Summary
Britain says farewell to its longest serving monarch. The DOJ asked the judge to allow the department to continue its investigation into the classified documents recovered from Donald Trump`s beach club.
Transcript
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST, "ALL IN": That is "ALL IN" on this Thursday night.
ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT starts right now.
Good evening, Alex.
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris.
Six out of 10 Trump appointees I believe on that 11th Circuit.
HAYES: I think that is right. They`re really focused on that one.
WAGNER: Something the DOJ -- is not lost on the DOJ.
HAYES: Not lost on them, absolutely.
WAGNER: Thank you, my friend. Great show.
And thanks to you at home for joining us tonight.
It was called "The Children`s Hour". It aired from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the BBC Radio every weekday from 1922 all the way until 1964. And in 1940, at the height of the Blitz, when Germany bombed London every night, as Nazi bombs fell over the city of London, the BBC`s "Children`s Hour" decided to hold a special broadcast that would air not just in the United Kingdom, but across the Commonwealth and in the United States as well.
It was a message to all of the children of the British Empire and beyond who had fled their homes for far off places to seek safety and shelter. And it was delivered by a fellow child, the very first radio address of then 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
HOST: Her royal highness, Princess Elizabeth.
PRINCESS ELIZABETH: In wishing you all good evening, I feel that I am speaking to friends and companions who have shared with my sister and myself many a happy "Children`s Hour". Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers.
My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you. I can truthfully say to you all that we children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage. We are trying to do all that we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers and airmen. And we are trying too to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WAGNER: Princess Elizabeth made good on those commitments to help them in the war effort. When she turned 18 and the war was still raging, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a mechanic and stayed in that service through the end of the war.
An American news crew caught up with the princess during the war on her 19th birthday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: On her 19th birthday, the heiress presumptive to England`s throne learns a few facts about tires and carburetors. Elizabeth is in the ATS or British WAC, and at the king`s request, is being treated just like any other trainee. Now, visited by her parents and sister Margaret Rose at her training system in southern England, she shows them she knows the fan belt from a spark plug, all right, and isn`t afraid to get her hands dirty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: When the war finally come to an end, Princess Elizabeth had gone from a child to a young adult, stepping into her role as a member of one of the world`s most powerful families. In 1947, she took her first overseas journey, accompanying her parents on a trip through southern Africa. It was a first adventure of a young woman who would grow up to become one of England`s most peripatetic monarchs.
In 1952, Princess Elizabeth was traveling to Nairobi, Kenya, when she got the news that would change her life forever. She was staying in what was effectively a tree house, a tree tops hotel, when she got the news that her father, the king, had died, and she had just become the queen of England. She was 25 years old.
Diplomats and politician Harold Nicholson, he wrote in his diary at the time, she became a queen while in a perch, in a tree in Africa, watching that rhinoceros come down to the pool to drink. Her coronation took place the next year. It was the first ever coronation of a British monarch to feature live television broadcasts from within Westminster Abbey. It was watched lived by more than 20 million people in the UK. And it was re- broadcast in the U.S. to an audience of over 85 million.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: The ceremony ten centuries old was repeated in London today, as the British commonwealth and people crowned their queen, Elizabeth II, with ancient pomp, and religious solemnity.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) people watch from the railing, as the, peers including the duke of Edinburgh replaced their cornice. The solemn moment of the coronation, the most powerful ceremony of the century, is now history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Early in her reign, Queen Elizabeth made it clear that she would not watch history pass her by from the confines of Buckingham Palace. She began traveling. First, across the British Commonwealth, and then, the world. She saw Iran under the shah before the Iranian revolution.
[21:05:01]
She met with leaders of India from Indira Gandhi to Narendra Modi. With the lone exception of Lyndon Johnson, every American president from Truman to Biden met Queen Elizabeth. And her meetings and journeys were more than just sightseeing or photo ops. Queen Elizabeth spent most of her life as the monarch of an empire in decline, a once dominant colonial power that was just beginning to reckon with its brutal centuries-long history of subjugation as new global powers were starting to shape the world order.
During her 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth would oversee almost all of the unwinding of British colonialism that took place in the 20th and 21st centuries, from the fallout over the partition of India which happened just before she ascended the throne, to Barbados declaring itself a republic and taking the queen off of its money which took place just last year. She watched as the world changed and her country`s place in the world changed with it. Queen Elizabeth died today at the age of 96.
