it s an issue that had never really been seriously considered and decided one way or the other. before the justice department was confronted with it urgently during the nixon administration. thanks to this sort of odd a series of things happening all at once in the early 70s, the vice president spiro ag new going to prison, the president, richard nixon, being removed by office against his will by impeachment. thanks to those things coming together all at once in a big felonious mess because the american people in our infinite wisdom that it be a good idea to elect guys that cry me to the white house twice, thanks to that mess around nixon and add new the justice department in the early 70s bumbled our way into putting down, on paper, that it was policy of the justice department to not ever bring criminal charges against a sitting president of the united states. and that s an important sort of, a landmark moment for the nixon years right? it s never a good sign when your presi
and why do we care about that? because the guy has priors. a guy that was willing to use $350 million of tax pair military it from ukraine to get blood on his opponent would certainly want to use those documents to have leverage to support himself. or find some type of financial benefit for himself. that s why it matters, that s why it s different than any other president handling for classified documents. in your experience on the intelligence committee in the house of representatives, what, what kind of material gets the classification level, i think you ve just been addressing, this the kind of classification levels that we have been seeing in this case? it would be protecting sources and methods, meaning that if we were to recruit someone from another country to tell us about their nuclear program for their presidents plans and and tensions for whatever issue. we would want to protect the sources and methods that there
military it from ukraine to get blood on his opponent would certainly want to use those documents to have leverage to support himself. or find some type of financial benefit for himself. that s why it matters, that s why it s different than any other president handling for classified documents. in your experience on the intelligence committee in the house of representatives, what, what kind of material gets the classification level, i think you ve just been addressing, this the kind of classification levels that we have been seeing in this case? it would be protecting sources and methods, meaning that if we were to recruit someone from another country to tell us about their nuclear program for their presidents plans and and tensions for whatever issue. we would want to protect the sources and methods that there is classified at the highest level. so a limited number of people could see it. so the president has the highest access to classified information.
and recently, not some past generation or just the past few years, if you had been the chairman of the intelligence committee in the house of representatives again not a long time ago but recently, if you had been the attorney general of the united states recently, if you had had any of those jobs in the very recent past you d think that you d kind of be a hot ticket, right? you d think that you d hav you d be moving in impressive circles maybe not for the whole rest of your life, the sort of impactor of that highfalutin jo you had would wear off, but at least while you were in that impressive very high end government job you d think you can kind of write your own ticket and you think you d move in kind of rarefied air. you would think. alas, this week all of those people i just mentioned,
round of a-paws at&t 5g is fast, reliable and secure for your business. joining us now live is the chairman of the intelligence committee in the house of representatives, california congressman adam schiff. he is also the author of the number one new york times best-selling book midnight in washington: how we almost lost our democracy and still could. it has just come out in paperback. congratulations on that. mr. chairman, thanks for joining us tonight. great to be with you. let me first just get your reaction to this breaking news from the new york times tonight, quantifying for the first time the amount of classified information that may be in question with the former president s estate in florida. the times is reporting that the fbi has now obtained more than 300 different classified documents from trump s home that reportedly include documents