former president. donald trump revealed the news last night saying fbi agents were at the mar-a-lago residence earlier in the day and cracked the safe. the fbi did not dispute it carried out a search warrant at the resort. the justice department and the fbi field offices declined to comment. a source familiar with the matter tells nbc the search was tied to allegedly classified information he took with him from the white house and trump said the search was politically motivate jd the former president was at trump tower in new york city. nbc news learned he will have dinner tonight with a group of republican house members. joining us now is nbc news senior national correspondent kerry sanders. ken delandian, barbara mcquaid and chuck rosenberg. ken, what more do we know about this search and the investigation? jose, sources are telling nbc news that this stemmed from a referral made by the national archivings to the justice department when they retrieved 15 boxes of presiden
kerry sanders. ken delandian, barbara mcquaid and chuck rosenberg. ken, what more do we know about this search and the investigation? jose, sources are telling nbc news that this stemmed from a referral made by the national archivings to the justice department when they retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records in january and found some classified information contained within the boxes. they asked the justice department to take a look at whether the law is violated and other issues with presidential records and so this seems to be about records that donald trump took home with him some of which may or may not be classified and then the question is what broke down here? of course before they got to the
investigations focusing on the former president s actions right now. including a grand jury in washington d.c. increasingly and aggressively scrutinizing. it could be related. certainly if the agents came across any evidence of crimes that had to do with something else including january 6 they would be within the rights to seize that information. we don t know. one thing s for sure. this is a huge step for the justice department to approve a search warrant at the home of a former president. not done lightly in the context of these various investigations around donald trump, jose. ken, barbara, kerry, chuck, i thank you so much for being with us this morning. happening any minute now at
the case. the defense team and prosecutors arguing today whether he can use what s called the advice of counsel defense. basically whether he can argue he did not willfully deny a subpoena because that s what his lawyer told him to do. you see bannon. he came in front of cameras after leaving court. i said, this is not maga or america first. this is for everybody. the behavior of fbi and doj is out ray jous to my attorney. ken delandian on this. the judge nichols did not rule on the main question at issue which is whether or not bannon should be allowed to make an advice of counsel defense going to trial and argue that he is not guilty of willfully
with that, let s bring in the panel. msnbc political analyst, the washington post white house bureau chief and analyst phillip rucker and former press secretary and ken delandian. thank you for coming in tonight. let s start with the gridiron dinner because this is the president to say that the president has had an uneasy relationship with the town of washington with the press i think is something of an understatement. how did ken, you were there. how did it come across in the room? well, you know, it was a moment of suspense because donald trump avoided the black tie suares. he would have to sit here where they do skits and we should probably explain that. gridiron is one of the odest clubs in washington. black tie or white tie? white tie and tails. for men.