Summary
The home of the 45th President of the United States has been raided by the FBI according to the man himself, Donald Trump, who issued a lengthy statement just over an hour ago condemning an unannounced FBI raid on his Florida resident, Mar-a-Lago.
Transcript
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, NBC NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Now, as Barbara correctly pointed out, it doesn`t mean he`s going to get charged with it. I would predict, by the way, if that`s what this is about, that he`s going to blame it on somebody else, some administrative clerk squirreled something away. I thought I gave you everything I had. Who knew that this stuff was in my safe or whatever.
But then it gets -- you know, details become really important, right? Barbara alluded to what kind? What kind of documents are they? What do they relate back to that they go toward intent?
JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC HOST: Fred, I got to -- I got to cut you there. We got to go into this next show. Thank you so very much for this breaking news. Thank you, Ken Dilanian, and David Rohde, Frank Figliuzzi, and Barbara McQuade. That`s it for tonight`s "REIDOUT." ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts right now.
ALICIA MENENDEZ, MSNBC HOST: Good evening from New York. I`m Alicia Menendez in for Chris Hayes. The home of the 45th President of the United States has been raided by the FBI. That`s according to the man himself, Donald Trump, who issued a lengthy statement just over an hour ago, condemning an unannounced FBI raid on his Florida resident, Mar-a-Lago.
This comes on the heels of reporting that Trump`s lawyers are currently in negotiations with the Department of Justice stemming from its investigation into Trump`s attempted coup. And tonight, it looks like federal agents were executing the next step in one of the investigations into the ex-president.
New York Times is now reporting that this raid is related to classified documents Trump allegedly brought with him from the White House. "The search according to two people familiar with the investigation appeared to be focused on material that Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence after he left the White House. Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents according to a person familiar with their contents.
The ex-President released this statement tonight, "These are dark times for our nation as my beautiful home in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.
After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the justice system, and an attack by radical left Democrats who desperately don`t want me to run for president in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do nothing to stop -- do anything to stop Republicans and conservatives in the upcoming midterm elections.
Such an assault could only take place in broken third-world countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those countries corrupted a level not seen before. They even broken to my safe. What is the difference between this and Watergate were operatives broken to the Democrat National Committee. Here, and reverse, Democrats broken to the home of the 45th President of the United States."
As you just heard, Trump himself admitted that he is cooperating with the relevant government agencies in this investigation, the ex-President is right about one thing, this is a truly unprecedented event. Ken Dilanian is an NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent and he joins me now. Ken, understanding that this is developing story. What more do we know?
KEN DILANIAN, NBC NEWS JUSTICE AND INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Alicia, we have new reporting from my colleague, Kelly O`Donnell, who was told by a source familiar with the matter. First of all, the President is in New York City today, so he was not present for this search. And then secondly, she has learned that the FBI notified the Secret Service a few hours before the search warrant was executed, and that the Secret Service facilitated their access to the Mar-a-Lago property as federal agents but did not take part in the search.
And that is consistent with the protocol of how these things would go where the former president, of course, has Secret Service protection, including protection at all his properties, so they have custody of the place. So, they -- they`re not just going to let anybody in. But of course, their fellow federal law enforcement officers, the FBI, would call them up and say we have a lawful warrant, we`re going to execute this warrant at such and such a time. And that`s apparently what took place with this development today.
And again, just stepping back, this is -- this is a big deal. What this shows, obviously, is that the FBI was able to convince a judge that there was probable cause to believe that there was evidence of a crime and that that evidence existed at this location, that they had to go and do this search, you know, big Fourth Amendment intrusion into someone`s property.
And, you know, there`s been some speculation by guests, contributors on our air tonight that this relates to the case of the missing records from the National Archives. If you recall, there were reports that Trump took some records from the White House they shouldn`t have taken. That`s conceivably possible. But this is just a huge, huge step, unprecedented in American history here perhaps by the FBI.