Joining us live now from Edinburgh, Scotland, is NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella.
Kelly, thanks for joining us this hour.
I know on some level, this is a very planned for moment for the UK and yet I am sure it`s taken the populace by surprise in some certain way. What can you tell us about the mood on the ground where you are?
KELLY COBIELLA, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that`s right, Alex. After all, the queen was 96 years old. We know that she had had health problems over the past year in particular, but still, you know, a country where most of the population has only ever known one monarch, it`s difficult to prepare for a moment like this psychologically as a country.
And we saw even before the death announcement was made, people gathering at the palaces here in Scotland and also in London, at Buckingham Palace, waiting for more news about the queen, hoping perhaps that it wasn`t uh the worst case scenario and -- but then you know hearing by 6:30 this evening that in fact the local time that the queen had in fact died. And the first hint that something wasn`t right that that this was serious came at about half past noon here local time when Buckingham Palace released a statement saying that the queen`s doctors were concerned for her majesty`s health.
Those kinds of statements just don`t come out of the palace every day. They are very guarded when it comes to the monarch`s health. So that really was the first hint that this was extremely serious and then again, by 6:30 in the evening, the whole country knew that the queen had died and a king had taken her place, King Charles, her oldest son -- Alex.
WAGNER: Kelly, I think the other bit that`s surprising about this is not just this is a monarch who was incredibly hail, right? And she`s years old, she had a very busy schedule but on Tuesday, she welcomed a new prime minister inviting Liz Truss in to form a new government. That`s Tuesday. That`s literally two days ago.
Do we know anything about what her last few days, her last I guess 48 hours were like and potentially what she fell ill with in this last stage?
COBIELLA: Yeah, well, we saw her in that picture, didn`t we, with Liz Truss. She`s smiling broadly. She is using a cane. But that`s nothing new. We`ve seen that over the past several months, really since October, November of last year, off and on.
So, that wasn`t necessarily a red flag. She has looked more frail, thinner, somehow smaller for a lack of a better word over the past few months. But really when it comes to the details of her health and what she might have been suffering with if anything, the only thing the palace has said is that she has had episodic mobility issues and they haven`t gone into any more detail. And quite frankly, I`m not sure that they will. Again, they`ve always been very guarded when it comes to the monarch`s health.
We do know though that after that picture was taken, the following day, so on Wednesday, yesterday, the queen cancelled a virtual meeting. These are things that -- events that she holds often or has held often in the past year. The fact that she cancelled a virtual meeting, that her doctor said that she needed to rest after the exertion of Tuesday was also probably a sign that she wasn`t quite herself, that somehow she had taken a turn for the worse.
But again, Alex, in terms of detail about what she might have been suffering with if anything, I`m just not sure if we`re going to get that from the palace, at least not in the next few days.
WAGNER: Kelly, you mentioned I think one of the other headlines out of this which is that England now has a king, which it has not had for quite some time, King Charles. What do we know about the changing in titles as specifically as it concerns Harry and Meghan`s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet? I want to make sure to get those titles right because there`s been a lot of back and forth over whether who has what titles and whether they want those titles and whether they will have those titles.
COBIELLA: Right. So this is -- this one`s a little bit complicated it has to do with the intricacies of the monarchy and the constitutional monarchy here and tradition. Typically, traditionally, if you are the grandson or granddaughter of a monarch, then you are automatically titled. You`re -- you -- you`re allowed to have a title. It just sort of it comes to you.
However, and if you are a great-grandchild, you -- that is not automatic. However, King Charles, it`s hard to get that out, I almost said prince, it is a new thing here, King Charles has talked about for years that he wants to streamline the monarchy and he`s been given the power and the encouragement to do that by the queen over the past several years.
So the question now is, will King Charles consult with Harry and Meghan? They said at the beginning when their children were born that they didn`t necessarily want titles. They are no longer working royals. They`re not part of the system in that way. Would it be appropriate I guess King Charles has to consider for those two grandchildren to have titles? Given that he`s wanted to streamline the monarchy, given that Harry and Meghan are pushing out into a completely different role, I think this one is still up in the air, it`s not necessarily automatic.
