Special counsel jack smith against donald trump. In an interview with cnn, maralago employee brian butler painting a painting a very specific picture of trumps inner circle, and how it operated more like a mafia family than anything else. With loyalty prized above everything. A world where fealty to the boss led to criminal exposure. Now, nbc news has not independently confirmed butlers identity as trump employee number 5 and he declined nbcs request for comment. In his interview last night, butler says he helped trumps codefendants, walt nowta and carlos move those boxes containing some of our nations most Sensitive National security secrets. Watch. He followed me. He pulled out, got behind me, got to the airport, i ended up loading all the luggage i had and he had a bunch of boxes. You noticed that he had boxes. Oh, yeah, they were the boxes that were in the indictment, the white bankers boxes. Thats what i remember. Did you have any idea at the time that there was potentially u. S. National security secrets in those boxes . No clue. I had no clue. And heres how carlos talked about moving classified documents for trump. There was one time towards one of the last times i was with him, and we were talking about, you know, boxes and like, biden did the same thing, you know, you cant get it always got brought up about biden and other people that did the same thing, and then there was one time where he said, you know, were all dirty, we all move boxes. Were all dirty, but were not. Of course, President Joe Biden was not charged with obstructing the governments attempt at retrieving classified documents. Unlike donald trump and his employees, who allegedly tried to delete all of the Surveillance Footage that showed the boxes being moved. Heres butler describing a conversation he had with dalvera about the widespread panic around that footage. I remember him saying, oh, by the way, walts coming tomorrow. I was like, oh, okay, cool, great. It wasnt until the following day when we were out walking that he said, oh, by the way, its a secret, dont tell anyone walts coming. Why . He needs me to find something out before he gets here. Oh, whats that . He needs me to you know, how long the Camera Footage is saved at maralago. And im like, thats odd. Why you need the Camera Footage . Why do you need to know how long its saved . And his response was, i think theyre looking for somebody that was there. As the Justice Department closed in, trump allies pressured that man, butler, offering him an attorney amid a fullblown hysteria now about who was talking to prosecutors and what they were saying. Butler now says that he would testify in a trial against donald trump, and that contrary to the expresident and his wild conspiracies about the weaponization of the government and the deep state, this case is no witch hunt. Do you view trump as a National Security risk . I personally would just say that i just dont believe that he should be a president ial candidate at this time. I think its time move on. Does it concern you that he very well could be. Yeah, absolutely. I think we can do better. And you know, for him to get up there all the time and say the things he says about, you know, about this being a witch hunt and everything, its all you know, just he just cant take responsibility for anything. An extraordinary firsthand look through the eyes of a firsthand witness in this classified documents case. Who lays out from the inside team trump. Former senator and cohost of msnbcs how to win 2024 podcast, Claire Mccas Kyl is back with us. National Investigative Reporter for the washington post, our friend care leonnig is here. With me at the table, former top official at the Department Of Justice, msnbc legal analyst, Andrew Wiseman is here. Let me start with you, carol. This was jawdropping stuff. And Kaitlan Collins does a masterful job of bringing the witness through all of the parts of the story. Obviously, prosecutors pieced together the story with a lot of different witness testimony. And she does a good job for the viewer at plugging it all in. But hes hes there for the crime of the hoarding, hes there for the crime of the movieing of the boxes. Hes there for the boxes summer trip to bedminster, which is some of the most riveting stuff. He drove a Sprinter Truck with a bag and the boxes were moved by someone else, who is now trumps codefendant, and hes there for the pratt stuff, which is perhaps the most stomachsinking, gut punch for anyone coming at this story, as i know you do, from the National Security perspective. Tell me what it was like to sort of hear him in his own words describing the anatomy of the crime . I couldnt agree more with you, nicole. Like, every time we think, and i know that claire and andrew and i and you all think that we know this down to the studs. Every time i think, ive got this maralago story totally understood, i see a new character in the netflix special. And thats what brian became when kaitlan began to interview him. It was like, of course he was unwitting, but to me the most dramatic moment is actually, and this is where i started thinking about the screenplay, is june 3rd. Remember, at this point, june 3rd, 2022, donald trump has tried to get his lawyers to lie, asked his lawyers if he may be could lie about whether or not there are records still at maralago. The fbi and the head of the counter Espionage Section is coming down from the Department Of Justice to get whatever documents are still on the premises that are classified and evan corcoran, president trumps attorney, is supposed to hand them over in a sealed envelope sealed with tape. At that moment, mr. Butler, earlier this morning, has been instructed along with walt gnata to take a bunch of boxes into a van that are going to go