And so, it`s coming in the context of this other set of investigations involving Trump and election and you know, election -- seeking to overturn the election, people close to him being called for the grand jury, lawyers who advised him being targeted with their own warrants. So, there`s a lot going on in terms of law enforcement activity directed at the former president, Alicia.
[20:05:12]
MENENDEZ: Do we have a sense of the scope of what it is that they`re looking for?
DILANIAN: Well, no, we absolutely don`t. It`s a secret process. They`re -- you know, if they`re -- generally, when there`s a search warrant like this, they`re -- an FBI agent will submit an affidavit to the judge describing everything that they`re looking for. But almost surely, in this case, that affidavit is sealed because this is a secret investigation.
There will also be a document file that shows what the FBI took. Obviously, we`re calling court records trying to find this stuff, but so far, it doesn`t appear to be on file. So, no, we will not know for some time exactly what was taken unless the President wants to tell us. And you know, it`s possible because we learned when his lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, his former election lawyer was the target of an FBI and inspector general search warrant. Clark then contested that warrant in court. And as a result of that, we learned that they seized his phone. So, we may learn more about this. At the moment, we do not know what they -- what they took.
MENENDEZ: Ken, speaking of statements from the President, I wonder what you make of this admission by the President that he and his team are cooperating with investigators?
DILANIAN: I mean, we I would take that with a complete grain of salt. There`s been some reporting that his lawyers are in touch with the Justice Department. That that makes perfect sense. I mean, he`s got a lot of experienced lawyers who are going to want to reach out and find out what exactly the Justice Department wants with their clients, what questions they have, what actions they`re taking. Whether he`s cooperating is another matter.
Has he spoken to investigators on any of these cases? We have no idea. So, I think we should be very careful about any kind of statement to that effect.
MENENDEZ: A grain of salt that is always well reminded. Ken Dilanian, thank you as always.
DILANIAN: You bet.
MENENDEZ: Frank Figliuzzi is a former FBI official and an NBC News National Security Analyst. He joins me now. Frank, I want you to pull back the curtain for us and give us a sense of what was necessary on the part of the FBI in order to pull off this raid.
FIGLIUZZI: First, as Ken alluded to, this is done in secrecy. You want to very hold -- close hold team, it`s not something that you discuss at the watercooler with your squad. In fact, you know, it`s unclear right now, since we are uncertain what this is about. And it could be about multiple things at once because people may have thought, you know what, we may just get one crack at this. So, if we`ve got anything else that we want to look for, let`s put it in there. If there`s evidence of crimes that we want to put in there in more than one case, let`s do that.
But we don`t even know, Alicia, what is called the office of origin. Is it Washington Field Office at the FBI? That would be very interesting. Is it the Miami Field Office, which would imply that it`s more centered about Florida activity and that residence, so that -- even that would be a clue. Is it the New York Field Office? We don`t know who the affiant is, but that will be a clue looking at the agents name, if we ever get to see this affidavit, and seeing where that agent is assigned. That would be of interest to us.
Then, of course, you`ve got to go to a magistrate and bring them in and say, you know, you want to do that with us with some secrecy and discretion, but you also want to say to him or her, are you going to be around tomorrow morning, because we need to talk to you, right? We need to set an hour or two aside for you tomorrow morning, right? That has to be locked in.
Of course, the entire chain needs to sign off on this, not only at FBI Headquarters but all the way up the chain at the Department of Justice. And then evidence teams need to be put on standby. And they may not have been told exactly where they`re going until the last minute, but hey, we`re going to stage in West Palm Beach. We`re at a hotel or something. Let`s meet at this parking lot. And we`re going to proceed forward to our target site.
Agents, by the way, don`t like the word raid. They don`t like it. It sounds like it`s some kind of, you know, extra due to judicial non-legal thing. It`s the execution of a search warrant. It`s a court-authorized search warrant. I`m sure we`re now going to be in for days of ranting and raving even at CPAC. Over the weekend, there was a Congressman from Arizona who called for the defunding of the FBI before this even happened. So, we`re in for more of that. I`m sure they`re hunkering down for that.
