and, who was appointed as a federal judge in the final months of donald trump s presidency, today heard arguments in the case of donald j trump versus the united states of america. yes, that is never the case. donald j trump versus the united states of america. and that is the truth of the case. the federalist society, trump appointed judge in a two hour hearing, asked in a two-hour meeting repeatedly asked justice department prosecutors what harm could there be in agreeing with donald trump s lawyers request to appoint a so-called special master, in the case, to examine some or all of the documents and records seized by the fbi with a search warrant of donald trump s home on august 8th. last week before the judge had heard a word of opposition from the justice department is, she but that s inclined, inclined to go along with what donald trump wants in this case. this is a judge who then knew absolutely nothing about the law governing presidential records. a judge who knew ab
plus what we know from the doj filing about who asked me have legal exposure. they don t have anything. there is just nothing there. and the legal, political and moral implications of a potential decision to indict the 45th president. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. it is a pm eastern, and we just hit the deadline for donald trump s legal team to respond to the department of justice filing that just passed. it looked like it just came in. we will monitor it, that you know, what it is and what it says. honestly, what it says is a little bit of a sideshow at this point, because the one thing we know for sure is that the department of justice is not messing around. they are not messing around with their investigation into classified documents that donald trump kept at his florida home. last night, they dropped the equivalent of a legal nuclear bomb on the ex president, and it came in the form of this 36 page court filing. no, th
s legal team to respond to the department of justice filing and we are letting you know what it is and what it says. and what it says is a little bit of a sideshow at this point. the one thing we know for sure is that the department of justice is not messing around. they are not messing around with their investigation into the classified documents that phone trump kept at his florida home. last night, they dropped the equivalent of illegal nuclear bomb on the ex president, and it came in the form of this 36 page court filing. now that court filing is a response to trump s request for an independent special master, someone who would come from mar-a-lago, looking for privileged documents separating them up. the doj did not really have to respond at such length and they said we have already gone through the review. they said they have already gone through the details. they chose to even file for extra room to get the page limit from 20 to 40 pages and file this big 36-page
boxes in the storage room or signed a certification letter saying no other documents were there during that june meeting. despite saying documents were only in the storage room, the fbi found more in donald trump s over office. and not that they repeatedly delayed and seemingly misled investigators. instead the response focused again on why they argue donald trump needs the protection of a special master. quote, the united states attorneys office has filed an extraordinary document with this court suggesting that the d.o.j. and the d.o.j. alone should be entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating its unjustified pursuit of the president s possession of personal and presidential records in a secure setting. the former president addressed himself curiously not denying he knew they were there in the first place, instead arguing that d.o.j. put them on the floor to make him look bad. the fbi took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a
the material was marked with the highest levels of classification that exists, material that is meant to be held only in secure government facilities not at a private club where basically anyone can pay for membership and wander around. arguably, the agent s most alarming finding that we were able to see in this redacted version was that the boxes contained classified information that came from human intelligence sources meaning if the documents were mishandled, leaked or transmitted they could compromise the identity of american intelligence assets and the affidavit also lays out why doj had good reason not to believe or trust trump and his lawyers knowing that back in february of this year, after the archives notified congress that there was classified material and what they got back from mar-a-lago, trump put out a statement that very fact. investigators write this, quote, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified national defense