got him to this point, and why he chose mr. hur. let s get into it. joining me now is nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, so ken, was this all made more urgent by the discovery of even more documents this time in a garage next to the president s corvette, is this why we got a special counsel today? that certainly is the sense you get, if there isn t a direct relationship, it certainly had to contribute, because think about what we have here. we have a u.s. attorney in chicago, who has been conducting a review, for weeks, trying to gather the facts and understand whether there is any need for a criminal investigation. and in order to do that, you need to know where are all of the classified documents, how did they get there, and as we ve been reporting today, the fbi interviewed some of the biden aides involved in packing the boxes and moving the documents, so that u.s. attorney had been reporting to merrick garland. well then, all of a sudden, toda
decided to search other areas where he may have stored documents, including his two homes in delaware, and when that search specifically began, we don t know, we just now know that that second batch of documents was discovered on december 20th, and we know that the search concluded, according to the president s legal team, last night, and that this morning, the president s legal counsel reached out to the justice department to say they had found one additional document. so when that search started, we don t know, when it concluded, the president s team said last night. let s see if it has concluded, whether or not they re still looking for other documents, i think an industrial strength vacuum may have passed through your life shot, carol, thank you. itching to get your analysis, and curious, i haven t talked to you since this information has been broken and what do you think of the documents found in the former president s office and now his garage? let me start by saying rob
point, which really kind of explains, at least for me, why hur has been engaged here and why the justice department is taking the aappropriates that they have, is to be as hands off and to be as transparent, and just presume as much as possible into this. and then take it off the table. it is easier to take stuff off the table than to have to go back and add, oh, now this looks like it is a criminal thing, it s easier to take that off the table by including it upfront and saying we want to come into this, in light of what president trump s story line has unfolded before the country, we want to aggressively go after this on the front end, looking at all of the possible scenarios, and then taking those scenarios out of play, as this investigation unfolds. i think to the extent that the administration stays forthright, and there are no more drip-drips of documents, they can get past
just this morning, we have heard from the white house counsel s office, the president s team that will be searching the president s home in delaware, that they had found a number of documents, and after that, they said that they had warned, what we learned from the attorney general, is that the president s counsel informed the justice department, they found one this morning, that this morning, they had contact, reached out and said they found an additional document, after wrapping up that search of his home last night, katy. do we have any indication on why these searches continued, why they, you know, there was the initial batch that was found in his office, this was before the 2022 midterms, and as you said, december, and now another one, this morning, any indication why it s taking so long to find these loose documents? it s one of the open questions. what we know is that after that november 2nd discovery that, some of the president s aides
here in this building at the d.o.j., and then he was appointed u.s. attorney in maryland, where he led a number of complex prosecutors, and really, he goes way back in the justice department. he at one point worked for christopher wray, now the fbi director, at that time was in the justice department, he is a graduate of harvard college and stanford law school where he was the executive editor of u-the of the law review. and outstanding reputation for anyone who is questioning whether this would be handled fairly and down the middle. let s talk about that, when you re appointing a special counsel to investigate the current president, what does it mean to appoint somebody who before he got back to the private sector most recently was a u.s. attorney from maryland, appointed by donald trump, and unanimously approved by the senate. i mean i m sure that part of the democrats will look suspiciously but those who know rob hur and i m seeing tweets from former democratic justice departm