But the word raid, they don`t like it. They want to say they executed a search warrant all of that going on meticulous searching. Even, you know, I`ve seen situations where devices, electronic devices, thumb drives are being searched for and they actually have dogs. I`m not saying that dogs are being used, but if we see dogs as part of this team, it would be a clue that they`re possibly searching for thumb drives and other electronic devices.
MENENDEZ: Yes, I was going to ask you what you make of the New York Times reporting that this is about classified documents that the former president may have taken with him to Mar-a-Lago.
[20:10:00]
FIGLIUZZI: Yes, that`s the simplest explanation. It could be, again, a multitude of things. If they`re -- if they`re planning ahead and thinking, you know, do we want to tip our hand and put something else in this what`s going to become this very scrutinized affidavit or do we want to just eliminate this and just send the message that we`re about getting our documents back, the U.S. government wants its documents back.
It`s likely to convince a magistrate or judge that a crime occurred. That - - if I were that judge, I`d say, hey, tell me about the negotiations. Why do you have to do this? Because judges often ask, is a search warrant the actual -- are we at that point? Are you sure this is the best way you can do this to go into someone`s home? And the agents have to respond with a history of all the negotiating that`s gone on with National Archives if indeed, that`s what this is about. Hey, you know, he told us, he has everything, he`s given us everything but we have sources telling us he hasn`t, or he stopped talking to us or, you know, we have reason to believe there`s a national security issue going on. That would have to be discussed with the judge as well.
MENENDEZ: You know, there were a lot of nutty things from the former president`s statement. One that I want to pull out and get you to respond to is this conflation of the FBI with the Democratic Party. How dangerous is that for the FBI for this country?
FIGLIUZZI: Oh, boy, it`s been now a few years, Alicia, where, you know, they`ve just been beat up with the, you know, with the perceived politicizing of the agency. It is one of the worst things that could happen, quite frankly. And you know, it started back with public perceptions. You know, half the country thinking Jim Comey did the right thing, half of them thinking he did the wrong thing when he announced that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute Hillary Clinton in the email case. And then here came both sides saying that`s wrong and that that debacle.
And now it`s a no win situation, right? I`m just -- you know, I`m just telling you based on my 25 years with the FBI, they keep their head down, they work with federal career prosecutors. They`re not politicians. They don`t talk about who they voted for, you know, around the water cooler. It`s just -- they`re just trying to do their job. And if there`s evidence of crime and a judge signed off on an affidavit, then you`ve got yourself a search warrant.
MENENDEZ: Frank, you and I talked about the work that leads up to a moment like this. We talked about the work that happens today. What is the work that follows in the days ahead?
FIGLIUZZI: Well, let`s -- we`re engaged in conjecture and I definitely appreciate Ken Dilanian`s admonition that we`ve got to be careful. We don`t know exactly what this is about yet. So -- but whatever case it`s about, first and foremost, before they leave the property tonight, right, if they`re still there or not, they`re going to leave -- whoever`s in charge, whoever that is, if it`s not Trump because he`s not there, then there`ll be some caretaker appointed, maybe a lawyer, a local lawyer may have come over at Trump`s request, and that person will be handed a receipt and say -- the`ll say, here`s the things that we took, right? And maybe Trump will wave it around tomorrow and say, look at this, they took -- they took this and that, but it`s a receipt. So, nothing is done in secret.
You know, even his statement, obviously, he said this was an unannounced search warrant. Well, yes, that`s right. It was -- because we don`t call, right? The FBI is not going to call and go, hey, we`re going to be stopping by at 5:00 to get all the stuff you`re hiding from us.
MENENDEZ: Is this a good time for you because -- yes. All right, Frank Figliuzzi, as always --
FIGLIUZZI: Yes, right, one makes sure it`s a good time.
