was there for the search and that the paper was seized. the archives had asked the justice department to examine trump s handling of records that he took out of the white house and down to mar-a-lago after he left office. nbc news is also learned that the nbc notified the secret service earlier today about the intention to execute the search warrant. with that we ve got a lot to get to and let s bring in our lead off panel tonight. mark caputo, senior national political reporter for nbc news, andrew weizmann, former fbi general counsel. and former senior editor of the mueller probe, now is a law professor at nyu. frank for clues, a former fbi s assistant director for counter intelligence, and barbara mcquade. a veteran federal prosecutor, and former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. she worked with the doj during the biden transition, and as a professor at university of michigan s school of law. first, i want to thank all four of you. i know you are working
very, often in my experience, i m sure this is true for barr been for frank as well. defendants have a lot of hubris. and you know, to take paul manafort, for instance. many years i think the crimes were committed, we did a search of his, home and we found tons of documents that were incriminating, that he had not gotten rid of. so, defendants don t always act in a way that is in their best interest, in terms of cleaning up the crime scene. mark, tonight, following this fbi search, former president trump s fundraising off of it. conservative media are pushing the fund the fbi, defund these government agencies. does the maga crowd, does that conservative audience even know, as we hear them attacked the fbi, the fbi director, christopher wray, was nominated by donald trump himself! i can t say what s the maga
yeah, and trump involved this to the watergate break in and said that this was equivalent to that. of course there is a real difference between what happened today and the watergate break in which is today the search was authorized by a federal judge who executed a warrant, whereas in the watergate break in, that was done by burglars in the middle of the night. so two very kinds of different things going on here. as you pointed out, it s almost quaint with what richard nixon does spying on his political rivals and then concealing it. it almost seems quaint and harmless in comparison to all the misconduct donald trump has been involved with. i think that his statement today really says a lot on how he sees himself in the world and how he wants others to see him. the idea that this is some how third world, never before has a
the time for talking about this was over, and merrick garland had had enough, and we re just going into getting these documents, if they are still there. and let s talk consequences, and do, because it could cost donald trump the ability to run for office again. i want to share what former prosecutor harry lippman said about this earlier tonight. this is by far, not one of the biggest crimes he s been charged with, but it carries the penalty that someone who is convicted of it is disqualified from running for future federal office. andrew, i want to first note that donald trump has not been charged with any crimes. but explain what harry means. could trump get disqualified here? i do think we need to take a deep breath, because there is not been in charge here. but there s been a search, and there could never be a criminal case, and there could not be a criminal case of the charge and harry is talking about.
and they re just very upset. the difference is they had the tip of the spear with donald trump back in the day, they had a guy who s about directions and say that he is specifically place to channel that anger. that s what happened on january 6th, donald trump for them to be in a specific place on january 6th, and they said that was the last day for action. there is no tip of the spear right now, it probably still is donald trump on truth social or something, or through a press release, not on twitter giving step-by-step instruction. the only solace here is that there is no big brand date for the stuff just yet. but the anger individual, and the idea that this is the last straw before a civil war is basically upon us. that is the thing that is permeating in these pro trump forums tonight. but has any of that movement weekend, whether it s all those january 6th, or many of those january six rioters getting arrested, getting convicted.