WAGNER: Kelly Cobiella, NBC News correspondent joining us from Edinburgh tonight, Kelly, thank you so much for staying up for us.
Now, I want to turn to Linda Colley, a historian at Princeton University, an expert on British imperial and global history.
Professor, thanks for joining us.
We have a lot to talk to as it talk about and speak to as it were. When we talk about the life of Queen Elizabeth, I wanted to start this show playing the sound of her as a 14-year-old addressing the nation in 1940 as the Nazis are fighting the British and the allied forces. Just to underscore the sort of moral uprightness, the stiff upper lip that she was I think blessed with in many ways from such a young age, it seems like, you know, in very much Elizabeth`s character was forged in wartime and she carried that with her throughout her life. Is that an accurate assessment?
LINDA COLLEY, HISTORY PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNVERSITY: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I`m not a natural monarchist but I always respect people who are ultra professionals who give of their lives to their job. And if you`re going to have a constitutional monarch, then it`s difficult to think of anybody doing it better than Elizabeth II.
I suspect she was sustained by a considerable sense of religious duty and she worked really hard. She also never said what she thought, which is a great strength for a constitutional monarch.
WAGNER: I mean I think Rebecca Mead in "The New Yorker" makes the point of how few words she left us with in many ways, right? For such a prominent public personage, Elizabeth leaves behind remarkably few memorable words, so careful was she with avoiding and off the cuff remarks and so sparing was she with her public voice. Apart from her regular Christmas greeting broadcast on television in the post-turkey hours every December 25th, she addressed the nation in her own words only a handful of times during her reign, usually at a moment of crisis or sorrow or every so often of celebration.
It`s so -- it`s so strange when you think about the outsized role she plays in the global imagination that there actually no particular, you know, lines that we recall her saying it`s just that sort of steely presence.
COLLEY: Yeah. But I mean, as you`ve made clear in the program this evening, she is able to profit from the spread of TV, from the expansion of all new kinds of photography. I mean, she must have been the most photographed person ever in human history. If anyone on the globe knows a bit about the world, I suspect they`ve seen the face of Queen Elizabeth.
[21:15:07]
And the fact that she didn`t talk much of course was a great strength not only did she avoid embarrassment but because she didn`t say much people could impose on her their own ideas and expectations and fantasies. So she was a global figure not, just a U.K. monarch to I think a quite remarkable degree.
WAGNER: You know, and when we talk about the times that she navigated, in addition to being a woman a few words, she was a woman of great I think tenacity in terms of exploring the world and being a student of the world if you will. I mean, there`s a reason we wanted to play that footage of her visiting Iran during the time of the shah and, you know, Indira Gandhi. I mean, her -- her life is the story in many ways of the 20th century and also the decline of the British Empire.
And I wanted to focus on that with you for a minute. "The Atlantic" has a wonderful assessment of her life today and I`m just going to read an excerpt from it. And they talk about how the brochure from her coronation is almost a memento, a time capsule.
The official souvenir brochure from when Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 is a snapshot of a lost world. Its opening page is stamped with gold and bears the coats of arms of commonwealth countries, many of which no longer exist or were renamed upon independence. Aden, now part of Yemen, the Bechuanaland, which is Botswana, Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Ceylon, Sri Lanka, Basutoland, Lesotho, Sarawak, now part of Malaysia, British Honduras, Belize, and Swaziland, Eswatini.
I mean, my mother was raised in Burma, now Myanmar, which was, you know, she grew up in British schools, in a British colony, and Elizabeth navigated the shrinking of this British world order if you will in a way that literally no one else in history has.
COLLEY: No, and I mean, it was remarkable. I think also she had to adapt to a degree to the empire coming home. You know, the population of the UK is infinitely more mixed now in terms of culture, in terms of religion, in terms of ethnicity than it was when she came to the throne in 1953. You`ve only got to look at the latest government created by Liz Truss who met the queen only a few days ago. Most of the leading, leading ministers in Liz Truss`s government they`re either women or they`re people of African or Asian ancestry.
And even a dozen years ago, that would have been beyond imagination. So Queen Elizabeth has had to not only adapt to a changing world but also adapt to a very changing UK, which I think has altered more than perhaps uh people in the U.S. necessarily recognize.