MENENDEZ: It works for you. Frank Figliuzzi, as always, thank you.
Joyce Vance is a former U.S. attorney and a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama. She`s an NBC News Legal Analyst, and she joins me now. Joyce, legally speaking, what is it tell you that the FBI was able to execute a warrant at a home of the former president?
JOYCE VANCE, NBC NEWS ANALYST: So, with the caveats that some of your earlier guests have had that we don`t know the precise crimes that are being investigated, process-wise, what the search warrant means is that a federal judge or a magistrate judge in the Southern District of Florida was convinced that the government had probable cause to believe that crimes had been committed and that evidence or fruits of those crimes would be found at Mar-a-Lago.
I can`t underline how significant and serious this is. Judges aren`t in the habit of making, you know, these decisions flying by the seat of their pants. They evaluate the evidence very carefully. I suspect, in this case, much more so. And before this search warrant was ever taken to a judge for sign off on the warrant, it would have been evaluated both along the DOJ and the FBI lines of authority to ensure that everything had been carefully put together and that there was probable cause.
And I guess the last thing that we should say is what is probable cause mean. It means that there is evidence that suggests not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, like what we would see in a criminal trial, but there are convincing reasons to believe not just that the crime took place, that there will be specific evidence that the warrant identifies of that crime found in the place to be searched.
[20:15:12]
MENENDEZ: Understanding that there is still a lot we do not know, the story is still developing, what is it tell you about the future of investigations into the former president? Where to go next?
VANCE: You know, There --yes, there are a number of different reasons, you might execute a search warrant. Sometimes you do it early on when you`re looking for evidence. It could even be evidence that`s not related to the former president as the subject or target of an investigation. Sometimes though, Alicia, executing a search warrant like this is the very last thing you do before you file charges.
And then because there`s some suggestion here that this is about documents, you know, the National Archives, they`re very vigilant about getting their documents back, both because there`s criminal investigation, but also because on the national security side of the house, you`ve got to make sure that nothing sensitive has leaked out that has damaged the national security. Those investigations are conducted as rigorously as the ones on the criminal side.
MENENDEZ: I got to ask you, as I was reading this statement from the former President, Joyce, if you were his attorney, what is the danger or what is the value of releasing a statement like that in the midst of this?
VANCE: So, Trump is going to be Trump, right? He often has difficulty not making a statement -- now, he can`t do it on Twitter -- when he would be far better served by silence. If you`re his lawyer, what you`re doing is you`re saying don`t say anything because, you know, if you don`t say anything, it can`t come back and bite you down the road in investigation or perhaps when you`re in front of a jury.
Sometimes with Trump, he`s so self-revelatory in these statements that often there`s fodder that permits investigators or journalists to understand what he`s thinking and what he`s doing. If he`s listening to his lawyers, we will not hear anything more from him tonight.
MENENDEZ: I got to ask you because I asked Frank about the conflation of the FBI with the Democratic Party. One other little bit from that statement that jumped out at me was Trump calling this a weaponization of the justice system. It seems rich coming from him.
VANCE: Trump appointed the current director of the FBI Chris Wray, a well- respected former prosecutor from Atlanta who has run the FBI ever since Trump put him in place after Trump had some problem with his prior directors, nothing on their behalf more on Trump`s behalf. So, look, the FBI is not a creature of a political party. In fact, they hold themselves above the political fray. Everyone at the agency understands that their credibility depends on their objectivity.
But this is exactly what we would expect to see Trump doing. He, of course, infamously early in his presidency, took steps to undercut the confidence that Americans had always had in both the National Intelligence Services, and also in law enforcement, including the FBI, at one point going so far as to call agents out by name.
