Likely to become important facts if criminal charges are materializing here and investigators try to narrow down who exactly mishandled these documents. alex? katelyn polantz, thank you so much for that. i m joined by a legal analyst and former los angeles county prosecutor lonnie kooms. what do you make from what we just heard from katelyn there about this letter from a trump lawyer claiming in june that all the classified documents had been returned to doj. we now know that was not the case. 11 sets of classified documents going up to what s known as top secret sci, which is one of the highest levels of classification. that s right, alex. first of all, i think it really fills in some of the gaps of the timeline that was just laid out there. we knew there were these conversations going on back and forth between donald trump s attorneys and the investigators. there was this face-to-face meeting in mar-a-lago. there was this subpoena. they were trying to get the
Documents. then something changed because they all of a sudden switched to the search warrant, which is the most invasive way to get these documents out. if they got this letter back from june from one of his attorneys saying we have no more classified documents, that s it, but they re getting information there is more classified documents there, they realize the attorneys are either not working in good faith or they just don t know what they re talking about. so, we cannot rely on them to produce these documents that we desperately need. that s why e need to go to the search warrant. it helps fill in the gaps for why they went to the search warrant. the other question, this attorney, why would they sign this letter? was this an intentional lie, a cover-up, which is not a smart thing to do? when you do that in a federal investigation, you re subjecting yourself to liability. or did they rely on the words of donald trump, which, again, is not a smart thing to do. this attorney themselve
The criminal handling of document government records is a three-year prison sentence. the obstruction of justice is a 20-year prison sentence and bars you from holding any federal office. and the violation of espionage act is a very broad act. the specific section they cited here in this search warrant was 793 and that s fairly straightforward. it says, if you possess documents that are of a nature that have such national security secrets that if they re released or they re revoled they could cause damage or harm to the united states and the person knows that or should know that and they have those documents and someone comes and asks them for it and they don t turn them over, you re in violation of that section. now, remember the 11 documents that were listed in the return for the search warrant from top secret to confidential to secret, those designations are only given to documents who, by definition, if released would cause damage or damage tore the united states. so, if donald tru
At their own liability. they could be disbarred, have criminal charges. that letter itself might be the basis for the obstruction of justice statute that was listed in the search warrant, which is a good remind thaer the target might not just be donald trump. it may be other people as well. whether this was intentional or careless, that was one of the big questions right now. let s talk awe little bit more about the charges people could be facing, including the former president. this search warrant that was just unseal bid that florida judge listed three federal crimes the prosecutors are looking into, including the obstruction of justice as well as violations of the espionage act. so, who do you think is in legal jeopardy, and what kind of jeopardy could they be in? well, it depends on who was involved with these documents, right? we don t know that yet. that s where the investigation is going to next. who had possession of these documents? who was shown the documents? what happen
And say, we need those documents back and they say they re holding onto them, then they re in violation of that section. so, there s some major consequences. let s go a little bit further because we don t know where the investigation is going to go, right? it might say no one violated these sections or there might be more evidence. if there s evidence these documents were released or shown to another foreign government, now you re talking about section 794. that section was not listed in the search warrant, so there was no evidence at that time. but if the investigation goes there and that evidence shows that section, that section has the possibility of the death penalty. so, these statutes are very straightforward, fairly simple, but have maximum, major consequences possible. and now you also have the former president and one of his top aides claiming that these documents weren t classified, that he had actually declassified them. so, they re looking into that as well. lonnie kooms,