kind of top secret documents they were or what they -- or to what they retained let's bring in renato mariotti now. former prosecutor. renato, thanks the doj says it's aware of this motion and it will file its response in court. how do you think they'll counter this >> well, i actually think that a lot of the arguments that are made in this are made for pr value or largely made to get the president's story out there. i think the special master is really the meat of this, the part of it that actually has some potential legal significance and we'll see whata happens. one problem may be for the former president is this is late in the game. the fbi has now had these documents for a couple of weeks. over two weeks it may actually already have gone through all of the documents and may be in the hands of the prosecution's team which may make the special master moot at this point. and some of their arguments are unusual.ple, arguing arguing, for example, executive privilege issues when the executive is the branch of government seizing this. i think this is a bit of an uphill battle for the trump camp

we also want to bring in renato mariotti, a former federal prosecutor renato, what stood out to you from the statutes that were listed in the search warrant >> i actually think the statute that you referred to as an obstruction statute is very interesting. we don't know exactly what the fbi and doj had in mind there. however, ordinarily what i would say is that statute is used to charge folks who are actually trying to hide documents or change or alter documents in order to impede a federal investigation. that's how i charge the statute when i was a prosecutor. that's how i have seen it in private practice they may be taking a broader reading here, focused primarily on just getting the documents back we don't know, but it's very interesting. >> there's also been a lot of ink spilled and air time spent on the issue of the espionage act. tell us how broad that is and what we can actually deduce from that >> a great question because that is a very broad statute. it does not necessarily mean that the doj thinks that the former president engaged in anything resembling espionage as we usually

let's now bring in renato mariotti, a former prosecutor. renato, what does it mean to be a target in a state case >> so that is a very specific term of art in criminal law. it means that the prosecutors are likely to indict mr. giuliani so we often hear the term subject or target run around many people can be a subject of a case that means they're being looked at a target means something very specific that means mr. giuliani should be waiting for indictment. >> meanwhile, senator graham ordered to testify, but he's appealing to a higher court. what is the outcome he is hoping for and how likely is that to happen >> i think the outcome that he's realistically hoping for is to delay. take some time off the clock, so to speak, and show to the former president that he's being loyal and doing whatever he can to resist this. i don't realistically think that he's going to get out of testifying before a grand jury >> renato mariotti, thanks to you as always. former trump organization cfo allen weisselberg expected to plead guilty to criminal charges

joining me now is renato mariotti, a former prosecutor, legal affairs commentator and host of the onodcast. it is good to have you with us. some people are looking at this and saying he is not cooperating in the agreement of pleading guilty, what does this plea mean for the larger case against the trump organization? >> i think the trump organization is basically that right going to be found guilty here. because an organization like that is nothing but the officers, police, et cetera and mr. weisselberg is a chief financial officer and if he takes the stand this is i committed fraud and so the disorganization, i think that bears the organization, and i think that's what prosecutors will look to do. >> what do you think that the actual sentence of weisselberg sentence? as i mentioned, five months in prison, five years under probation, a payment of nearly two billion dollars for failing to pay taxes. does the punishment fit the crime or not enough? >> that's an interesting question. i would say, i was a federal prosecutor for years. i prosecuted a lot of white collar crime. one frustra

let me bring back in john brennen and renato mariotti.thing materially different. it was bad enough we had the january 6th insurrection in which the president of the united states attempted to overthrow the government using a violent mob basically as his battering ram against congress. it's quite another thing when we find out that same person has been retaining national security information in his private custody at his house and refusing to give it back, and that even when he gave some of it back he still kept things and retained things to the point where he had to have his place searched by the fbi. does it give you that same even worse pit in the stomach feeling as an intelligence professional? >> well, it does, joy, and it just underscores that donald trump never should have been entrusted with the office of the presidency and certainly never should be in the future again. his arrogance and his feelings that he's above the law has been reckless, irresponsible, and has blatantly disregarded the responsibilities of that office. and so

first i want to go to renato mar mariotti. your rar former federal prosecutor. trump famously said innocent people don't plead the fifth, but in this situation, the new york attorney general has been pretty outspoken about wanting to take trump down. do you blame the former president for doing a 180 here? >> no, i think he's making the right decision. i mean, i think regardless of her statements, i think it's fair to say that he's facing significant liability on multiple fronts. we know some former white house aides have been interviewed before the grand jury. we know that of course there is a recent search warrant executed at his mar-a-lago estate. there's a lot of reasons why he wouldn't want to be questioned under oath right now. >> jaus campbell, i'm going to turn to the mar-a-lago search by the fbi earlier this week. why do you think the doj used a search warrant at mar-a-lago instead of a less intrusive method of getting these documents? investigators went to mar-a-lago in early june. why do you, as a former fbi agent, think that they wouldn't have gotten

thank you renato mariotti. >> be sure to toon in tomorrow night "megaphone for conspiracy" with alex> china fired missiles near the island. the latest from taipei next. it. and more customers today are relying on their cars emergencncy breaking and lane departurere warning. that's's why our recalibration service is state of the art. we recalibrate your vehicle's camera, so you can still count on those safety features. all right, we're all finished. >> customer: thank you so much. >> tech: thank you. don't wait--schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ (jackie) i've made progress with my mental health. so when i started having unintentional body movements called tardive dyskinesia... i ignored th. but when the twitching and jerkinin my face and hands affected my day to day... i finally had to say, 'it's not ok.' it was time to talk to my docto. she said that austedo helps reduce td movements in adults... while i continue with most of my mental health medications. (vo) austedo can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with huntington's dise

