he answered the questions you all asked and i think that s an opportunity for the american people to hear directly from him. a week ago today he sat down and had a one-on-1, 1-on-one interview with one of your one of your colleagues here, not here, but clearly in one of the networks here, and talked was asked about title 42. so the american people have heard from the president when we when we, again, when we were in new york and again right when, after the meeting you heard directly from the president after the meeting he had with the big four, if you will. and he gave remarks and then took questions. so the american people have heard directly from him, especially when he laid out how that conversation went with the big four. you described the discussions this week between white house officials and congressional staff as productive. what from those talks do you believe is pointing to the signs of progress? i m not going to get into details of private conversations.
school libraries and reading lists in more districts and states, according to a new report. welcome to the lead, i m jake tapper. we start with our national lead. hurricane fiona wreaking havoc on several caribbean islands. the storm made landfall as a category 1, but expected to become a major hurricane after it hit puerto rico on sunday, knocking out the entire power grid there. puerto rico, still recoverining from hurricane maria in 2017, is suffering catastrophic flooding. you can see this bridge, which was rebuilt after hurricane maria, being swept away by the rushing waters. another river, rising to 29 feet, surpassing the record set in 2017. we re going to start our coverage with laila santiago, in part rico, where most communities are still struggling without power. reporter: almost the entire island of puerto rico remains in the dark after hurricane fiona slam into the southwestern coast of the island sunday afternoon. pounding rainfall causing catastrophic mud
subpoena and finally a search, investigators have retrieved 48 boxes including at least 320 classified documents, including 72 marked confidential, 108 secret, and 42 top secret. now, the filing as one former top fbi official puts it obliterates claims that the fo former president and his lawyers had been cooperating and negotiating in good faith to return the records. okay. so let s lay out the time line for you. the national archives had been working for months to get all of these missing records from trump even while he was in office. in january of this year, they finally got 15 boxes of records that trump had taken with him to mar-a-lago, though they did not belong to him. once the national archives saw the reckless way trump had handled so much sensitive information, they contacted the doj for help getting other classified documents back that were still missing. according to this filing, one of the most significant concerns was that highly classified records were unfol
the documents had been returned. it also including this new photo showing documents with classified markings laid out on a carpet. some of them found in a desk in the former president s personal office. the filing also says some of the documents were so sensitive, fbi agents and justice department attorneys needed additional security clearances to look at them. doj also says trump s request for a special master is quote unnecessary and would significantly harm governmental interests including national security interests. the former president has until 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight to respond. a federal judge in florida will hold a hearing tomorrow on his request for a special master. with us now to take a closer look, nbc news homeland security continue julie ainsley, a former prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst and frank figliuzzi, an msnbc national security analyst. julia, what else are we able to learn from this court filing? one of the things, buried in a footnote, they say
but along with the photo came a series of explosive new details. the doj claims there is evidence that the documents seized were, quote, likely concealed and removed before the fbi search on august 8th and, quote, efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government s investigation. the filing also disclosed that three classified documents recovered during the fbi search were located in the desks in the 45 office and the doj even laid out why it says it cannot trust information that came from trump s team saying its finding, quote, cast serious doubt on the claim that there had been a diligent search for records. now donald trump s legal team has until 8:00 p.m. tonight to respond to all of this and it will come to a head tomorrow. that is when a judge has scheduled a hearing on the special master request. joining me right now, a great team, we have ken dilanian, josh dossy, and law professor from the university of alabama, and columnist for the boston globe. kim and joyce ar