been talking to the special counsel, and jack smith responds to trump team s efforts to delay the documents trial. also tonight, how conservative republicans managed to attach restrictions on abortion access to a key defense bill, and what that could do to the chances of getting it through congress. later, without being able the say who left a pact of cocaine in the west wing, the secret service still says case closed. why? good evening. jack smith decides to charge the former president for his role in trying to overturn the election, being able to show his intent will be critical. and showing a ten could hinge on whether or not he believed he had won. tonight there is new evidence that smith is thinking along those lines, and is looking for evidence for people who know or heard him indicate he d lost. jared kushner and hope hicks have both gone before the grand jury, and some of the questions asked was whether the former president was told he lost the election. other mem
Allowed the doj to continue its probe into the handling of classified material while the special master reviewed thousands of other documents. judge cannon also ruled that trump did not have to officially declare in court whether fbi agents planted items at mar-a-lago, something trump and his al plies have repeatedly said in public. the special master had requested trump prove hiss claims, but cannon stepped in and stopped it. judge cannon has not responded to cnn s request for comment on her decisions, but when asked in 2020 during her confirmation if she had any discussions about royalty to president trump, she unequivocally wrote no. do you think she has any bias toward trump? i don t think she has any bias at all. reporter: jason mendra worked with cannon a decade ago. we never talked about politics or judicial philosophy because it wasn t relevant to what we were doing. i still don t know anything about her politics today. reporter: she wasn t overtly political? no.
Circle including his white house counsel, acting chief of staff, pence and others, including former communications director alyssa farah griffin. you ll recall she and cassidy hutchinson told the january 6th committee that trump acknowledged losing the election. this latest reporting suggests that jack smith was trying to bolster that notion with more testimony. also breaking, the special counsel s court filing in the documents case, a point by point rebuttal to the defense s case for delaying the trial until after the election. so there is lots to talk about. cnn s kaitlan collins, alyssa farah griffin, and cnn legal analyst elliot williams. so what have you learned, kaitlan, about the members of the inner circle of trump? it s notable who is gone, which is obviously jared kushner and hope hicks, probably two of the closest people to donald trump during his time in the white house, and certainly during this time period. we know that they both went and testified before the grand ju
Whether it s time to get the security clearances or asking for this indefinite trial date. but they re also making this argument, trump s team is that they can t get a fair jury before the 2024 election. do you really believe that? you know, i don t think that this motion is the best time to raise that. that s something that they would really have to get a lot more evidence of to properly brief under the appropriate rules. and as you guys said earlier, this is donald trump. whether he is a candidate or a post candidate, it is a very difficult divisive subject. so i think that they are going to have massive difficulties picking a jury in this. they should get a pool that s much larger than normal, and you re going to lose most of them right off the bat. but i think that s kind of premature to be raising at this
Defense claims the former president will simply be too busy campaigning or preparing for other cases. it s now up to judge aileen cannon. more on her track record from cnn s jessica schneider. my sincere thanks to the president for the honor of this nomination. reporter: judge cannon owes her nomination to the federal bench to donald trump. and now she is front and center in the former president s legal fight, fighting with trump s team to cite appoint a special master to decide what should be kept offlimits from federal investigators, a decision which is now being appealed and has been criticized. it s really a very pro plaintiff, pro-trump ruling in all respects. reporter: not only by political pundits, but also three judges on the 11th court of appeals, two of them trump appointees who described cannon s initial ruling pausing doj s review of documents marked classified untenable. the 11th circuit ultimately