WAGNER: That`s such a great point, the idea of the empire coming home, because that is in many ways, that gets us to our next segment actually which is about Britain now, about the UK now and what happens in the country, which is navigating some very uncharted territory.
We have to leave it there, though. Linda Colley, historian at Princeton University, an expert on British imperial and global history, Linda, thank you so much for your time and insight tonight.
COLLEY: Pleasure.
WAGNER: We are going to have much more on the queen and the legacy she leaves behind.
But also, tonight, the Justice Department asked the judge in the Mar-a-Lago search to change her order, preventing investigators from accessing the top secret documents seized from Donald Trump.
Plus, Steve Bannon surrenders, and is facing up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
But next, Britain is not just losing a queen, but Queen Elizabeth, a notoriously stabilizing national force. And this comes as Britain heads towards major economic crises. Oh and did I mention, they just got a new prime minister this week? That is next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEEN ELIZABETH II: We are delighted to be here (INAUDIBLE). I have come to the United States from Canada, and as the queen of Canada, I`m bringing the warm greetings of a friendly neighbor, and a staunch ally, (INAUDIBLE) the friendship (INAUDIBLE) by people with every race and creed in a British commonwealth nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:24:34]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIZ TRUSS, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We are all devastated by the news that we have just heard from Balmoral.
With the passing of the Second Elizabethan Age, we usher in a new area in the magnificent history of our great country, exactly as her majesty would have wished, by saying the words, god save the king.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: God save the king.
[21:25:00]
It was just two days ago that the 96-year-old monarch Queen Elizabeth formally invited Liz Truss to form a government as the government`s new prime minister. And now, not only does England have a new entirely leader in its democratic government, but has a king for the first time since 1952.
As of today, Queen Elizabeth II`s 73-year-old son Charles III is the king of England. The first time the head of the monarchy has changed since a guy named Harry Truman, was president of the United States.
A new sovereign means all of the U.K.`s money has to change. The national anthem will now be god save the king rather than, of course, the queen. In other words, things are about to change. But as Prime Minister Truss said today, this isn`t just a new face on British currency, but the end of an age for the United Kingdom. And with that, the start of a new era, and it couldn`t be happening at a more chaotic time for the nation.
Yesterday, the British pound fell to its lowest rate against the dollar since 1985, which, now that the U.K. has exited the European Union, that matters all the more. This summer, inflation hit 10 percent in the U.K., the highest rate in 40 years.
Now, on the first day of the new financial quarter, October 1st, the Bank of England is predicting the country will fall into a lengthy recession. On that same day, absent government action, household energy bill across the U.K. are set to spike by as much as 80 percent as Europe and the world struggle to find enough energy to make up for the losses resulting from Russia`s war in Ukraine.
Railway workers, dock workers, postal workers, all sorts of workers have walked off the job in the past month demanding better pay. The U.K. is on the verge of an economic crisis, while at the same time undergoing two major shifts in leadership. So what happens now?
Joining us now is Edward Luce, U.S. national editor and columnist at "The Financial Times".
Mr. Luce, thank you for being with us.
EDWARD LUCE, FINANCIAL TIMES, U.S. NATIONAL EDITOR: Pleasure to be here, Alex.
WAGNER: So I want to get your sense of -- I mean, we know that Queen Elizabeth was not dictating a fiscal policy in the U.K. but she was widely seen as a stabilizing force for the country and I wonder against this backdrop of some degree of economic turmoil how meaningful her passing is, how necessary she may have been as a steadying force in this particular moment.
LUCE: And I think given her longevity and the symbol of continuity that she was that at any time, her passing would have been quite a convulsion and a marking of an end of an era.
But this time in particular, as you`ve just outlined with, you know, a winter of discontent coming, another winter of discontent, after the one in the late `70s that that where strikes you know paralyzed Britain. We`re looking at a very gloomy next few months.
And so, her passing literally two days after a new and very inexperienced prime minister has just been sworn in and with her son Charles taking the throne, not as popular, not seen nearly in the same light as his mother was, it does mean there`s going to be a rather -- I don`t know -- tenuous time for the British establishment if you like.
But we`re going to be focusing a lot on the build-up to her funeral, the period of mourning in between now and her funeral and you know the British might not be able to do a lot of things well nowadays but the sort of the pageantry of a state funeral in Westminster abbey will divert the spirits for a while and she was genuinely beloved, even people who aren`t natural royalists like Linda Colley, and myself for that matter, are very -- were very, very saddened by her passing.
