joining us now to share his insights, defense attorney and former federal prosecutor shan wu. on a saturday. thanks for being with us. what stood out to youing the evidence the committee is demanding? >> it's such a comprehensive and sweeping detailed demand. as you said, there's going to be a lot of contention over this. the delay will stretch into the future. i think the significance such a detailed command sends a message to the public as to how much valuable information donald trump has, and it also provides a guideline for the justice department just in case they have missed any of the details they should be asking about or looking for. >> so there's a message to the doj here. how do you think the attorney general sees it? >> i think doj at this point they're late to the dance, but they're fully engaged in doing their own investigation. i think they can take any help they can get. we understand they may have been watching the hearings. they w they've reviewed the transcripts. all this evidence is really a gold mine for them and a roadmap. >> yeah. so you alluded to a poten

i also want to bring in the former federal prosecutor shan wu. t is this decision from the u.s. appeals court clearing the way for the irs to turn over trump's tax returns? >> i think it's very significant, wolf. not necessarily in the sense it's going to lead to some immediate evidence or disclosure of criminal charges. what's really significant is this is a gradual whittling away at this kind of no-fly zone that's developed around the presidency. congress can strengthen its oversight ability if the courts are saying yeah, this is legitimate oversight. and it actually offers the supreme court a chance to rebalance things here. if they stay out of this, which they should, let congress do its job, it will chip away at this over amount of influence that the supreme court has developed where everything goes to them. and even though trump is a former president, his sort of stubbornness is forcing these separation of powers issues into the courts, and the result is going to affect many generations of future presidents. and hopefully it will result in a

joining me now to discuss is former federal prosecutor shan wu. i just retweeted it out for you.ou say in that piece, you know, the fact that the january 6th committee voted to issue trump a subpoena, that just underscores we're in a constitutional crisis. how so? >> absolutely, amara. i think there's been a lot of talk we averted that on january 6th and we certainly averted a coups on january 6th, but we didn't avert a crisis. we're already there. first of all, if you look at the state of union right now, trump really defines the stresses that can occur on the constitution because he's basically defying the usual norms, and the other branches have not been able to discipline him at this point. there are legal losses. the supreme court rejected the mar-a-lago issue. but essentially he operated outside the norms, and at this point it's up to the executive branch. one thing is the stresses and the branches not being able to check the defiance. >> you also mention you have the wife of a supreme court justice, ginni thomas, who's a well-known conservative activist. we've heard her sa

joining me to discuss defense attorney shan wu.mas is because he oversees this lower court. is there anything unusual here? >> well, what's unusual is his failure to recuse. i mean, this has been talked about extensively and it's really quite outrageous that given his wife's position on the election that she asserts that there was something wrong with it or that it had a fraudulent result, that he continues to fail to self-govern and recuse himself from any of these cases that could touch upon the election issues and the probes going on there. and this really goes, erica, to the problem with scotus at the moment, that the supreme court's lost its credibility with the people. they are the only judges that don't have a judicial code of ethics. they think they are above that. they think they can self-police and that's what's going on here, that's what's really odd about this situation. >> so ginny thomas, about his wife, but the reality, shan, is here we are. so there is this stay essentially, this administrative measure that does giv

shan wu, miles taylor and ron brownstein are back with me to discuss. on the legal situation here. i mean, how damning is that? >> it's very damning. i mean, very. >> an obvious question. >> that's the kind of thing prosecutors really salivate over having that kind of evidence. it's hard for the defense to rebut. i understand one of the counsels trying to say this is still protected speech, that's fine, he's not being prosecuted for speech but for the insurrection. >> speaking of armed insurrection, i want to show everyone what ron johnson, the senator from wisconsin, he's up for re-election, seems on track as of today to win said re-election. but it is a close race. here's what he had to say about january 6th. >> to call what happened on january 6th an armed insurrection i just think is not accurate. you saw the pictures inside capitol. i saw it that day, the armed insurrection stained the blieds in the rotunda. >> we should probably underscore that, well, they put out a statement basically saying he wasn't saying the thing that he said. his campaign d