to the airport and on to the private plane of the former president , where he and melania and all their luggage is going to be taken for the Summer Season to bedminster. Those boxes are leaving the premise as donald trump is jumping into a little june 3rd meeting with the Department Of Justice and mr. Career public servant, jay bratt, just down here to get the rest of the classified records, sir. Donald trump says, im an open book, you know, look at whatever you need to. I just want to give you this stuff back. But meanwhile, there are documents in a van heading with brian. He doesnt realize that theres classified National Security information inside, but theyre being Spirited Away from the former president s Palm Beach Club at that exact moment pip see the movie. I mean, you called trump gotilike yesterday. And if you take classified State Secrets out of the boxes and put body parts in it, its no less dramatic, right . This is someone who was in charge of driving the boxes with the contraband in them. It is haunting to me how he says, yeah, there was this whitehaired tall guy i would later learn was the attorney, who ends up turning over his notes to jack smiths prosecutors. This was so many touchpoints to the criminal conduct, both the mishandling and the very, very deliberate intent to obstruct. Yeah, this is a firsthand witness to, as you said, both the retention part of the case, retaining classified documents, and also obstructing the investigation, and even the dissemination, because he overhears talking about this to someone who clearly shouldnt know about it. Pratt, the australian exactly. And my reaction there to all of this is its a huge indictment of our judicial system. Were all listening to this, its riveting. Thats what a trial is supposed to be. You know, donald trump should have his day in court, to be able to crossexamine all of this. But the public is entitled to not just hear from mr. Butler, but everyone. The Supreme Court of the United States, that is putting a stay needlessly on the d. C. Case, and judge canon dont get me started. No, get started. Say it its clearly, clearly is not going to have this trial. And that is why you have him speaking and in some ways, they say, thank god hes speaking. Normally a prosecutor would be like, i do not want my witnesses to be doing this. I cant prevent them, but its not a good thing. In this case, my reaction is, this is the only case the public is going to learn it. And thats really not right. The public has a right to have a speedy trial, to hear the evidence. And so its great that this interview happened. He seems very credible, but theyre entitled to the whole story. To butler and everyone else. And it really tells you about what the judicial system is doing in closing down accountability and so, this is the form where we can have some account after what happened, but its not really enough. Its not what is really the way that we decide things in the United States, when theres a dispute, you have trials and facts and law should matter. Thats sort of my main reaction to this, is about, you know, judge canon has a lot to answer for. Let me butler and Kaitlan Collins deal with the what of this. The why hes out there. Let me play that. This is butler explaining why he came out, and how even he as a witness in this trial is having to navigate what hes afraid canons going to do. Why are you speaking out publicly with your story now . Well, i mean, its been almost a year since fbi agents showed up at my house when my wife was at home and, you know, over the course of the last year, emotionally, its been a rollercoaster. You know, a couple of weeks ago, judge canon says shes going to release the names of the witnesses, you know, you go from highs and lows in this. And instead of just waiting for it to just come out, i think its better that i get to at least see what happened, than it coming out in the news, people calling me like crazy. I would rather just get it out there. I mean, carol, its such an indictment of what trumps gotten away with in terms of Witness Tampering and character assassination. And it started with, i guess it started with jim comey, it probably started before that, who couldnt see to let mike flynn go, see to let it go, hes a good guy, end quote. This was trumps employee. This was a guy who probably has a couple of red maga hats in his closet, im guessing. Who when the fbi came knocking, and even goes on to say, just wants his life back. I have to say, you know, in terms of character again, im thinking about the narrative of this. This seemingly very credible and also very genteel person who explains that many of these individuals who are charged as coconspirators were either bosses he liked, donald trump initially, or close, Close Friends. Hes essentially i think one of the most sort of heartwrenching pieces of kaitlans interview with him is when mr. Butler describes that his friendship is divided and almost over and has been for some time. He compares it to the way in which the country has been divided by donald trump. Donald trump got his friend to do something that then got him a lawyer, when he was in trouble, and now that friend is indicted along with donald trump. And they cant speak to ooemp. Its legally dangerous for all sorts of reasons. Brian butler chose to get independent counsel and he sees donald trump as a danger for misleading the public about how much he tried to interfere and corrupt a criminal investigation by the Department Of Justice, and he does not view this as a witch hunt, and he now sees how donald trump basically got a bunch of his Close Friends and former colleagues in a lot of legal hot water. And wants to sort of tell his story. But when he described that break in this longterm friendship as being