WAGNER: I wonder if we could speak of the new government for a moment because Liz Truss has come into office and suggests that the government coffers may -- she may use them, she may draw upon them to cap household energy prices well into 2024, expecting that the shortage resulting from Ukraine is going to have a profoundly negative effect on basically Britain`s wallets. That seems very out of step with the kind of fiscally conservative small government character she proposes to be.
How does that work and is that not a massive spending deal for the Truss government if you will?
LUCE: It is. I mean, Liz Truss has modeled herself on Margaret Thatcher, down to the type of the clothes she`s been wearing, really down to a tee. And so, for a libertarian deregulate regulatory small state tax cutting conservative you could hardly think of a worse fiscal moment to come into office than now because she will have no choice if she wants her prime ministership to survive. But to spend heavily -- as I think she announced in the last 24 hours, but to spend very heavily public money on putting a cap on people`s energy bills.
And if she -- if she didn`t put a cap, I think it`s 2,500 pounds cap on their energy bill this winter, when it would if it were at market rates be well over 6,000 pounds. So, seven, seven and a half thousand dollars.
If she didn`t do that, if she didn`t spend this tens of billions, more than billion of public money, her prime ministership would be dead in the water. So a libertarian prime ministership government begins in a very state interventionist way and necessarily she has no choice.
And two days after the death of the sovereign, one who`s been there for almost all of the 20th century or as long as most of the country can remember, I know that the queen kept her deliberations and conversations with her PM secret, but did you get the sentence as a Briton that that those were meaningful conversations, that they were in any way additive in terms of the prime ministerships, that they mattered at all?
WAGNER: I think -- you know, I mean, a lot of people sort of because they watched "Crown" season one to four, have inflated history with fiction because the drama was so vivid. But I think what season one of the crown got right is that she was a very young and naive and fairly unsuited person who came to the throne in 1952, and she had a succession of old very experienced men like Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold McMillan as prime minister.
But as time wore on, of course, she got used to talking to prime ministers every week, you know, for 70 years. That builds up into quite a lot of experience and quite a lot of insight and I suspect there might have been some eyebrow raising or theatrical eye rolling moments in her weekly prime ministerial audiences as she got older and particularly in the last few years.
WAGNER: Edward Luce, U.S. national editor and columnist at "The Financial Times" -- thank you for mentioning "The Crown". We needed that in the broadcast tonight and thank you for your time tonight.
LUCE: Pleasure!
WAGNER: Much more ahead tonight. Up next, big legal developments into parts of the investigation into Trump world.
First, the DOJ asked the judge to allow the department to continue its investigation into the classified documents recovered from Donald Trump`s beach club. Or, they will appeal.
And a man named Steve Bannon is back in court facing up to 15 years in prison. Former prosecutor Joyce Vance joins us live next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was thinking today, I thought she was a little younger, 96 is a wonderful run. She was a very important moment in the modern history, since the Second World War, she was an integral part, she will be missed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very sad news, just can`t believe, it we really came from Northern Ireland this morning just taking it in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, we are -- this afternoon for sure. She probably passed away. Very sad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:38:03]
WAGNER: There has been this whole back-and-forth about a special master in the Trump, oops, I took thousands of government records, including top secret documents home with me to my Florida beach club case.
On Labor Day, a Trump appointed judge granted Trump`s request for a special master or independent arbiter to review the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago to sift through them for executive privilege and attorney-client privilege issues. She ruled that the FBI had to halt its investigation into those documents and instead wait for that special master to go through them first.
So over these past few days, the DOJ has faced a tough choice -- appeal the judge`s order which might take a while, or let the special master go ahead, which could also take a minute. And today, we got the department`s answer, they are okay with the special master generally but not with respect to any classified records.
The Justice Department asked the judge to pause part of her order to exempt the over 100 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago last month, to exempt them from the special master`s purview and to allow the DOJ and the FBI to continue to work on the investigation by examining those 100 or so classified documents.
Now, if the Judge Aileen Cannon refuses to do so in the next seven days, the DOJ gave notice it would seek relief from a federal appeals court. Why is the DOJ doing this? Because they argue letting the special master see those classified documents while preventing the Justice Department from using or reviewing them, well, that will cause, quote, the most immediate and serious harms to the government and the public.
