of politically motivated violence. and it all comes as president biden is set to give a prime time speech tonight, focusing on the soul of the nation. we ll have more on his message to a divided country just ahead. good morning. and welcome to way too early. on this thursday, the 1st of september. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. breaking news overnight, former president donald trump s legal team has responded to the department of justice s latest filing on the classified documents seized during the fbi search of mar-a-lago. in their 18-page filing trump s lawyer suggested that by launching what they described as an unprecedented, unnecessary, and legally unsupported raid on mar-a-lago, the d.o.j. was quote criminalizing a former president s possession of personal and presidential records in a secure setting. trump s legal team also aggressively renewed its request for a special master, or a third party, to review the documents that the fbi agent
accused the fbi of planting evidence? well now trump admits the documents were stored in cartons. remember when trump s lawyer told the justice department that classified material had been returned? well, investigators found more. lots more. remember when trump s team insisted the documents were safely secured? well, his lawyer now admits the former president frequently had guests in an office where highly classified papers were found in his desk. and once again, he does not deny having them. good morning. and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, september 1st. can you believe it? no, no i can t believe it. just like nobody can believe any of the excuses that have all been thrown around. i love yesterday, willie, his only argument is, not saying why he had the documents, not saying why he didn t return the documents, not saying why he lied to the fbi when they were asking for the documents, and they were moving them, and instead, he goes oh, oh, it s all a setup, they
stick around for morning joe. i think all of you should stick around for morning joe as well. thanks for getting up for way too early this morning. they say themselves, in the papers that they filed, that this is under the presidential records act, so what they did was to try and criminalize donald trump as they always do, they found these three mundane statutes, espionage, and the two others, obstruction, and they re trying to claim that there was some sort of criminal activity. a trump attorney spins the new defense for the former president that espionage and obstruction are only minor offenses. we ll have the new developments overnight from trump s legal team and go live to the courthouse where today s hearing over a special master will take place. meanwhile, trump continues to undercut his own excuses, for why he had classified documents at his florida club at home. remember when trump s allies