So, every time we see him pulling this sort of a card and pretending that the FBI is a political agency and that this is just a witch hunt, we should remember that these are the sorts of tactics used by typically criminal defendants or people under investigation when they`re desperate, when they don`t have a real response to charges. And something that`s for certain is that the search warrant that would have been served in this case would have at least let Trump appreciate what sorts of documents or other items of evidence were being removed from Mar-a-Lago.
So, he probably of any of us has the best sense of what the FBI was looking at today. The fact that he`s just pulling out the old canard about the FBI being part of the Democratic Party shows you that he`s not in a good situation tonight knowing what the agents have against him.
MENENDEZ: Joyce Vance, as always, thank you so much for being with us.
Coming up, more on the FBI raid of Donald Trump`s Florida home. That`s next.
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[20:20:00]
MENENDEZ: If you`re just joining us in a truly unprecedented event, the Florida home of Donald Trump has been raided by the FBI. Trump who is currently in New York City issued a lengthy statement where he claimed to be cooperating with a government investigation and tried to frame the execution of the search warrant as a politically motivated attack against him.
Betsy Woodruff Swan is a National Correspondent at Politico where she has extensively covered the various investigations into Donald Trump`s attempted coup. Peter Baker is the Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times where he covered the Trump presidency and its fallout. They join us now.
Betsy, I know you have been working the phones talking with your sources. What more can you tell us about this developing story?
BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN, POLITICO, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we`ve confirmed that this is related to documents that the National Archives has been trying to recover from Trump documents that he allegedly improperly took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
What I can tell you is months ago, agents went to Mar-a-Lago met with Trump`s lawyers, went through boxes, looked at documents, and then took some materials with them after they left. Months have now passed. And now today, we`re seeing a search warrant be executed in Mar-a-Lago. The timing is really important here, because in order to get a search warrant like this, investigators have to prove not just that they could think -- they think there was -- that they think there`s probable cause there`s evidence of crime at a particular location, but they think there`s evidence of a crime at a particular location and also at a specific time.
[20:25:29]
So, what that means is that the agents who got a green light from a judge to execute this search warrant, essentially came to the conclusion that they didn`t get the full story from Trump and his allies when they had that first conversation or that that at least one conversation several months earlier. It means they view this as a live issue. They view criminal activity, potentially, as -- they view evidence of criminal activity potentially as available at this location.
Of course, Trump hinted at that a little bit in his statement. In the statement, he referred to or alluded to the fact that there was already, you know, some sort of communication or cooperation between his team and federal law enforcement. Obviously, what Trump is trying to characterize as sufficient did not meet the FBI`s sufficiency standards. And that`s why we`re seeing this really extraordinary new step be taken today.
This is the type of step that would have been approved at the very highest levels of the Justice Department all the way up, because it`s so politically electric. DOJ officials know that this stuff is politically electric. I spoke to one current DOJ official a little bit earlier who`s not working on this case but had a prosecutor`s perspective on it. And what this person said is, it`s just almost inconceivable that FBI agents and the Justice Department would go to a judge and feel they could persuade a judge, they had probable cause to execute a warrant like this if they weren`t -- if they weren`t just rock solid convinced that when they executed the search warrant, they would find what they were looking for.
Now, we don`t know that for sure. Sometimes prosecutorial overreach happens. Sometimes the FBI and the Justice Department make mistakes. These are fallible human imperfect institutions. But the view within DOJ certainly would be they were very, very, very confident when they got this warrant that when they showed up at Mar-a-Lago, they would get what they were looking for.
MENENDEZ: Peter Baker, what is it telling you that the FBI was able to execute a search warrant at the home -- a home of the former president?
PETER BAKER, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, it does tell you this something important is going on, right? To Betsy`s point, it`s not just that there are a few memos here or documents that they`d like very much to have back, please. They`re either very important documents or as Betsy suggested, there was something more going on here in terms of not being honest with the government, not coming clean on what was going on here.
