trump-appointed prosecutor. tonight, one of donald trump s gop rivals says the former president just admitted to obstruction of justice on national television. we re following the fallout from trump s first tv interview since his indictment in the classified documents investigation. and the search for the missing titanic tour submersible is growing more urgent. the coast guard warning the five people on board have less than 40 hours of oxygen left. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. wolf blitser is off. i m alex marquardt. you re in the situation room. we do begin with the legal ramifications for hunter biden after his newly announced plea agreement with the justice department and the political implications for his father, the president. our correspondents are all standing by at the white house and on capitol hill. first cnn s senior legal affairs correspondent paula reid. paula, what more are we learning about this deal on th
based on our cnn poll. maggie, trump seizing on this. amid his own gargantuan level problems. how convenient is this timing for him? well, i don t know that i would use the word convenient. i do think that for trump, given the fact that this is coming right after he gave this astonishing fox news interview in which he appeared to acknowledge he was holding on to documents despite efforts by the federal government, despite a grand jury subpoena to get him to turn it over, i don t think it hurts him, but it doesn t help his larger legal case. it gives him something to seize on and trump is fighting as much in the court of public opinion as the legal case. to elliot aelt s point, these are very different cases. trump is facing charges in manhattan, potential indictment in georgia, potential second indictment from jack smith s office. two civil cases. it s just not the same thing. we re going to be discussing that train wreck of an interview the former president gave with fox news in
before, and barr did end up resigning as attorney general in late 2020. that was just weeks before january 6th. jessica schneider, thank you very much. we re back with our panel. elliot, do you, how much damage do you think trump has done to his defense this. this is why defense attorneys tell their clients, do not talk. do not give interviews. do not speak publicly. he did not confess to the crimes that he s accused of, but he did provide evidence that, number one, he knew he possessed them. number two, he knew there was an ongoing investigation. both those pieces of information are relevant to obstruction of justice. and this question of possession of defense-related information. he didn t do himself any favors at all. maggie, we heard chris christie earlier saying he legal team must be looking for the first window to jump out of. this must illustrate perfectly why he is such a difficult client. he s going against the advice of his legal counsel. that s one of many reasons.
we know trump likes lawyers who let him do what he wants. this is clearly something that he wanted to do. but to elliot s point, it isn t just that he acknowledged having them. i was thinking about a key part of the obstruction was the obstruction of the grand jury subpoena. this indictment focuses squarely on that. part of that was a lawyer for trump wrote saying there had been a diligent search of the property and they didn t turn anything else up. trump is basically saying, yep, i still wanted more time to go through stuff. if true, why did you let your lawyers representing him at the time go into this? too your point, this is often why he has trouble attracting people. there s two reasons. lawyers. one is because he is unmanageable as a client. the other is people don t get paid sometimes. neither one of these seems it s helping. in terms of the timeline, judge cannon said the trial date is set for just under two months from now, august 14th. how realistic is that? it is not. t
experts. thank you all for joining me this evening. lots to get to. elliot, give us some context here about these charges, this believe deal. you have two tax misdemeanors. they re going to resolve this felony gun charge. how does this strike you? it does not strike me as alarming at all, alex. think of it this way. in our federal system, about 9798% of cases that actually are brought end up resulting in a plea deal. it is incredibly common for someone who is charged with a federal crime to plead guilty. with that in mind, this kind of arrangement for these types of crimes would not be that alarming. set aside the politics, set aside the fact that it s hunter biden, this is a very straightforward plea deal from a prosecutorial perspective. when it comes to politics, when it comes to the republicans reaction, we re hearing them call it a sweetheart deal. a mere traffic ticket, in the words of former president donald