The DOJ makes clear today in its filing, the judge`s ruling has had the effect of halting not only the DOJ`s criminal investigation, but also the intelligence community`s review. Quote: Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the courts order and it`s application for the activities of the FBI has caused the intelligence community to pause temporarily this critically important work, and they argue the government and the public are irreparably injured when a criminal investigation of matters involving risks to national security is enjoined.
So that pretty urgent seeming intelligence review has been stopped the DOJ is saying here because despite the judge`s order that it carry on while the Justice Department`s criminal investigation is put on hold, the investigation and the intelligence community`s review are intertwined.
Quote: The intelligence community`s review and assessment cannot be readily segregated from the DOJ and FBI activities.
Okay. Let`s take a step back here for a second. The fact that the intelligence community`s review has been halted, that seems significant, to say the least, because every day, we are finding out more about what was actually squirreled away down at Mar-a-Lago. Reportedly, the trove included a document concerning a foreign nation`s nuclear capabilities. It sort of sounds to me like a review concerning the national security implications here that that shouldn`t exactly be put on hold right now.
Beyond that, there is one other pesky problem with appointing a special master to review these classified documents, according to the DOJ. Trump doesn`t have a cognizable interest in those documents because, well, they are government property. To put this in plain speak, Trump is saying mine and the government is saying our. Both sides still have a deadline of tomorrow to provide a list of special master candidates. We`ll see how that goes.
Joining us now is Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, current professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and co-host of the podcast "Sisters in Law".
Joyce, thank you so much for being here and thank you in advance for helping us all decipher this.
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Good to be with you, Alex.
So what is the strategy here in this latest DOJ filing?
VANCE: This is a really elegant strategy that DOJ has crafted. We don`t know yet know what their notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit will look like. This request is to a district judge to stay a part of her order and it`s a very limited part. It`s only the part of her order that restricts DOJ from continuing to use classified materials and also orders them to turn those materials over to a special master. And the reason it`s an elegant strategy is because this is the part where it is the clearest that the judge just treaded into uncharted territory issuing orders that were legally ungrounded and likely really harmful to national security.
So DOJ is on very strong ground here. They may ultimately decide to appeal the entire order when they hit Atlanta in the 11th circuit. For now, they`re just saying to the judge, you should reconsider what you did. It`s really harmful to the national security.
WAGNER: So they`re basically -- I mean, effectively, calling her bluff here, right? And they`re calling her out on the most controversial parts of her ruling and suggesting that she basically gets a do-over. Is that pressure going to work?
VANCE: You know, you would think that it would work. Her initial order is really in many ways unsophisticated and just plain wrong and DOJ does a nice but a very polite and delicate job of laying that bear.
For instance, they point out that she`s suggested that it`s important for the intelligence community to continue to do its work, but they tactfully say, you know, judge, the FBI is essential if the intelligence community is going to complete its rule. The CIA lacks domestic authority. So if we learn that there are leads to follow down trying to identify documents that may have been in these empty folders, that God forbid somehow we`re spoiled out into the public or into other hands, it`s the FBI who has to do that work and your order says that they can`t do it.
So they`ve done a nice job of giving her an off-ramp here.
WAGNER: They give her an offer, but they also kind of explain how it all works, right? It seems clear to ruling she doesn`t understand that the intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence works hand in glove with the FBI to understand how national security may have been compromised, and they basically have to explain that to her in this document and also say this important review is on time out. Were you alarmed by that?
VANCE: It is really alarming and, Alex, something that it points out is that the judge`s ruling really got ahead where the parties had provided her with briefing. Had she not ruled so precipitously without giving DOJ the opportunity to explain this to her, we might be in a very different position. But DOJ actually had to go back to brass tax and they cite in their stay request to the judge, they say, judge, the FBI is actually one of the intelligence community agencies designated by executive order to be part of the intelligence community, which is something that this judge seems to have missed.
But it`s not for nothing, the sort of harms, the sort of damage that DOJ identifies in their motion. They suggest that if this stay is not granted to DOJ so that they can go ahead and use these hundred classified documents, that there can be damage not just to the intelligence community`s enterprise but also to the criminal investigation, the public is entitled to the speedy dispensation of justice.