They would not take such an extraordinary step that would require approval at the highest levels of Justice Department involving that home of a former president just for a few pieces of paper, unless there`s something really significant involved here. They must think that this is important. We don`t know enough about what kind of documents or classified papers that might still be there that they will be looking for. That`s something obviously we will be looking to find out more about that he would probably be the first know.
But it will be telling because it will I think give some clue to the way the Justice Department is thinking about this former president at this time. And they knew going in that he was going to make the kind of complaint that he did in his statement, that he would call it political but he would try to himself politicize this rate. And they were willing to take that risk knowing it because they thought something important was at stake here.
MENENDEZ: Betsy, you and I were supposed to sit here tonight prior to this news breaking and talk about other development in the investigation. I wonder now how you see that as a tee up to this moment.
SWAN: What we`ve learned just today is that a former federal prosecutor is representing Trump before the Justice Department, specifically, at least on the narrow topic of how executive privilege, relates to some former very senior White House staffers. That former federal prosecutor who`s been involved in communication between Trump world and the Justice Department is named John Rowley.
He`s someone who, in private practice over a career of several decades, has worked on multiple national security cases and some complex multinational litigation, someone who has frankly an impressive resume and having worked both in the Eastern District of Virginia, one of the most prestigious and important U.S. Attorney`s offices, and also who`s done stints at a number of high profile white shoe law firms.
What`s also notable is that Mr. Rowley who we now have confirmed as representing Trump with the Justice Department also represents a host of other people who are connected to the January 6 probe. Court filings show he`s worked with Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who is allied with Trump after the election show. They show he`s also worked with Stephen Miller, of course, the extremely well-known former senior Trump White House official who has sued the January 6 Committee. And he`s represented Congressman Scott Perry, a Republican member of Congress from Pennsylvania who played a role in Trump`s post-election efforts to try to reverse the election outcome.
[20:30:34]
So, the knowledge that we have now that John Rowley is on Trump`s legal team and is specifically dealing with federal prosecutors on his behalf just highlights the extent to which it`s more and more clear that Trump himself and people in his immediate circle are taking his legal problems seriously, are viewing the potential jeopardy he faces as a real issue, and are bringing on people who have the kind of experience that would be very much relevant to the investigations that Trump is facing.
MENENDEZ: And Peter, prior to this breaking news, you and I are supposed to sit here and talk about some of your exquisite reporting in the New Yorker about some of the former president`s autocratic tendencies, sort of his knee-jerk reaction toward being the victim. How does what we are watching unfold fit into that larger pattern?
BAKER: Yes, actually, it does quite conveniently, in fact, because the piece in The New Yorker which is an excerpt from our new book my wife, Susan Glasser, and I have written called The Divider which comes out next month, focuses on President Trump`s relationship with his generals and how he, in their view, anyway, tried to politicize the media -- sorry, politicize the military. And that`s, I think, telling because it`s also what you see in the statement he issued tonight.
To him, the FBI, the military, the Justice Department, he tried to politicize all of them, and he sees them in completely political light. If they are going after him, he`s therefore going to cast them in a political light rather than accept the idea that there may be, you know, some sort of legal issue to be dealt with here. And it -- and it works. You know, already you see on Twitter all of his supporters and allies talking about how this is illegitimate even though they don`t have a clue about what`s in the search warrant because they haven`t seen it yet.
All of them are casting it in a political way this is a banana republic. This is Biden, you know, taking revenge, all that kind of thing, without any knowledge about what`s going on here. That`s the instinctive reaction, and that`s the one he wants to encourage because it just credits in his view, any potential legal liability, at least with his supporters,
MENENDEZ: With no regard to how dangerous that is for our democracy. Betsy Woodruff Swan, Peter Baker, as always, thank you both so much. More on this extraordinary raid of Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, including the political fallout, that`s next.
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[20:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Trump, can we get your reaction to the raid? Mr. Trump, can we get your reaction to the raid, sir?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: There you see it, the former president of the United States in New York City today being asked to respond to the big news of the day Donald Trump moments ago leaving Trump Tower as our producer Adam Reese just tried to ask him about the Mar-a-Lago raid.
