Documents were classified, that he kept them in a secure location and that he had already declassified them anyway. but he knew he had classified documents. he wasn t keeping them in a secure location, and he knew he hadn t declassified them as president. and it s all on tape in his own voice with rustling paper. joining us now is a former federal prosecutor at the doj. also with us is carroll leoning, reporter for the washington post. my question is f do you have tas from chats with the president? and do w you know if the specia counsel wants those tapes or has those tapes?
Espionage case from mar-a-lago. right. carol, i know the washington post has i done some important- so important that we ve bookmarked it on our browser, reporting about trump s motivation forab holding onto these documents. and i wonder how you think this creates a more vivid picture of that motivation and whether and the degree to which this could really just be as talie says ego. soe i m glad you asked, and couldn t agree more with talie about the importance of the motive in terms of telling the story, you know, i ve interviewed enough prosecutors to know the most important thing when they go to try is how do we connect all these dutes t and me itl make sense to our jurors? and there is a legal piece here and there s a political and public opinion piece here. so let s deal with the legal first. it seg critical, and we have be
Stuff? and now we have an answer i think meaningful to a jury which is personal vendetta. he was wounded by these stories about esmilley and he thought h could use these documents like thisd to help himself maybe legacy build. andga depend on what comes out,e might learn something about his m.o.so of how he managed to get documents into his hands that he shouldn t have had all of which can shed light on and support the mar-a-lago charges. and everything i ve said is true even if it s all a rouse, if he was waving a blank piece of paper or something written by somebody else or something that was not even classified in the first place. prosecutors can still do all of the work that i ve just described. do you think as far as charges and building a case, it is a bigger deal in this instance in terms of the charges it supports the fact he knew the documents weren t classified and was in possession of them in
so those documents have been in a secure facility since they were taken from mar-a-lago. what this means is that there s not going to be shuttled around to new york or other places while the government tries to fit into the old rules of the judge cannon s order. so basically, it s full steam ahead for this investigation. that s important because investigators have said they still need to figure out are there other classified documents out there they haven t found or are there people who weren t supposed to see these classified documents who did see them because they were in mar-a-lago. those are two big questions that haven t been absenteed yet. now the fbi can hunt hard on those questions. one of trump s main arguments is that these documents weren t classified because he declassified them. he s been saying that from the beginning. when he was on fox, he was asked exactly how he declassified them. and he told kind of another story. let s listen.
Declared brain dead. she led a life of public highs and lows, but through it all she thrived on screen and strived to stay hopeful. he s currently breathing with the help of a ventilator. the question is looming over investigators right now as to what drove this 24-year-old suspect that s been identified as matar from new jersey to charge that stage. i m alex marquardt in washington in for pamela brown this evening. you are in the cnn newsroom. we begin this hour with the nation s top intelligence official, the director of national intelligence being asked for a damage assessment on classified documents that were removed from former president donald trump s palm beach resort, mar-a-lago. the democratic chairs of the house intelligence and oversight