. >> renato mariotti, thank you so much. >>> this morning there are experts warning that of what we're seeing, which is a stunning amount of violent rhetoric aimed at the justice department circulating on pro trump online forums in the wake of the fbi search of mar-a-lago earlier this week. these threats include things like lock and load, kill all feds, there is another post that says i'm going to say it, garland, the attorney general, needs to be assassinated, simple as that. fbi director christopher wray, appointed by president trump, warned against these threat oz on wednesday. listen. >> any threats made against law enforcement including the men and women of the fbi as with any law enforcement agency are deplorable and dangerous. >> let me bring in brian murphy, the former acting undersecretary for the homeland security intelligence office under trump administration. and i should remind people, brian, that at the time you found the whistle-blower complaint in 2020 accusing trump appointees of pressuring career officials to downplay the threat posed by white supremacists. that's the

. >> renato mariotti, thanks very much. >>> a clear majority support investigations into donald trump and they wanted to continue. a national poll found 57% of the voters found the various probes in the alleged wrongdoing of mr. trump should continue because they believe they say that he needs to be held accountable. when you break that down by party affiliation, 92% of democrats, 61% of independents, and 21% of republicans want the investigations to keep moving forward. nbc news conducted a polling after the fbi searched mar-a lago and found the trove of secret documents we have been discussing. it also asked a wide range of questions to capture the current mood of the voters heading into the midterm when control of congress is at stake. here with the details on that, hi, ylan. >> now they see threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country. ahead of the cost of living. 21% of the voters put in at the top of their list on our poll more than any other issue. it ranks number one for 29% of democrats, 70% of independents, and 70% of republicans as well. speaking to r

broke the story today, sadie gurman of "the wall street journal," and former federal prosecutor renato mariottik you for joining us. hello to both of you. just to clarify this, which government agency was looking for these documents or material? >> this all started when the national archives notified the justice department that within about 15 boxes of documents collected after trump left the white house was some serious information. they referred this to the justice department for investigation, and that has prompted this incredible back-and-forth that we are seeing which culminated this week with a search, and in the release of a search warrant, the justice department came looking for any sort of remaining classified documents that were at mar-a-lago, and they found quite a few, as the warrant that we saw today revealed. judy: there has been a lot thrown around about what was in these documents. what was known about what was there? for example, nuclear information about nuclear weapons. what is known about what was found? >> we actually know very little from this warrant in and of itself, but

because last hour, i think it was renato mariotti pointed out it's one thing to unlawfully store or take classified documents and just leave it there, but you also have the obstruction of justice charges which indicate that some may, may, we don't know, have been destroyed. >> that's right, amara. these are three very different crimes. two of these crimes would require some sort of bad intent. the espionage crime would require the president, or anyone, really, to have these documents to have the intent to harm the united states or help one of our enemies. the destruction charge would require the intent to destroy the document or somehow keep it from investigators. but the third charge, the concealment charge, simply having a government document that you're not supposed to have, there's no bad intent required in that statute. so if the fbi executed the search warrant, they found documents that should not have been at mar-a-lago, well, then, that's a crime and that crime can be prosecuted under that statute alone. so what's confusing to me is the defense that's being laid out by the presid

let's turn to renato mariotti, former federal prosecutor. i detailed the news over cnbc the past couple weeks that the justice department is investigating the activities of january 6th, that as part of that investigation not as a target but that the former president's inner circle at least was certainly part of that investigation. we don't know the context of whatever's happening now at mar-a-lago we only know what the former president has said we've gotten no comment despite attempts from the fbi. your thoughts on this as we know it >> well, we know a few things for sure, shep assuming that it's true, what the former president is saying is true regarding a raid in mar-a-lago and there have been a number of reports regarding this, it means a federal judge has signed a search warrant, which indicates that a judge believed that there was good reason to believe that a crime was committed. that's what probable cause means and that evidence exists in mar-a-lago the judge had to believe there's good reason to believe evidence existed there. i don'

mariotti. thank you for being here. >> thank you, ari. >> this is the timeline and we can show the search here. i'm not going to read it all. bottom line, renato, it took time. you have the return of some material and then everything you see on the rest of that list is all the time that it went through. and so given that there's been so much talk about being a citizen and not above the law, i want to start with the most simple question to you and then we can build. that is okay? >> sure. >> if a different citizen, just a human, had this kind of classified material at home and then was subpoenaed, would they get this much time and this much deference in treatment? just before we even get to monday. >> no way. this is kid gloves, ari. if i had 15 boxes or more of classified documents in my house, the fbi would be here to pick it up. they'd be beating down by doorstep. i wouldn't get a subpoena, i wouldn't get a request, i wouldn't get months of time to figure it out. it would be taken from me swiftly, period. >> yeah. and my second question is also simple, then we can get intricate. did you ever hear the expression don't mistake my kindness for