let's get some legal analysis on what we just heard, shan wu is joining us right now. you heard the district attorney, shan, announce these new charges including attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder as well as threats to a public official and their family. very serious charges. what do you make of what we just heard? >> well, i was very struck by the addition of the elder abuse charges and echoing what josh said. it's so important to remember this is a man in his 80s who was so courageous and able to fight back this way and how cowardly it is to attack someone at that age. so i think the elder abuse charges are quite correct. and there's a federal parallel to that, again, at sentencing. you can have an enhancement if the victim is particularly vulnerable such as an elderly person. i was also struck by the general effort to be so open about what they can be on the investigation, particularly struck by the law enforcement pushing back against these nonsensical theories that they somehow knew eac

i also want to bring in the state attorney for florida, dave ehrenberg, and defense attorney shan wu.he justice department gotten this one right? should the supreme court stay out of this fight? >> yes, wolf, the supreme court should reject this appeal. there is two reasons why trump filed this appeal. first, he wants to further delay the investigation. that's trump's m.o., delay, delay, delay. secondly, he wants his lawyers to get access to the 100 classified documents. neither is a good reason to rule in trumpies favor. delaying this puts our national security at risk and if trump's legal team gets to see the documents, christina bob and evan corcoran seeing these documents, those trump lawyers are witnesses in this near and could be doj targets. also, wolf, why would the supreme court after the dobbs ruling want to dirty themselves up with this politically charged matter? they would be stepping on a rake. but lately they have been doing a lot of that. >> interesting. you know, the justice department is arguing these documents are so sensitive, so highly classified, that national se

we're also joined by our chief political analyst gloria borger, defense attorney shan wu, and cnn counterterrorismoria, what does the hiring of this conservative trial lawyer tell you about how seriously trump is taking this expected subpoena from the select committee? >> well, she's somebody well known to them, has worked with the trump team, has represented michael flynn, and it shows you that they feel, and i think rightly so, that no matter what happens in the end that they need to find a way to engage with the committee because they're going to have to engage with the committee. this is private citizen donald trump. he's going to be subpoenaed. and that could come very soon. and there has to be somebody who's the point person. there's another lawyer who will also be the point person for them, but they can't just leave it dangling out there. so they have to show their willingness to engage with the committee. >> the committee voted to serve trump with a subpoena but they haven't served it, at least not yet. >> right. >> shan, trump's new lawyer also represents other witnesses who have appeared

our senior justice correspondent evan perez back with us for context, former federal prosecutor, shan wugument inside the justice department is how strong this case has been, is, right, and the investigators certainly believe there's enough evidence to prove that he broke ltax law using certain accounts to hide money. they believe they can document that. they can plainly say when he bought a firearm while he was addicted to drugs, which, by the way, he has now admitted in his book, interviews on television. he has said he was addicted to drugs during this period and bought a firearm which was discarded and reported to police. that was also a paper violation essentially, a false statement. when you buy a gun you have to say you are not addicted to guns, and he has now said he was. and so that's where this case now lands. >> so the question then becomes if the team working on the case believes they could prosecute, they could successfully prosecute on those charges, is that the consensus within the doj through washington of course? >> there have been a number of meetings over this investig

correspondent evan perez, cnn chief national affairs analyst kasie hunt, defens defense attorney shan wu and our chief political analyst gloriaberger. what is the message the committee is sending with this unanimous vote to subpoena former president trump? >> i think part of it is theatrical. i don't think any of them expect the president's going to comply with any kind of subpoena. and that would involve a lot of court action, et cetera. but i think there was also a clear message to the american public, which is that this hearing today was all about donald trump. it was about that this was a -- donald trump initiated, premed premeditated, attempted a coup, and that if you didn't ask or attempt to ask donald trump himself directly questions about this attempted coup after you have wince after witness saying yeah, donald trump was involved and after you've put hundreds of people in jail saying yeah, donald trump told me to do this, you know, how could they for the history books say well, you know, we decided not to ask the president. i think they had to do it. >> i certainly think they di

the former federal prosecutor, defense attorney shan wu joins us now. new york, can't personally do the inventory, says i can't sign that piece of paper until i with my own eyes can verify it. another interpretation is donald trump asks him to do something, he's in another city, he says i don't trust this, i'm not signing it this. >> i think it's a great example of how lawyers need to remember to distinguish between making a representation versus their advocacy. cannon's remembering that distinction. he can't vowed for what's in there so he's not going to make those representations to the government. i think something else we've seen in the reporting that's interesting is he didn't want to look in some of those boxes because he was worried there could be classified documents and told others to be wary of that as well. so that's very curious because why is he worried about there being classified documents in there? >> that's a very important point. we know now, new e-mail released by the national archives, shows trump's team was contacted in 202 1, told