and rea mitchell kicking off a special two-hour edition of andrea mitchell reports today. we are in washington as the focus on the classified documents seized from donald trump s mar-a-lago estate is going to shift in the next hour to a courthouse in west palm beach, florida. that s where trump s lawyers and the justice department are clashing over the former president s request for an independent master to go through the stack of files taken from mar-a-lago to see where any might have involved attorney/client privilege. the government says they have already done that and doing it again could harm the investigation. meanwhile the current president is going to be in philadelphia this afternoon into the evening at independence hall delivering a primetime speech on threats to our democracy, what he calls saving the soul of the nation. and another midterm special election win for democrats overnight. alaska voters rejecting former vice presidential candidate sarah palin s bid f
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
have a written statement in due course . attorneys for trump compared the documents to an overdue library book, marveling at how the records dispute that has suddenly been transformed into a criminal investigation. trump and his team tried all kinds of defenses, frump falsely saying the top secret documents were his, to then saying that he declassified them. in court today, the doj lawyers were blunt, saying he is no long for president, and because he s no longer the president, he had no right to those documents and that ends the analysis. but we might be seeing a lot more from the search. the judge saying she will unseal the detailed inventory list that was prepared by the doj. and prior to the hearing, trump out on right-wing media attacking the doj once again. they took documents and they put them all over the floor. then they deceptively put out that picture. a lot of people think when you walk into my office i have confidential documents or whatever it may be, classif
down claims by trump s attorney that this was a case about records that belonged to trump saying that the documents were not his to have. for her part, judge kennan is at times inclined to order a review of documents into a a special master. quote, justice department attorneys repeatedly pleaded with cannon not to interrupt their ongoing criminal probe that the search warrant excused on august 8th was clearly valid and authorized to obtain evidence of three significant federal crimes. cannon said she was concerned about a couple of instances in which the investigative team had flagged potentially privileged material that was not screened out during the initial review of records. that s the team that was assigned to prevent such occurrences. judge cannon did say that she would unseal a more detailed list by agents at mar-a-lago meaning that we could learn a whole lot more about that extraordinary search. while we await, it is important to put it in broader context. new york
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