department filing on why a special master, an independent review of evidence seized by the fbi at donald trump s mar-a-lago estate is not needed. this isn t a response to a filing by the trump. team let s go back to our former u.s. attorney airy lightweight. thank you for staying with us. juliet, do you, prosecutors included a photo on the front covers of the documents with the markings classified. what was your initial reaction when you saw that? and you have an example of what sort of intelligence or information in a general sense would be marked that way. so, we don t know what those documents were laid out for the picture. but what we do know is they re not in a protective facility or in any ways protected in ways described as these documents are essentially just flying around, is really the technical term to put it. so, those documents, from my experience, the red ones, and they re careful to protect what the markings would be, the sort
adversary potentially, if you bring your phone in, can then themselves take pictures or over here things. i mean, we are talking about very wicked and ingenious adversaries. and, you know, documents strewn around on the floor just leave you, you know, incomplete cold sweat thinking about it. but to get your question, it does not matter. the crime here, the obstruction is, he took them, he knew he did not have a right to take them, he lied about haven t giving them all up. that s the when he knew there is an investigation afoot, that serious enough, that s obstruction in actual 20-year maximum in the federal code. that s, that s whether or not there is a further, like, crazy manchurian candidate scenario here, are not, does not matter. juliet, when the things that s been raised by republicans and supporters of
would up and and put back on the footing that trump has been seeking the whole time and executive privilege. the doj just slices through that. legally and factually. legally it says, look, they are not his, he can t even bring a lawsuit. he has no interest in these. they don t belong to him at all. if and when he is charged, he can make any claim he wants to under the law. but for now he is a guy who has documents. he s a citizen who has documents that he has no business having. period. okay, with that will take a short break. elliott williams, juliet kayyem harry litman, thanks so much. you re watching cnn. the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer thatat was right under their nose. or. his nose.
are looking at this filing, which is disclosing a very, as i say, at best, careless retention of classified information, but you are also wondering what kind of damage has been done to our capabilities and two plans and programs that help protect not just the united states interest but our allies interest. this is a strong document against all the claims being made by trump and his team that you have heard over the last couple of weeks. harry lippman has joined us here, so good to have you with us harry. i want your take on this because before the filing was made the department of justice, in a way, juliet touched on this, wanted to set the record straight. if you look at this, filing how successfully have they been doing that? i would say pretty successful. in half of the whole filing
layout, now, certainly this is not an accusation of a crime against the president or anyone else. but they do define and layout instances where they believe that someone at mar-a-lago, whether it s the president or someone else, sought to thwart an active open criminal investigation. that is incredibly serious, and perhaps criminal charges will have to see. do you, and that point, juliet, the obstruction of justice, if someone at someone tried to obstruct justice, is don trump responsible? not necessarily. who that allegation just apartment has just raised it because to essentially justify to the magistrate why they had to go in with a search warrant, because they no longer had confidence in trump s legal