order that both donald trump and walt nauta cannot be speaking to any other witnesses or one another about the facts of the case. that will be difficult because he has people in his employment including nauta himself. fascinating dynamic. katelyn, thank you. he s using this for politics to try to boost support, boost campaign donations. what was it like last night? reporter: there were a few things i took away from his speech. the well-worn playbook we ve seen him use time and time again in these situations. he called the charges political and they amounted to election interference and claimed he was entitled to taking these
they were hoping to be more forward look ing but he did ver little of that. he spent the majority of his roughly 30 minutes railing against his opponent and he also went after special counsel jack smith. that s something i know his advisers urged him against doing. he did that anyway. alayna treene, we will check back. some of the potential defenses and tactics the legal team could use in his case. among them is his, and i stress his, interpretation of the presidential records act which he invoked last night. under the presidential records act which is civil not criminal, i had every right to have these documents. the crucial legal precedent is laid out in the most important case ever on this subject known
the archivist could have brought a challenge, civil action, but i can t make them do so. it has nothing, nothing, no way, shape or form, nothing, to do with what we are talking about. the records at issue in the indictment were originally agency records and became presidential records when they were sent to donald trump in the white house. they were always presidential records. they were always classified and always qualified as national defense information. when he left the white house under the presidential records act he was supposed to let the archivist take control of that. he was not supposed to walk off with them and he couldn t keep them in mar-a-lago in any of the various unsecured locations that were listed in the indictment. his team will try to raise this case in pretrial motions. it will fail. they certainly will. we heard it, i believe byron donald brought it up in the interview with phil. ellie, to you. i think the reason many defendants of the president are
as the clinton socks case. the actual name of the case no, i don t think that was it. it s good short hand, though. for those who don t know and i don t blame you if you don t, the reference is a case involving former president bill clinton. a historian recorded audio with clinton during his time in the white house and sold gq they stashed the audio cassettes in his sock drawer. a nonprofit sued for access to those tapes arguing they included classified information but lost the case because the judge ruled the presidential records act does not confer any mandatory or discretional authority on the archivist. this responsibility is left solely to the president. trump and his allies are trying to use that ruling to his advantage. joining us now to discuss are cnn legal analyst laura coates
say and co-opt it and use it as mine. how the political element fits into this is very important. i want to play what nikki haley, one of the republican primary candidates, said about this yesterday. take a listen. when you look at a pardon, the issue is less about guilt and more about what s good for the country and i think it would be terrible to have a former president in prison for years because of a documents case. nationss. i would be in favor of a pardon. how the legal and political mesh together. what was your thought process when you heard what the ambassador said? i thought it was interesting she was going so far as to say she would pardon trump.