prosecutors. starting with that quote, saying, i could have declassified when i was president but i didn t that is the exact opposite of what donald trump has been saying repeatedly in public. first of all, i think it ends the whole issue did he, in fact, declassify. second of all, prosecutors are going to say, folks, he s been lying to the public for months, why do you think that is? a hugely important piece of evidence. i have to say as interesting as the declassification conversation is, it s this statement that may be the most legally perilous. secret, this is secret information. look. look at this. so, dan, what potential laws may have been broken with those ten words? i mean, there are seven counts, probably every single one of those seven counts. let me tell you just to pick up on what we were just talking about, you have to ask yourself if this plays out and goes to a trial, right, because that s what we re talking about, charges, evidence, what happens at a trial.
argument in this case, he is talking about something else, but he s saying, look at this information. so, dan, he s talking to people and we just heard from paula reid that they do not have the status that would be required to reveal this information. so does that speak some to the espionage charge or what could be an espionage charge? of course. of course it does. it speaks to, again, for every one of these seven crimes they have to prove the government has to prove knowledge, intent and it sort of goes beyond that. are you taking the law into your own hands? i know what the law is, i m going to disregard it only am is highly secret confidential defense department document that apparently is talking about iran, and i m going to talk to who? some reporters, some people who don t have national clearance, security clearance. and he acknowledges that. he acknowledges that. why? because he says i m off the
whether meadows is cooperating with the special counsel s probe, or if meadows himself is a target of the investigation. the silence from meadows has irked lawyers representing other defendants aligned with trump who have been more open, according to several sources familiar with the trump aligned legal teams. in particular, they point to a 900,000 dollar payment trumps save america political action committee paid to the firm representing meadows, mcguire woods, at the end of last year. we ve all heard the same rumors, one trump advisor told cnn, no one really knows what he s doing though. joining us now, dan horowitz, a former manhattan district attorney. where he prosecuted white collar crimes, like tax fraud, securities fraud. dan, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to get that final point about mark meadows, which is, how do you know, if you are
subject of a criminal investigation, and one of your compatriots has become a cooperating witness, when do you usually find that out and how do you find that out? well, usually, you re talking to the lawyers, the lawyers are talking to each other. one telltale sign is, when you don t get a return phone call from a lawyers that you re working with, or if you re close with those lawyers, they ll say, dan, it was good working with you on this matter. i m not able to talk to you anymore. that s one telltale sign. certainly, in a high profile case like this where there is a lot that gets into the media, there are signs you can see. whether somebody is talking and then they stop talking. so, there s all sorts of markers that you can look at to read the tea leaves to see if someone is cooperating. you know, on that letter to the attorney general, it s such a trumpian, unserious letter.
dan, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to get that final point about mark meadows, which is, how do you know, if you are subject of a criminal investigation, and one of your compatriots has become a cooperating witness, when do you usually find that out and how do you find that out? well, usually, you re talking to the lawyers, the lawyers are talking to each other. one telltale sign is, when you don t get a return phone call from a lawyers that you re working with, or if you re close with those lawyers, they ll say, dan, it was good working with you on this matter. i m not able to talk to you anymore. that s one telltale sign. certainly, in a high profile case like this where there is a lot that gets into the media,