Place this week. So what changed . And playing out in the last few hours, a preview of what will be one of the biggest cases in our nations history, the United States versus donald j. Trump. The former president s lawyers, jack smiths team, and u. S. District judge chutkan all facetoface in court for the first time. Its high stakes going head to head over the parameters of a protective order dictating who, including trump and under what circumstances should be trusted with government evidence. The dramatic new details from Behind Closed Doors and what it all could mean for the judges first ruling in the case. And Paradise Lost in hawaii, a birds eye view of whats left of lahaina, after wildfires ripped through the island. This apocalyptic scene wont be the last with other fires still burning and hundreds still missing in what has now become the second deadliest fire in modern u. S. History. One local now grieving the loss of his home and his fathers ashes. Thats the one thing i wanted to hold on to forever, now hes just in the ground with all the other ashes. Ill be talking to a State Senator who represents the devastated town in just a moment. But i want to begin in d. C. Where two big legal stories are unfolding simultaneously. A dramatic day in court just wrapped up with new details in the Election Interference Case against former president trump. Just one detail to share with you, the Special Counsels team has a jaw dropping 11. 6 million pages of discovery that theyre prepared to turn over to trumps team, and u. S. District judge chutkan had multiple warnings for trumps legal Team Including a reminder that their client is, quote, a criminal defendant. He is going to have to have restrictions like every single other defendant. And moments after that hearing ended, Attorney GeneralMerrick Garland made an unexpected announcement appointing u. S. Attorney david weiss as a new Special Counsel in the hunter biden matter. Mr. Weiss has told congress that he has been granted ultimate authority over this matter including the responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges. I want to bring in nbc justice reporter ryan reilly, Nbcs Kelly Odonnell covers the white house. Also with us, former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, carol lam, so ryan, what else do we need to know about this update from Merrick Garland and why now . Essentially this is going to be thrown into the middle of the 2024 campaign. Because now basically where we are is this is on track for a trial. Thats basically the filing that we saw come through just after this announcement saying that they were unable to reach a Plea Agreement. They dont expect to reach a Plea AgreementGoing Forward, so instead of this being sort of a settled matter that could be put behind both hunter biden and his fathers campaign, this is going to be a hot potato issue thats going to go forward. Theres going to be probably new charges brought potentially here in d. C. , potentially in california because most of the crimes that were talking about or the alleged crimes didnt take place in delaware. The only reason it was really happening in delaware is because of that plea deal and hunter biden agreed to waive venue and say he could set aside that fact. But hunter biden has the right to be prosecuted, in fact, can only be prosecuted for a trial in the place where the crimes allegedly took place. So were talking about d. C. And california here. So potentially you could see hunter biden mixed in with the hundreds of other january 6th defendants that are going through that same process as well as donald trump in d. C. District court just down the road here. What is going to happen next is potentially those charges would be brought and you would see a schedule set out Going Forward. So very quickly, this just gets smack dab into the middle of the campaign and no longer becomes a oneday story or a oneweek story about how hunter biden took a plea deal, and heres the sentening date. It now becomes this ongoing narrative. Heres the next hearing were going to have for this. Whens Jury Selection going to take place, and probably what youre going to see is Hunter Bidens team being kind of in the same boat as Donald Trumps potentially, sort of kicking the can down the road here, not wanting to necessarily resolve this on an expedited basis, you know, potentially kick this back until after 2024, and its just going to be really this ongoing issue for the president because its a matter that is still, you know, within sort of his wheel house. He has the potential to, of course, pardon his son at some point whether that be during the ongoing prosecution or whether that be further down the road after this all takes place. Its just going to be something hes going to continue to get questions on, especially with all the ire that is focused on him from republicans on the hill who are very interested in the Business Dealings. And we really dont know whether thats going to be part of this ongoing Special Counsel probe because thats something that the now Special Counsel from delaware has the ability to do, to look into things that grow out from this ongoing investigation, chris. So carol, what do you make of what youve watched unfold over just the last hour or so . How often, if ever, have you seen Something Like this, and what does it say to you about whats going on here . Chris, its very unusual to see not only a plea fall apart in court, but the fact that theyve had several weeks to try to repair whatever lack of meeting of minds that they had, they should have been able to resolve those