similar to breaks that are happening all across the country, that really got me. Look, its got an echo to Cassidy Hutchinsons story. She goes in with a lawyer trump hired for her, doesnt Tell The Truth at the January 6th Committee, hires independent counsel and then tells the truth. I want to show more of the testimony he provided. This is seemingly central to jack smiths case and ask you about this. This is butler describing the australian billionaire, mr. Pratt. I believe it was april of 2021, there was a member, anthony pratt, who he was coming he flew in the night before. Hes an australian billionaire. He finishes his meeting with the former president , gets in the car, and his Chief Of Staff says, how did the meeting go . Pratt without saying says, he told me, and it would be u. S. Military, you know, Classified Information of what he told him about russian submarines and u. S. Submarines. And thats really all i remember hearing and i go, what. I remember thinking, what . Im in the car, did i just hear that . It wasnt like, he went straight to the point. He told me that the must subs and with the russian subs and you know, something that would more than likely in my mind be classified. So anthony pratt, this australian billionaire youre talking about, he would pay a lot of money to come and have these new years eve parties. So, so it might cost 1,000, 1,500 per person. He was giving 1 million. And i think at the height he had 30 or 40 people there. So something that would be 50,000 lets just say, max, 50,000, heres a guy thats just buying access. Its very easy to see. So either wittingly or unwittingly, not just outing trump for the spillage or the leakage or whatever we want to call it, revealing State Secrets to an australian billionaire about submarines, military submarines, ours and russias, but also describing the paytoplay. So im going to relate this in one way to judge canon, just to hit that note again, but in a recent decision, she said one of the reasons that trump can be trusted in having Classified Information is that theres no charge in the indictment that he disseminated any of this information. First of all, thats not the standard whether hes charged with it. Theres evidence of and we just heard it. The idea that shes so cavalier, this is why she was reversed by the 11th circuit. And as you and i have talked about, if you been in the intelligence community, listening to what we just listened to, its so hard to convey to this the public how unimaginable it is. You feel such an obligation in terms of the information you have and your responsibility as a public servant, and you still have that a obligation after you leave the Department Of Justice. I saw tons of highly classified material and i really wish id never done it and never seen it. The idea that you would have no sense of obligation to anyone other than yourself in terms of telling anyone, let alone a foreigner, when this is the kinds of information that are listed in the indictment, you cant have more serious information about our military capabilities, what we know about military capabilities of other countries. The idea that you would spirit that away to an insecure location, but then also talk about it, anything like that is unimaginable. And its, to me, that is the kind of question for the public and thinking about why would you want that person to ever have access to that information again . And claire, if you turn it around, as i try to do, to trumps fervor, a fervor that hes getting a lot of help from our legal system with these days, to not have these trials. This guy is credible from the top of his head to the bottom of his shoes. This guy was in charge of the car service. This guy wasnt spying on trump. This guy wasnt watching msnbc. This guys best friends are trumps codefendant, walt nauta and employee number three, car lost dee al vero, whos charged in a superseding indictment, and hes telling us that nowhere, no how trump should be anywhere near the oval office. Thats why trump doesnt want a trial. And the interesting thing is, when he mentions the common throwaway line, well, biden did it, biden didnt do this. They were running these boxes out of there right before the fbi came to pick them up they were told, the feds are coming this afternoon. They were trying to leak videotape that showed them trying to hide these boxes. He cavalierly showed some woman writing a book the militarys plan that would be implemented if we ever invaded iran. This is so different. It is the coverup that reveals the criminal and we used to tell young prosecutors all the time, Pay Attention to what the criminal does after he commits the crime, because that tells the jury the story. That tells the jury that this is someone who did something they knew was wrong, and theyre trying to hide it. Thats not what joe biden did. Joe biden didnt joe biden called them and said, please come and get it and ill answer any questions youve got. Immediately. If trump had done that, he never would have been charged. Claire and andrew, stick around a little bit longer with us. Carolyn, i thank you for starting us off on this story today. Its always great to get tuk you about these things. Still to come for us, democrats pushing sorry, our teleprompter how the trumpappointed former u. S. Attorney portrayed President Joe Bidens memory, calling the report a political hit job and saying that the Special Counsel knew exactly what firestorm would develop with its release. And its attempt to equate the behavior between biden and trump. Congressman dan goldman joins our conversation on how robert herr was received on capitol hill today. Plus, donald trump promising on day one to free hundreds of Violent Insurrectionists who stormed the capitol on january 6th, gettin