on the threat to democracy. plus, while trump s attempt to slow down investigation made be too late. plus or more coming for the theft of ashley biden s diary? and allegations at a texas podcast or could be on a something when it comes to student debt relief. it could drive up turnout, particularly among young people. all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes,. on this last week of august, this monday i think it s now safe to say at this point that just three weeks after the fbi search of donald trump s mar-a-lago home, his defenders have run out of arguments. in the initial days after the search, republicans, right-wing media rushed to fill the vacuum of media what we had that would ve led the fbi to take this in italy extraordinary reaction with just about every bogus excuse in the book. they just don t get a flying flip about how they look which is terrifying. or the rule of law? yeah i feels that way. trump s a more mental guy. you v
it is heavily redacted to protect sources, potential witnesses, as well as the ongoing investigation of not just the president but also, quoting the document now, all potential criminal confederates. that said, there is much it does reveal, starting with what investigators believe they would find beyond the 15 boxes that were returned to the government in january. quoting again, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified ndi or that are presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the premises. we should note ndi stands for national defense information. the affidavit goes on to provide a preliminary assessment of what was in the january material. quoting again, 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as confidential, 92 documents marked as secret, 25 documents marked as top secret. 25 top secret documents. just to put that in perspective, i want to read y
good friday evening to you. jim sciutto here sitting in for anderson. tonight making sense of the unprecedented look we ve just gotten into what until now was almost unimaginable, the criminal investigation of a former president. it follows the equally unprecedented court-approved search of a former president s home. today under orders from the same federal judge who approved that search warrant, the justice department released the affidavit backing the warrant. the document laying out the government s case that a search could yield evidence of a crime or even multiple crimes. it is heavily redacted to protect sources, potential witnesses, as well as the ongoing investigation of not just the president but also, quoting the document now, all potential criminal confederates. that said, there is much it does reveal, starting with what investigators believe they would find beyond the 15 boxes that were returned to the government in january. quoting again, there is probable cause
cnn s natasha bertrand joins me now. the director of national intelligence is taking this very seriously. she is and rightfully so, right, because of all the sensitive information we believe was in these documents and we re learning that the director of national intelligence, avril haines has written a letter to the oversight and house intelligence committees telling them that she has begun a classification review and a review of the risk to national security that these kind of loose documents could pose. now, clearly this is kind of an escalation here. we weren t sure whether the intelligence community would be able to see the documents that had been retrieved from mar-a-lago because they are part of an active criminal investigation, and the fbi typically holds very closely any evidence in those probes. but obviously the risk here, the potential risk to national security contained in these documents is just too great for the intel community to not be made aware of what s p
on. the deadline is noon, but it could happen before then. the justice department has been ordered by a federal judge to release a redacted version of the affidavit used to justify the fbi s search of mar-a-lago, again, by noon today. it could come out earlier. the affidavit lays out why investigators believe there was probable cause that crimes had been committed. and in his order that came out yesterday very quickly judge bruce reinhart said the justice department had made a good argument for why portions of this document that are behind the mar-a-lago search should remain shielded, saying, quote, disclosure would reveal the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, uncharged parties, maybe the investigation s strategy, direction, scope. sources, methods and grand jury information. the judge agreeing with the justice department s requested cuts as we are learning new details about what s happening inside trump s legal team and the advice that he is getting from a