again i m stephanie ruhle. alongside my partner ali velshi, covering our breaking coverage of this historic friday as the government has unsealed and estimating devastating 37 count and i meant against former president donald j trump. also the leading tender for the presidential nomination for the republicans. he s accused of mishandling documents and blocking efforts to get them back for mar-a-lago. the charges against him included violating the espionage act, improperly retaining national defense information. within the indictment, photos of what the government says are boxes containing classified material. onstage at mar-a-lago, in the ballroom, stacked to the ceiling in a bathroom. let s take a look at that. there s a toilet or. they re in a bathroom, classified government documents, piled up inside a storage room and spilling out across the floor in another room. today, for the very first time, we heard from the special counsel himself, who has spent some six months
regulations he s allowed to take that step is a jack smith were to basically violate justice department protocol. so you re right. merrick garland is very far away from this investigation. one more quick thing, if you read through this indictment, it really purports with things in the reporting. i heard even today from sources inside the department, keep in mind when the just partnered first heard about this, and you see this outlined, they got a referral from in february of 2022. initially they did not think this was going to be a big criminal matter. people do take classified records home with them after they leave the white house. this is not uncommon. and there was no reason initially to think that when they ask for them back, when narrow ask for the back that they would get all the documents and in the reporting we have a criminal investigation does not start for another more than a month. and they start to use the power of the grand jury to subpoena people and indication they w
election, as a little bit of a track record here. stemming from donald trump s efforts to block the government from using records following the search at mar-a-lago. she took steps that the 11th circuit criticized very harshly, saying that she didn t have jurisdiction to take up the matter at all in that she decided that wrongly, it was very resounding criticism. so now the judge, who was assigned to the case, judicial assignment is random, but there was a limited pool of judges in this division. she was one of four in what is known as the wheel. the way that judges are selected today is through a computer program run by the clerk s office lawyers call the wheel because in the good old days here literally was a wheel with all the judges names on it that was spun to determine who would have the case. and so that lingers on. she comes up, and look, jack smith, who has been immaculately prepared prepared every step of these proceedings, always ahead of where we
have to accept that this will not be over. before the presidential election, which is what, i think, many people had hoped, no matter who s side you are on, the voters would have some kind of resolution in this case before they had to make their final vote. and i don t think we re gonna get that anymore. i think she s actually right on that point, and it s going to be interesting because of the fact that florida has the rocket docket. i ve been talking about this. it s not something that has existed in every federal jurisdiction, but doesn t florida. typically the rocket docket is a system where judges are much more aggressive around their counter, trying to move their dockets. in most cases the judge may put a case over for trial for a year, and allow the discovery process to take place that may stop the cloth clock and move things forward. in florida and other jurisdictions that have a rocket docket, it s more like six months. what will be interesting is, from a legal strategy, i e
because they ruled in ways you don t like. when in the case where there is something truly outrageous, which took place here, then lawyers can into make these motions. it remains to be seen whether she stays with the case. and she does, special counsel will have to be ready for her at every step of the case. okay, but tali, should, or would ve, could ve, the end of the day of judge cannon s call, is it not whether or not she recuse herself? it s her call whether she recuse. is it 11 circuits recall whether they resign. i don t think either of those things that was going to happen. i think she s going to be the judge presiding on this case. . and how much of a glow is that to jack smith? could she just knock out huge portions of evidence? it s a couple of things. i think it really does matter who the judges. first, there are just the low visibility that decisions that judges are making all the time that have an enormous cumulative effect. i ll give you a couple of examples. in