trump that the classified materials found at malignancy s found at malignancy h . at had been declassified. the fbi is on high alert following an attack at a field office and a wave of violent threats online from trump supporters. two republicans who have been critical of the former president face serious challenges from candidates who support him in tomorrow s gop primaries. good morning. and welcome to way too early. on this monday, august 15th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your week with us. one week after fbi agents desend on the home of former president donald trump, threats against federal law enforcement officials remain high. three senior officials tell nbc news that the fbi and department of homeland security issued a joint bulletin on friday, warning of the increase in violent rhetoric. the five-page document reportedly advised officials to remain cautious and vigilant facing threats. last week an alleged trump supporter was killed in a confron
police after firing a nail gun into the fbi s cincinnati field office. while on saturday, armed protesters gathered near the fbi s office in phoenix, arizona. and in the last 24 hours, just checking the ex-president s truth social account, he is still releasing statements criticizing the fbi and justice department, just as his explanations for why he even had classified documents at mar-a-lago keep shifting. as the new york times lays out, first, he says that he was working and cooperating with government agents, who he claimed had inappropriately entered his home. then, when the government revealed that the fbi had recovered nearly a dozen sets of documents that were marked classified, he suggested the agents had planted evidence. finally, his aides claimed he had a standing order to declassify documents that left the oval office for his residence and that some of the material was protected by attorney general/client and executive privilege. the evolving arguments are ex
down the rhetoric, despite a wave of violent threats against law enforcement. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, august 15th. a lot has happened since we got off the air friday, so since we finished coverage friday, we learned the search warrant for mar-a-lago revealed former president trump is being investigated for possible violations of the espionage act, tied to the mishandling of national defense information or classified material. now, according to the fbi, 11 sets of classified records were seized from trump s home, including some marked as top secret, meant only to be available in special government facilities. two other laws were also cited as a basis for the warrant pertaining to removing, destroying, or concealing records and obstruction of justice. according to the search warrant for mar-a-lago, agents were allowed to search trump s office, all storage rooms, and all other rooms available to trump, his staff, or anywhere documents could be
let s start with the twice-impeached pathologically duplicitous former president on the truth social platform that his passports were seized by the fbi. there s one caveat to that, nbc has not independently claimed if it is true and it could be a significant detail in what s become a stream of revelations. the washington post out with new details on the early stages of the probe when officials at the national archives suggested that trump had documents in his possession even after they retrieved 15 boxes from mar-a-lago. at first archives officials believed that the fbi wasn t taking the documents issued seriously and they grew frustrated according to people familiar with the document dispute and agents interviewed trump s current and former advisors asking what material was in them and who was responsible for the packing and what might still be at the florida club according to a person who was questioned, quote, they interviewed almost everyone who worked for him, a trump
declassified as to donald trump, it s declassified for the whole world. so in theory, if that order existed, which i don t think it did, the news media could today file a freedom of information act request for every document he declassified, which over a four-year period, could be a pretty high stack. so i think this is made up and i think a key point here is when somebody is making up stories like that, i think it indicates a level of desperation. you heard that. a level of desperation. can you explain this latest argument that we re hearing from the trump camp, with regard to declassification? so, i think that was a pretty good layout of the argument. unlikely that it s true that there was a declassification order, as trump contends in place. if there was, think for a second about the consequences. it would mean that trump essentially for his personal convenience, because his representatives have said that the president, who notoriously, by the way, didn t work, and watched fox n