several democratic officials. then a new discovery about a revolutionary weight loss drug. patients say it actually helps curb other addictions such as smoking or drinking. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start with our law and justice lead. the first public reaction from former president donald trump in response to cnn s blockbuster reor thing, since matched by the new york times and washington post, in his classified documents case. mr. trump refused to directly answer questions about a recording now in the hands of federal prosecutors where trump is said to be talking about classified materials he kept in his possession after leaving the white house. but the former president did go after those investigators with his usual complaints of being a victim of a witch hunt. in moments i ll be joined by trump s former lawyer, tim parm tory who left the legal team a few weeks ago and played a key role in the classified documents investigation. first, we ll start
two women ukrainian soldiers who are on the front line at the combat zone. good day. i m andrea mitchell in new york. a major win for the justice department last night after a appeals court ruled that president trump has no claim to the documents seized at mar-a-lago. two trump appointed judges and one obama appointee said that he had no claim to those documents clearing way for the investigation into the former president. trump on fox last night seemed that somehow he could magically declassify a document by thinking about it. as i understand it, it doesn t have to be, if you are the president of the united states, you can declassify by saying that it is declassified even by thinking about it. it does not have to be a process, and there can be a process and there doesn t have to be, but when you send it, it is declassified, and so i declassified everything. all of this after another stunning legal blow to former president, and another $250 million lawsuit brought again
unique classified documents were seized by federal agents during the search at mar-a-lago. that raises serious questions of possible perjury by trump lawyers or others who signed letters to the fbi that they had turned everything over after a subpoena in june. most remarkably, the justice department lawyers included this extraordinary image. an fbi photo of top secret documents and other classified documents on the carpet of the former president s home office. the government says investigators developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were taken to obstruct the government s investigation. the doj lawyers say the trump request for a special master to review the seizd documents is unnecessary and would, quote, significantly harm the government s national security interests. the sheer volume of documents with classified markings recovered in the search were more than twice the amount that were turned over
a u.n. inspection team arrived today at europe s largest nuclear power plant to assess damage and shelling. this is vladimir putin. laying flowers at the casket of mikhail gorbachev. he will not attend the funeral. i will speak to senator jack reed coming up shortly. in alaska, crossover appeal beats out star power. the first alaskan native to win statewide and the first woman to win the seat. one of five races moving in democratic favor. a state of emergency continuing in jackson, mississippi. 180,000 people still without drinkable water with no word about when it s going to come back. first, the classified documents at mar-a-lago. joining us is ken dilanian, yamiche alcindor, and also with us former prosecutor in the robert mueller russia probe andrew weissmann and former communication advisor brandon buck. what do we expect about the special master hearing? didn t the trump lawyers stumble into opening pandora s box for the government to show the documents, spread them
People of new hampshire about what a default would mean for us in my state. what i heard was it was unacceptable, we needed to come to a compromise. i m glad it passed the house. i hope today it will pass the senate. let s turn to your new legislation which would increase the number of special immigrant visas or sivs for the afghan allies left behind. it would go from 4,000 to 20,000 under your proposal, requires the state department to address this massive backlog in applicants. you ve been working on the siv program, special immigrant visa program for years. what is the price tag on this new effort, and how are you going to sell this to republicans who don t seem all that interested? look, we have a responsibility to those afghans who risked their lives to help our men and women serve in afghanistan. many of those afghans saved american lives. i met four of them earlier this week in new hampshire who helped