differences, and apparently they havent been able to do that, which indicates that there was really a fundamental misunderstanding when they walked into court about Hunter Bidens continuing criminal liability. The prosecutor said the Investigation Continues and apparently the defense said, well, what do you mean, not according to our discussions before. So highly unusual that that happened in court, even more unusual that they werent able to work it out subsequently, and i think at this point Merrick Garland really didnt have any choice but to change the status of the prosecutor, mr. Weiss, from a u. S. Attorney to now a Special Counsel where he has more, even more independence, even though the Justice Department said he had independence before. Now we have circumstances where they say, all right, were going to make you a Special Counsel. So also put this into terms everybody can understand whos not a lawyer about obviously the escalation of danger for hunter biden. He thought he had a deal. He thought he knew what was fg going to happen here. He thought he was not going to prison, now what happens, carol . Where hunter biden is is where every criminal defendant finds himself when he doesnt have a plea deal with the government. He is now a continuing target of the investigation, now mr. Weiss who was acting as a u. S. Attorney now acting as the Special Counsel can bring charges against him in an indictment that was returned by that would be returned by a federal grand jury, and those are most likely to be felony counts. Both the gun charge and the tax counts, and i will say the tax counts involved a lot of money, so the usual equities at play, aside from the fact that he was suffering from addiction, if there is no plea deal reached here, hunter biden will be charged with the most severe charges that the government thinks that he can be convicted on beyond a reasonable doubt. Kelly odonnell at the white house for us, kelly, any response at all from that building behind you . Reporter well, chris, as you would expect, the white house is saying that it will not be commenting on this matter and is encouraging us to look to the Department Of Justice and to Hunter Bidens private counsel. We know that they did not, according to officials here, did not get any advanced warning about the content of what Merrick Garland would say, announcing that Special Counsel in the hunter biden case. So this presents the same kind of really complex and awkward circumstance for the white house where the president s son, who is frequently here at the white house, is a guest at different white house functions, is a part of the family, of course, and is doing the things that a first family would do. So hes a regular presence here, even though his residence is in california. We see him often. Hes obviously very close to his father. At the same time, they are going through the legal and political matrix of investigations on capitol hill, now with Special Counsel, and when they thought they were putting this piece of that difficult and dark chapter in Hunter Bidens life behind him, what the president has said more broadly is he loves his son. Hes proud of his son. They he and the first lady have been supportive of his recovery from addiction. Trying to put that behind them. That is now off the table by the actions today, and we have seen, chris, you and i over the years, when this kind of Special Counsel level prosecutor is involved with all of the powers they have in matters going back over time, those investigations often go down new paths and tributaries that were not a part of what was originally the expectation or the concept of why a Special Counsel was needed or an independent counsel in other times in the past. So it means real potential jeopardy if there are other matters that prosecutors will examine, and if they find criminal conduct, they can charge it as carol was talking about. So it just means the difficult time is certainly extended, the exposure and vulnerability is magnified, and all of that has political and legal consequences for the first son and by extension, obviously, for the sitting president. Carol. All right, yeah, as weve said repeatedly, theres no indication that President Biden had any liability, that he knew anything, did anything that wasnt above board. Having said that, we have seen how its been used as political ammunition for sure, kelly, so thats not the only big story today, ryan. The other big legal story in washington was that highly anticipated hearing in the case of the United States versus donald trump, the hearing over the protective order, so tell us what happened and when we might see a decision there. Yeah, something i had expected to dominate most of the day but not necessarily the case. A very big pivot here. But you know, basically what the judge laid out is basically, i think, sending a warning, sort of a shot across the bow to both donald trump and his and his attorney saying to be very careful about what theyre saying here and making clear that donald trump doesnt have his full rights. There can be restrictions because he is a criminal defendant, not only in this case, but also in florida, and thats leaving out of course the other state, the case in new york as well as a potential case we could see coming soon out of georgia. So in any other case, there are always restrictions on pretrial defendants especially who are facing multiple felony counts, theres restrictions on travel, for instance, restrictions on are your liberty. Many times there are people who have been held pretrial and basically judge chutkan said that nothing