not break the law and not try to impede congress. but is it possible, and is there any reporting on whether or not there was any consultation with the white house counsel about whether anything could be boxed up and moved to trump s private residence? did anyone inspect what he was taking before he took it? my understanding is that donald trump was very much freelancing within the office. he was saying certain documents were mine, they were his and people didn t really understand what he was doing with the documents. he would have certain aides carrying them around or taking them to his private residence, and yes, people like my understanding is pat cipollone and pat philbin have been contacted as part of this investigation. and so i think those are the type of questions the justice department is asking, what kind of counsel did he receive, was he defying the legal advice he was getting from his top lawyers at the time? so i do think this could just be
information that they know could be missing. we obviously know they got a lot back. they have a ton of material right now. they have a filter team going through it. but there could be even more. and so i think we re just even though some major actions have happened in this case, i think we are in some ways not at the end of it, and there is more to come. and let me ask you, sit with you for a second, luke, where was mark meadows the whole time? when this stuff was removed, trump was still president, he still had a team, a chief of staff. there was some reporting he was sort of mia for a lot of this period. what do we know about what he was doing and whether he was involved in getting this stuff moved? we have to put this in context. we know donald trump and mark melmeadows were consumed with donald trump staying in office. they were, in the weeks after he lost the election, they were busy putting together schemes of fake electors and they were coming up with plans for january 6th
joining me for the staff writer for the new republic. former spokesperson and senior adviser for republicans house oversight committee. and to start with you grace segers welcome to the show. there are all these wild stories about kevin mccarthy. one of my favorites is this when it s a new york times story. kevin mccarthy, this is a quote from the new york times. a golden retriever of a man who hates to be mined self, once cozied up to the president by bringing him a curated jarvis favorite cherry and strawberry starburst candies. he called him my kevin because he sees him as a hand puppet. how is this guy the one out of all the republicans in that caucus who is lined up to be potentially speaker? i think the important thing to realize about kevin mccarthy is that his power comes from relationships. so he has spent literally
it, classified materials. because presidents do not just get to like take home the ufo files when they leave office. okay, here s a joke you can use with your friends. you know what you call a person who used to be the president of the united states? a regular ordinary citizen. former presidents have no special powers or privileges. and all the laws that apply to you apply to them. in no way does donald trump have the right to have any of that presidential material in his personal possession instead of in the national archives. it is literally illegal. so my questions are twofold. why did he take the stuff? for what purpose. i mean, michael cohen who used to work for trump, has speculated he was using it as kind of an insurance policy, this mob style, you come after me, justice department, and i release the nuke details to putin. i wrote a book about trump called the man who sold america and based on like the trump insiders that i talked to, one could easily argue that he s just igno
and so there wasn t a lot of emphasis or a spotlight on records retention or proper policies. you mentioned that the obama administration turned everything over to the archives. the archives put them in special facilities where he could review them, but he didn t take them with him as he left. mark meadows was assuring people in the white house he was going to handle everything, it would be done properly, but clearly that was nut the case. some of those assurances mark meadows made to administration officials who could have been helping donald trump unload these boxes or carry them around with them, those could come under scrutiny as the justice department continues to investigate. tim o brien, let me bring you in here because you have followed donald trump for a really long time. there is a contradiction here in what we just heard luke talking about, about donald trump and mark meadows being consumed with the idea of trying to stay in office and doing everything they can to not leav