mark me

. >> michael zeldin is a former federal prosecutor and host of "that said" with michael zeldin podcast. it's good to see you again. we don't know precisely what is in the documents, of course, but what would it take for them to have major consequences for the former president? >> the principal issue is are there classified documents in there that trump knew were classified in which he was in way trying to deliberately with hold from the government because they were dangerous to him? that i think is the most telling argument for a prosecution of him. we're not there factually because we don't know what's in those documents, but the mere possession of documents is bad enough, but if he was doing it if you will to cover something up he's in a much more dangerous take. >> trump has said all the documents were declassified, i did it to myself. and it's interesting, too. none actually say the documents have to be classified for them to have been an offense. regardless can he just wave a wand and suddenly it's okay to take sensitive documents to his own home? nuclear program documents, for ex

federal prosecutor and host of the podcast, that's said with michael zeldin, it's michael zeldin himself. good to have you with us. >> thanks for having me. so, just a short time ago, the department of justice filed its 40 page response opposing donald trump's plea for a special master's to review that classified information, those documents seized from his mar-a-lago home. the doj essentially saying, that review has already been done. so, it will be unnecessary to do it again. so, what is your response to this? and what decision do you think the judge will likely make on thursday? >> i agree with the justice department that his special marked is not needed in this case, even if the review hadn't been done. special master's typically are appointed when there is a seizure from an attorney's office so they can check attorney-client privilege issues. that wasn't the case here. and, additionally, the search has been completed, pursuing to the procedures that the judge issued the search warrant laid out. so, they have a team that reviewed all these documents, called out the executive privileg

let's bring in michael zeldin, former federal prosecutor and host of the podcast that said with michaelall that said, it seems the judge is trying to split the difference of demand for full transparency and the resistance to releasing the affidavit. what do you think will happen this week? >> so let me just say at the start that i don't like this splitting the difference. i think the in-tegrity of the investigation should supersede the right to know at this pints. and so i just want to make it clear, i don't like it, i don't think it is good policy or good precedence. that said, likelihood is that the doj is going to operate in good faith, it will send the judge a proposed redacted verse and then the judge has some choices. he can review the document and say fair enough, you did a good job, i'll release it as is, or he can say i've looked at this redaction and it doesn't make any sense to the public if they look at it and so i'm changing my order and i just won't release it at this point. or he could say i've looked at this, you didn't do a good enough job, try, try again. and that leav

i want to bring in michael zeldin, host of "that said with michael zeldin" podcast. to see you. so senator lindsey graham still fighting to stay out of court and testify in georgia. are you convinced that he will testify as scheduled on tuesday? >> i believe he should testify. what the fight is about is the speech and debate clause of the constitution which provides that if your activities during your legislative work are something that the judiciary wants to hear about, you can be prevented from having to be called there. he's saying that these phone calls that he made to georgia and other calls that he may have made to other people is part of his legislative work. the court said, no, it's not. this is separate from legislation and, therefore, you have to appear. and so that's the fight. the judge has looked at the speech and debate clause. we saw this, fred, in the case of menendez in new jersey where he tried to do the same thing when he was charged with bribery in connection with his lobbying activities. the court said no, no, no, that's not legislative activity,

federal prosecutor and host of the podcast that said, with michael zeldin is michael zeldin himself the good to have you with us. >> thank you for having me. >> just a short time ago, the department of justice filed its 40 page response opposing donald trump's plea for a special master to review that classified information, those documents seized from his mar-a- lago home. the doj essentially saying that review has already been done. so it will be unnecessary to do it again. what is your response to this, and what decision do you think the judge will likely make on thursday? >> i agree with the justice department. a special master is not needed in this case, even if the review had not been done, special masters typically are appointed when there is a seizure from an attorney's office, so they can check attorney-client privilege issues but that was not the case here. and additionally, the search has been completed, pursuant to the procedures that the judge who issued the search warrant laid out. so, they have a team that reviewed all these documents, called out the executive privilege or

let's bring in former federal prosecutor michael zeldin. what is your reaction to the reports of an informant here that there was a meeting at mar-a-lago in june, after that meeting someone informed law enforcement that there were more documents that were unsecured? is this a possibility that this informant is from trump's orbit? >> well, it would make sense that somebody within the trump world, within the mar-a-lago complex, had knowledge of the existence of additional boxes, 12 as we learned, and they decided that it was important to honor the obligations of law enforcement and let them know where these things were and so it went. >> with all the people coming in and out of mar-a-lago, i mean, you can see why investigators would be concerned if there were documents that would pertain to national security for example. and we know that investigators had suspected that trump representatives were not being completely truthful. was that the reason to pursue a search warrant? >> it seems so. it seems that there has been a month's long process w

let's bring in michael zeldin up bright and early with us this morning. good to see you. >> good to see you, too. >> one of trump's lawyers signed this letter saying there were no more classified materials at mar-a-lago. how does that effect the investigation going forward? >> it might explain why somebody served as an informant that there were additional documents. if that lawyer, as part of a team of lawyers or others certified something that wasn't true and now all of a sudden are looking at what liability they have, it might explain why we get additional information. but the certification that they have no additional documents, and then the revelation that they have additional documents could prove either one, they believe in good faith there was nothing classified because trump had declassified them or they were part of the effort to obstruct justice and that's why they were included in the search warrant. >> we want to know what was in the documents that was so problematic, but that's the -- the irony is because these are highly classified informati

