into a lie on cnn last week when he said i took the documents. i m allowed to. donald trump, in effect, repeatedly labeled that lawyers latter, that was sent to congress, as false. why did you take those documents with you when you at the white house? i had every right to under the presidential records act. you have the presidential records act i was there, i took what i took, and gets declassified. why did you not turn them over when you got a subpoena? because we were negotiating with them. and by the way, they become automatically declassified when i took them. and now, the lawyer who s letter to congress completely disagrees with that has quit. the automatically declassified defense is apparently under more stress than ever tonight, with cnn reporting on the contents of the letter from the
eliminating one of the strongest procedural things, which is if there s an indictment, where is it gonna be. is it gonna be in florida? where is it gonna be in d.c.? went on trump goes and says, on to, vmc arm, that he declassified documents as president, sitting in washington d.c., that means the trial is gonna take place in, washington post. and any criminal defense lawyer who s representing donald trump would know, d.c. is not where you want this trial to be as opposed to florida. lying to congress is a very serious situation that no lawyer would want to be trapped in by donald trump. so when you consider the trump lawyers have had well over a year, because they knew long before the fbi serve the search warrant the donald trump was in possession of classified documents. he was in possession of government documents. they ve had well over a year to think about how to defend this. and they are very best defense
cases. he is going to talk about this. what he says will determine whether he is putting his foot in his mouth legally or not. i expect it will continue his mantra of he did nothing wrong, he declassified, they belong to him and that he was entitled to them and that the search of his residence was, you know, part of the ongoing witch hunt he has been subject to all these years. i think we will hear that. whether the prosecutors investigating this think that there is some admissions or other things that impact negatively his legal liability remains to be seen. i think they will make that determination quite apart from what he says on the campaign trail because i think he already said everything that needs to be said from his point of view, which is i did nothing wrong, i declassified by thinking about it or otherwise, and they are mine and you can t have them back. that s his storyline. i don t think to holds up legally and i expect we will hear a lot of that in south carolina in the co
house. here s a question. as he is now president of the united states. he can declassify any document he finds in his house. he can just do it because the president, as we have learned. brian: thinking about it. steve: there is kind of a process. if he had a classified document, i could declassify. ainsley: even though he took it years ago. steve: absolutely. because he has the power to do that. here s the question. if he declassified it, and it disappeared, we would never know once again does he have a shedder at these houses. some documents knowing they were going to go through this stuff. it s amazing they were still able to find half a dozen. some of the other stuff they took over the weekend were his handwritten notes which pertain to that stuff. so, nonetheless, can he declassify anything, if he declassifies it then suddenly it
i don t think that, you know, what you have envisioned there is improbable at all. my primary concern is that those aide would have those documents or the president would have those documents outside of a secure location in the first place. let me also point out that there is a scif at the former vice president, now president s home there in wilmington. let s turn to the former president, donald trump, and get your thoughts on what he s kept as cool keepsakes. he posted this on social media. when i was in the oval office or elsewhere and papers were distributed to groups or people and me, they would often be in striped, paper folder with classified or confidential or another word on them. when a session was over, they would collect the papers, but not the folders. i ve saved hundreds of them. he called them a cool keepsake. he also saved government documents and he claimed that hundreds of pages of classified documents he declassified, but