is off the table, and shes going to stop this from becoming a circuit, that shes going to keep regular order and proceed with this case Going Forward. She also hinted at what we could see Going Forward for the trump campaign. She sort of rightly predicted what were going to see coming from the defense team, from Donald Trumps defense team saying that, hey, were going to need more time to go through this discovery. Were basically trying to kick the can down the road. Whereas the Special Counsels office is trying to get the show on the road, get this on the books, they want this scheduled for december really when the Jury Selection theyd like to begin and then january 3rd, just before that threeyear january 6th anniversary is when they would actually like to start opening arguments on this trial. So its a jump ball. I think its unlikely probably that were going to ultimately settle on that because youre going to see so much opposition from the trump team, and especially when they have all those documents to review, you might end up getting later into the year. I think they definitely want to sort of move this forward. It really was extraordinary just to note, hearing these discussions about what donald trump could access, at one point the Special Counsel prosecutor made a crack about how donald trump, you know, isnt necessarily that great at keeping on keeping hold of documents or not sharing documents that he isnt supposed to be kind of referring to obviously the ongoing case in florida, but theres this discussion sort of that reminded you almost of dealing with a toddler, whether or not donald trump could be trusted to be left alone in a room reviewing this discovery with a phone, and that was a discussion that they had to have between the judge and between the defense and the prosecutors there because there are sensitive documents around this, and what judge chutkan wanted to make clear is that shes not going to tolerate any threats against potential witness, which of course in this case, and just sort of a remarkable historic case involves the former Vice President of the United States who is now running against donald trump for the republican nomination. So just a really complicated set of issues, but judge chutkan said she wants to put as much of that aside as she possibly can and handle this as close to normal as you possibly can. I want to bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin who was in the courthouse. If i can just pick up on what we were talking about there with ryan, im reading the notes as theyre coming in, and i couldnt even process in many ways some of them as he just referred to it, it almost sounded like theres a conversation about whether or not donald trump essentially needs a sort of babysitter there with him as hes looking at these documents. Ultimately they decided no, although there were, as i understand it, restrictions. Tell us what your impressions were and what your headlines are out of this. Reporter yeah, so chris, one of my big headlines out of this is judge Tanya Chutkan wanted to make perfectly clear to both sides that she is running the show here. And not only is she running the show, but it may be that Donald Trumps day job, as she referred to it is running for president , but the fact that this is existing against the backdrop of a Political Campaign is of no moment to her. Shes going to treat donald trump as a criminal defendant, no more, no less, and give him the same rights that she would be protective of for any criminal defendant. At the same time, her job is to protect the administration of justice from outside interference, and that means protecting witnesses from harassment and reputational damage. That means protecting the jury pool from being tainted with. That means also ensuring that people who are still perhaps under investigation dont have access to these materials, and at the very end, she issued a note of caution to all involved, basically saying you have put before me or made reference to today various Social Media Posts or lines that youre trying to advance in the campaign, and i have tried to ignore them, but the more the rhetoric gets incendiary here, the closer you will be to forcing me to have a trial sooner rather than later. Why . Because i cant tolerate a carnival like atmosphere in which all of those conditions that i just laid out, intimidation of witnesses, possible taint of the jury pool, other people under investigation having access to that information could possibly happen, so if you, donald trump, and you your counsel continue to escalate the rhetoric in the ways that you have been, whats going to find you on the other side is a sooner trial date. So as lisa points out, sooner rather than later is clearly what the judge wants to see here, but jack smith and his team said theyre prepared to hand over 11. 6 million pages of discovery in their first production, and in fact, the judge even joked, quote, i can just imagine your motion for a trial date now. Is that as jaw dropping as i think it is, first of all . And second, what is the real world impact of that amount of discovery in a case . Well, let me put it into context a little bit. It is very difficult to figure out what 11. 6 pages really means in the real world. When you turn over discovery, you turn over a lot of different types of documents. And there have been instances where, lets say whole s. E. C. Filings have to be turned over, and each document runs hundreds of pages, but most of that document is not relevant in any way, so its very hard to determine whats relevant in the 11. 6 million pages. I will