michael zeldin, steven moore, thank you both. >>> mitch mcconnell acknowledges there is a chance the republicans will not be able to take back the senate in september, why the quality of candidates in key battleground states is of major concern. >>> and half of all cancer deaths are linked to preventable factors. what we all need to know ahead. s your home insurance, here's a pool party. look what i brought! liberty mutual! they customize your home insurance... so you only pay for r what you need! ♪young people having a good time with insurance.♪ ♪young people.♪ ♪good times.♪ ♪insurance!♪ only pay for what you need. ♪liberty liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ >> the day you get your clearchoice dental implants makes every day... a et's dig in" day... >> mm. >> ...a "chow down" day... a "take a big bite" day... a erfectly delicious" day... >> mm. [ chuckles ] >> ...a "love my new teeth" day. because your clearchoice day is the day everything is back on the menu. a clearchoice day changes every day. schedule a free consultation. it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number

i want to bring in former federal prosecutor michael zeldin and cnn political and national security analyst david sanger. good to see both of you. michael, let's zero in on the potential federal crimes here, violations of the espionage act, certainly makes people think, right away, spying? but it's not quite that simple, right? >> it's not at all that simple. it's a very complicated statute. it would seem to me in reading the statute, the provision that most applies to the trump situation is one who has national defense information and negligently, they call it in the statute, gross negligence, negligently handles that material. it doesn't require that the material be transmitted to an enemy or anything that have sort. it's just the gross mishandling of that information. and that is what appears to have been the trigger for the department to go in with a search warrant. and that seems perfectly appropriate to what the former president is accused of doing in this warrant. >> and david, i mean, the former president has been saying on his social media platform that he declassified documents pr

let's bring in michael zeldin and dave aaronberg. thank you both for coming. michael, based on the redacted version of that affidavit released on friday, we know there could be evidence of obstruction. what does that tell you about the investigation where the focus is now? what did you learn from that affidavit? >> a couple of things, christine. first is, they want to know how did these documents get out of the white house. who took them out of the white house? who retained them? why were they taken out of the white house? and what's the level of risk that they present to our national security? all of those things are important questions that the affidavit asks. they also state two things, one that you just mentioned, which is that they feared that they would find evidence of obstruction if they didn't move quickly and two, it says in the motion for sealing the warrant, that they have not identified all potential criminal confederates yet. and this, therefore, is a broad and ongoing criminal investigation. >> dave, in the case that there is that, what's trump's

. >>> let's dig deeper on this story with historian julian seletsez and michael zeldin. thanks for being with us this morning. michael, three different federal crimes that doj is looking at. help us understand exactly what they entail and what legal consequences trump could face. >> sure. there are three statutes, each of which involve in some way concealing, altering or destroying documents. and one of them involves doing so in an effort to obstruct an investigation, other one is sort of a mishandling, that is you have it, you know it, and you are grossly negligent in your handling of it. each carries a prison term. one of them carries a disqualification from holding future office if convicted. in addition to those three statutes, they also had authority to seize evidence that was acquired as presidential records. so the presidential records retention act also is deemed to have been possibly violated and that they were authorized to receive the evidence pursuant to that as well. >> julian, i want to ask about the political implications of that. i wanted to dig deeper wit

. >>> let's turn now to michael zeldin, a former federal prosecutor. again i'll use the word that brian stelter did, a thunder clap in the legal and political worlds here. what is your take away here what we saw yesterday and what it is that the fbi is looking for or may be looking for? >> those are two great questions. as to which we don't have facts to give us answers. so we're speculating and we have to be very carefully when we're speculating. >> of course. >> because in this situation, what the national archives appears to be looking for is documents that the president -- former president has taken to mar-a-lago as to which the national archives is entitled to retain. it is a crime to willfully take property that is belonging to the national archives out to your personal residence. so it could be as simple as they reached an impasse as to status of documents and they want them and they got a search warrant that says his retaining of them violates the law and we want them. doesn't necessarily imply that this has anything do with january 6, doesn't

let's turn to michael zeldin and former council for the national security agency or nsa. good to see both of you, gentlemen. a lot of key details were redacted from this affidavit, but that first sentence saying the government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of highly classified information in unauthorized spaces as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records. so break down for us what that means and how serious that those allegations are. >> what it tells us is that the investigation is an ongoing criminal investigation. that is it wasn't just to retrieve the documents and then the case is closed. there are others that they are looking at who may have been involved in the removal of these documents from the white house to mar-a-lago who did this, and how did they get these highly classified documents out, and then what were they doing with these documents once they were out? those were the two things they most are concerned with. and interestingly, fred, in the request for sealing paragraph of the a

with us tonight congressman darrell issa, michael mccaul, lee zeldin, gop strategist ford o'connell,eritage foundation, hans von spakovsky fox news contributors liz peek and dr. marty makary. you likely heard of this term, "mansplaining." when a man condescendingly explains thing. the problem tonight of democrats dem splinning on inflation, economy and igniting new concerns that the democrats are not telling the whole story. downplaying congress's own scorekeepers, cbo. warning that the democrats new tax-and-spend legislation will in fact sic the irs on middle class. stunning new details how president biden botched exit out of afghanistan on one-year anniversary. congressman mick hall on a new report showing it was worse than realized. fiery debate over tennis star novak djokovic sidelined from playing tennis inside of the u.s. due to the cdc's ban on unvaccinated foreign travelers. even john mcenroe calls that ridiculous. i'm elizabeth macdonald. "the evening edit" starts right now. ♪. liz: welcome to the show. check your money. stocks ending up. it was choppy action in trading toda