unredacted statements add fresh detail for the legitimate basis of the fbi s suspicions. this latest release fills in some of the remaining blanks, particularly having to do with a key video that is referred to in the indictment. the newly available information suggests that people at the justice department suspected something was very much up after watching surveillance footage of trump s former valet, witness number five, moving boxes in and out of a storage area at the time he was being interviewed by the fbi. here s how authorities knew they were being lied to. on may 24th the footage shows him leaving with what the affidavit describes at an anterroom leaving with three boxes. and four days after the interview, witness number five, quote, is observed exiting the anteroom doorway with approximately 50 bankers boxes. if it all strikes you as suspects, moving boxes, missing boxes, basic problems with the math of what goes in and what comes out, you and the department of just
any alternate slate of electors beyond the biden slate that had already been certified. so he s an important witness because of those direct communications with the president. the special counsel is building a wall of and evidence of intent. the president was told repeatedly, there is no basis for these fake electors. yet nonetheless, continues to directly solicit their submission. that looks more and more like an attempt to interrupt, impede an official proceeding. i m not surprised that jack smith and his team have gone to rusty bowers. but to be clear that part of the story has been evident. he s just trying to get it on the record in front of his garage. it s interesting to put this on the timeline. we are learning about this now, but this happened before rudy giuliani s voluntary interview. so why do you he told kaitlan collins this was about three
main causal actor here, the former president. and that suggests that jack smith is getting closer to concluding the fact gathering portion of this investigation. he has an open grand jury. he s continuing to put witnesses before the grand jury. he wants to look under every possible rock for information. but you don t get to witnesses like mark meadows and mike pence until you re close to the end. the typical pattern is that you work up the chain of culpability over the course of an investigation. when you talk to those witnesses, you want to be as thoroughly as possible and know what other people have said. so giuliani, meadows, pence, it suggests he s getting close to the end of the fact gathering. there will have to be a lot of assessment what that evidence means. it doesn t mean an indictment is imminent, but the fact finding is winding down.
that could be a political earthquake before the next election, nicolle. i know we talk about this routinely. the president s behavior was out in the open. certainly he must be culpable. but if there are charges brought by jack smith that donald trump sought to defraud the people of the united states, and those charms are brought just before the next election, it s a political earthquake, the likes of which this country hasn t seen. katie, to that point, i know that before and since jack smith has arrived, there s been so much speculation that these cases are too novel. there have now been tons of people charged with obstructing an official proceeding. they ve been tried and sentenced and found guilty or pleaded. what is sort of the changing atmosphere around the crimes being scrutinized by jack smith around january 6th on this sort of prong of his two missions? so i don t know that the sticking point is going to be whether or not this is too novel
is it brazen? i know he calls and extorts the day after mueller testifies. but the fact that this happens on tape and that it s his valet he sends into to lie, do they act like they re trying not to get caught committing crimes or do they act in your view like they want to? what we can say for sure is that this was not a sophisticated effort to squirrel away classified, sensitive national security secrets. this was not something that was handled in a particularly thoughtful or strategic manner. and what we also know of course is that the fact that there was a security system in place at mar-a-lago was not a secret. this is the former president s own facility. he and his people were responsible for putting the systems together to keep it