good evening once again. i m alicia menendez in for stephanie ruhle. it was nearly three weeks ago that former president trump first told the nation, the fbi was executing a search warrant at mar-a-lago. today, americans had the chance to see some of the justice s reasoning for that move. the heavily redacted affidavit that underpins the warrant has been unsealed and made public. the document supports much of which was already known about the criminal investigation to whether trump and his aides took secret government papers, and failed to return all of them, despite repeated demands from senior government officials. nbc s peter alexander has more on today s bombshell developments. reporter: the 38-page affidavit focuses on what the fbi says it found in 15 boxes mr. trump returned to the national archives in january. mixed in with newspapers, magazines, and presidential correspondents were 184 classified documents, 67 of them marked confidential. 92 marked secret. and 25
myself unless i have access to this ultra classified material. and therefore its agree matter. i think, you know, he s got a pretty limited playbook. i have no doubt that they thought it through and there are ways to charge, and ways to prove, to get around it. where does it go now? i mean, this is the big revelation. we could ve thought this was just a retrieval mission. we know now that it is much more serious, including what the fbi has been doing since. we won t be hearing from merrick garland for a while i think. we ll be hearing a lot from donald trump. but that s because they ll be diligently pursuing the investigation. and, you know, people have been wrong before. including me, thinking that he is really turned, that a corner has really been turned. but i understand where everyone is coming from. this does feel like the kind of free standing charge, and the kind of charge that really gets
away, but they think it s just the kim john young, love letter, and barack obama. they don t find out for a year what s contained. and when they do, that s when their alarm rings. they still forebear for four months, because trump says i want to look at national executive privilege materials, letting at the doj and fbi know. finally, they say, forget about it, and sent this letter that says, you have no executive privilege claim. we re turning it over tomorrow. by the way, that s the claim, and the only claim he is still trying to sow. and it s then that it rolls in quick motion to subpoena, personal visits, and finally, this just tells us, just tell us there s nothing more classified, they signed a piece of paper that they find out is wrong. that is, as you say, 20 months and 20 months that they halfway through finding out that he s been juggling radioactive material, the entire time, with the stomach wrenching
former president who might now be cooperating with the fbi. the affidavit also offers more hints about that investigation, including that the fbi has not yet identified all potential criminal confederates, nor located all evidence related to its investigation. this afternoon, the current president described how he handles highly sensitive government documents. depending on the circumstance, for example, i had in my home a space that is completely secure. i am taking home with me today today s it s locked. i have a person with me. i read it. i lock it back up, and give it to the military. about an hour ago, the former president s legal team, refiled his request that the government stop reviewing the material seized at mar-a-lago. trump is asking for a neutral special master to sift through the documents. trump s original request was filed on monday, but a judge
sensitive that prosecutors might actually have trouble then using them in court? the answer is, clearly, based on my experience. with investigating and have prosecuted espionage cases. there are scenarios where the material you have in front of you is so incredibly sensitive, that the agency where it originated says they will support a prosecution. it can t see the light of day, it can t go to a defense attorney, it can t go to a jury. even if you clear everybody they don t want this getting out into the public record. so, in this case however, there is good news. which is, good news bad news. we have 184 classified documents from which prosecutors can choose and say, and this is the irony, alicia, you have this sensitive stuff that many said there is no way you can use this for your prosecution. so they have to go to the lesser of sensitive. and the lesser qualified documents to actually use in the prosecution.