And also, it`s damaging to turn these materials over to a special master. The Supreme Court has talked in its cases about how important it is for classifying agencies to retain control over the integrity of their documents and it seems a little bit odd that we`re all sitting here politely discussing the fact that the former president who refused to return these documents when he was asked to and who -- there`s evidence obstructed the investigation or at least that some of the folks involved in this enterprise obstructed the investigation, that there`s now a polite conversation that the judge expects the Trump folks to have with DOJ about who this special master should be. That just seems utterly lunatic at this point.
WAGNER: The whole notion that both sides are going to agree on a special master seems -- well, that`s lunacy.
Joyce, there are two other big legal stories I have to ask you about, we learned today that a grand jury is looking into Donald Trump`s Save America PAC. And Steve Bannon is surrendering in New York, please take around if you can, Joyce.
We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:51:24]
WAGNER: Former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon turned himself into New York authorities this morning to face indictment on charges of money laundering and conspiracy related to his border wall fundraising grift. This is what Bannon had to say before pleading not guilty at his arraignment today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISOR: They will never shut me up, I`d rather they kill me first. I have not yet begun the fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Fight on, Steve Bannon.
The last time he was accused of fraud by federal prosecutors, President Trump pardoned him. But now there is no Trump to protect him from these state level charges. And, well, the show must go on.
Also today, in fraud related news, there was this blockbuster reporting from "The New York Times". That the Justice Department`s January 6th investigation is expanding. Quote, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking information about Save America PAC, which was formed as former President Trump promoted baseless assertions about election fraud.
As a reminder, Trump created the Save America PAC after he lost the 2020 election. He raised millions of dollars by falsely claiming that there was rampant voter fraud that had to be stopped and according to the January committee, Trump and his surrogates misled donors about what their PAC donations would ultimately be used for. As Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren put it, quote, not only was there the big lie, there was also the big rip-off.
And now, apparently, the Justice Department has set its sights on Trump`s post-election fundraising efforts. "The Times" reports, quote, the Justice Department is interested in the inner workings of Save America PAC, Mr. Trump`s main fundraising vehicle after the election.
Back with us again is Joyce Vance.
Joyce, what kind of charges or what kind of possible crimes could the DOJ be investigating as far as it concerns the Save America PAC?
VANCE: This is a really interesting development and it`s not yet clear whether DOJ is investigating some sort of fraud this would be a relatively garden variety fraud, right? Telling people that you are going to use their money to do something when in fact you were personally benefiting from it or entities that you were associated with were benefiting from it. But it`s not clear if DOJ is pursuing those sorts of criminal fraud charges here or whether this line of investigation would help to further their case involving the insurrection.
Might it for instance support the ultimate goals or motivations of the former president? Could there be some communications that make clear what the purpose? This is a very interesting development.
WAGNER: It sure is. And what Steve Bannon, the person who is vowing to fight on, and they will have to kill him for us to shut him up, what kind of implications are here with these charges, what kind of prison time could he be looking at?
VANCE: Well, speaking of garden-variety fraud, this is more of it, right? I mean, we go from the big rip off to the big grift. This is Bannon -- fraudster activity based on Trump`s signature Build the Wall campaign. It`s just a really remarkable sort of a footnote to the Trump administration, that this would happen with Bannon benefiting personally from this sort of fundraising.
You know, the charges are serious. Even though their state law charges, Bannon could be looking at something like 5 to 15 years in custody, if he is convicted. And, of course, that raises the specter that as a man in his early 70s, he may be interested in cooperating and providing other information about other criminal activity he is aware of.
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WAGNER: So, I mean, do you think -- well, cooperating. Do you think that this is pressure to get him to flip?
VANCE: I don`t think it is that. Honestly, I think that this case was the only logical outcome of the pardon that Trump issued. The conduct is serious, even though it is a relatively pedestrian one. It needs to be addressed for accountability purposes. All of the reasons that we have criminal justice system to punish people, to deter future misconduct -- these are all important sources of principles that these prosecution stands out for. If the byproduct of it is Bannon`s cooperation, well, then, that`s all the better.
WAGNER: Oh, principles. Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, thank you for your time tonight. Thanks for sticking with us.
We will be right back.
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WAGNER: That does it for us tonight. We will see you again tomorrow.
And now, it is time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.