and that is what precluded the august 8th search of 2022, sorry, to mar-a-lago. can we talk about the political implications of all of this? right? because this is an individual who is running for president of the united states. who already served as president of the united states. you have folks that are running against him, that could really kind of make a mark in this moment, right? stand out? you get around desantis. you could ve any one of these, mike pence he could step up and say, all right, enough is enough. and none of them are doing that. right? we talk about this political divide, this divided political country that we live in. right now. right? these candidates could step up and here is the thing. i think they are scared, yasmin honestly if you just look at the republican electorate. the voters in the primary. the republican primary from ohio to new hampshire and south carolina just look at those folks. these are some of the people who are some of donald trump s mos
other shoe to drop. phil, let s talk about timing. we re a month out from midterms. this is all in the atmosphere. both these legal questions swirling the former president and these more existential questions about democracy. at the same time, you look at it from a tactical vantage point, we have new reporting from politico diving into the lack of attack ads highlighting trump s legal woes. quote, out of more than 5800 distinct tv and digital ad since the august 8th search of the former presidents property. fewer than 20 mentioned mar-a-lago or the justice department. that s according to political analysis. i wonder, what you make of that, philippe. and what it tells you about where democrats see the opportunity, and where they think they re actually getting too close to that becomes a liability? this is obviously tricky. and it s very contingent upon the race itself. one of the things we saw is that we know, a lot of
big barr and his close ally chris christie didn t think it would hold up. and yet, last night, judge aileen cannon doubled down on her decision, denying doj s request for a stay that would enable the department to continue reviewing the documents seized in the august 8th search of the criminal investigation. the new york times describes judge cannon s order as, quote, the latest turn in what has now become a protracted and politically fraught court battle over the trove of documents seized in the search of mar-a-lago. our friend and former u.s. attorney barbara mcquaid points this out, that the stay that cannon rejected from doj was a lifeline that she ignored because any minute now the doj is set to appeal cannon s ruling to the 11th u.s. circuit court of appeals. setting up a remarkable situation in which the justice department thinks it may have a better chance with the 11th circuit which is described like this quote, as an appeals court where trump s administration left a part
footage, trump and people never did release it, at least not yet. there were reportedly concerns in trump world that releasing that tape might show the sheer volume of materials that federal agents seized. but as of this afternoon, we do have the heavily redacted affidavit for the search warrant used to conduct that august 8th search. on page two of the affidavit, you see this. the fbi is laying out the reason they needed to check mar-a-lago after trump turned over 15 boxes of documents in january. quote, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified national defence information remain at the premise. there is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises. evidence of obstruction? what could that be? well, number one, on june 3rd after a visit from federal prosecutors, trump s lawyers christina bob and cochrane said,
with the country? absolutely sean, at the right time. after the fbi search mar-a-lago, there was a drumbeat of conservative calls for releasing the tapes. what they meant by that was, the surveillance footage of plainclothes fbi agents executing their search warrant on august 8th. we still do not have the footage, trump and people never did release it, at least not yet. there were reportedly concerns in trump world that releasing that tape might show the sheer volume of materials that federal agents seized. but as of this afternoon, we do have the heavily redacted affidavit for the search warrant used to conduct that august 8th search. on page two of the affidavit, you see this. the fbi is laying out the reason they needed to check mar-a-lago after trump turned over 15 boxes of documents in january. quote, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain national defence information remain at the premise. there is also probable cause to