justice piece of this that you and i have talked about really demonstrates intent. that s such an important thing because it s hard to prove intent. andrew knows this from his white collar work. it s hard to get the ceo. but when the ceo lies or shreds documents or misleads investigators, that suddenly becomes easier. there s still a whole bunch of work for investigators to do and a whole bunch of people the fbi will need to interview, including possibly, quite likely, mr. trump s lawyers in this very case. i agree with andrew that they have at least become witnesses. but all that said, stephanie, he s not a president. and those special rules don t apply. he is now a former president. and he has the same authority as you and i. he can t retain classified information. he doesn t even have a security clearance. the records are not his. they belong to the national archives and the american
they respond to the quote? the fbi recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the diligent surge the former president s counsel and other representatives have weeks to perform. you re bobb or corchran, how do you respond? they signed off and said, yep, nothing to see here. so let s role play. i am now defense counsel advising corchran and bobb you need to withdraw as counsel and you need to get the best defense counsel you can possibly get. and stop talking because they are clearly going to be interviewed and at the very least they re going to be witnesses on the issue that you re flagging, stephanie. you don t have to be a rocket
damn knew well none of it belonged to him. well, if he didn t know, he certainly should have. i think that s exactly the right point, e stephanie. i ll add to that the fact that as this document the justice department filed made clear tonight, theseed documents that they seized from mar-a-lago were not just held in the storage room where trump s lawyers had told the justice department they were goinghe to be but also in trump s personal office and in his personal desk. the idea he didn t know he was holding on to classified information and they were sitting in hisan desk, in his office, not just in the storage room, it s veryt hard to make e argument not just when you have made the previously the points that you referred to, but when the justice department comes in and finds evidence of top secret information, lying around your office, this picture you have up on the screen right now, it s very hard for the former president to say he didn t know that he had these documents. i don t k
certification. so, yes, there will be a lot of speculation in the media and certainly in trump world about that. but i go back to one thing, stephanie, you were asking chuck in the discussion why not appoint a special master. i think it s really important to separate out the executive privilege issue and the attorney/client privilege issue. in the filing the department says, yes, there s a small number of potential attorney/client privilege documents. and their claim they basically say, look, judge, if there s some issue there, you should deal with it. that s what judges are for. we don t need to have a special master. we re talking about a very finite number. and i think that would provide what you were asking about, stephanie, this idea there s a third party, a neutral unattached judge who can make the decision about are those protected by attorney/client
members of congress can t but there was really sort of this shroud around a president and their powers and so many things they couldn t be prosecuted for. the fact that all of this is happening now that he is simply a private citizen, one that doesn t have security clearance anymore, could that mean things are different as far as what he could be prosecuted for? you know, things are different. we always talk about how nobody is above the law, but when somebody is president, they have authorities and powers that you and i simply don t have, stephanie. i can t pardon anyone. nor can you. there s a department of justice policy, policy only not statute but policy, that says you can t charge, indictment a sitting president. they could charge you or me. so there are factors and facts about being president that just don t pertain to anyone else. but he s not the president now. and i think andrew makes a very strong case for why he should be treated just like anyone else and why the obstruct