David Plouffe was the campaign manager on Barack Obama`s 2008 presidential campaign, served as a senior adviser to President Obama. Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. They both join me now. David Plouffe, I mean, if you are Republicans and you are watching this all unfold, just how worried are you?
DAVID PLOUFFE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Alicia, this is an unprecedented event so I think we should be careful about trying to evaluate where the politics go. I think it`s easier though, to hazard a guess about `24, a year in question, which is this is another brick on the wagon of someone who`s very damaged, and I think Republicans want to win back the White House more than anything.
So his hardcore fans, the MAGA faithful will see `24 as a way to avenge him. But this is one more piece of evidence that they probably need to look for a different standard. I don`t know how it`s going to affect 22. I`m sure Republicans, most of them anyway, will try and use this to juice turnout. But I think it certainly adds I think, to the very significant historical baggage Trump has as he thinks about a rerun in 23` and `24.
And I think we see a lot of research now, qualitative research, quantitative research, he`s still a very strong firm one, but there`s big crack showing. And I think this may be the biggest crack of all which is if you nominate this guy, you better be careful, because he may be the one Republican, potentially he would say, has the hardest road to the White House, in which I think both parties will see `24 as a must win election.
MENENDEZ: Dr. Greer, your thoughts.
CHRISTINA GREER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: I agree with David in the sense that you know, when we think about turnout for 2022, this will definitely again, motivate the hardcore Trump fans. But I think it will also motivate Democrats who`ve been wanting to see the DOJ and the FBI really move forward with what is been criminal activity during the entire tenure of the Trump White House and even afterwards, as we discover, you know, more missing documents and flushed documents, etcetera.
I think the one person who might be somewhat relieved or excited might be the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. I mean, as we`ve seen, you know, some of the Republican or right-leaning media has been slowly but surely leaving away from Donald Trump. Obviously, his hardcore fans will not be going anywhere. This will definitely galvanize them.
[20:40:05]
But I think Republicans who desperately want to either win the House or the Senate or both, they`re definitely looking at 2024, are going to start putting their eggs in a different basket because the amount of baggage and vitriol that`s going to come from Donald Trump in the next few days and weeks might just be too much for a lot of Republicans to stomach.
And this might actually be the straw where they say -- you know, who really want to win back in 2024, who really want to have successes in 2022. This is actually not a strategy. But we do know that Donald Trump will continue to, you know, tweet out -- not tweet out but send out incendiary comments linking this to Hillary Clinton somehow, miraculously, that has nothing to do with it. I`m sure we`ll hear a lot about Hunter Biden. I`m sure we`ll hear that this is a Biden witch hunt.
But I think it`s really important that, you know, Independence, Democrats, and hopefully some Republicans will look at the facts and see that this has been a slow road, but it`s a road that will hopefully strengthen our American democracy, which has been very fragile these last few years in a post-Trump presidency.
MENENDEZ: David Plouffe, Dr. Greer just sort of laid out some of the former president`s Greatest Hits. And if you go through this statement, there is more conflating the FBI with the Democratic Party attacking the justice system in this country. As someone who has read many political statements, right, I wonder what you make of the decision on the part of the former president to position himself once again as a victim.
PLOUFFE: It`s the only song he knows. So, you know, this is somebody who wants to be an autocrat. He`s really upset that he failed to turn the military, turn the FBI, turn all the rest of the intelligence agencies, basically into Trumpist. He is opposed to the notion of rule of law. So, we should expect -- and it`s not just going to be Trump, I`m sure Fox News in the evening all week is going to follow suit.
But I think what is interesting, if you do think about the politics, I mean, sadly, it`s probably only 75 percent, but 75 percent or 80 percent of Americans still believe no one`s above the law, even a former president, who at this point is just an American citizen. And so, I do think that maybe in 22, it adds to whether it`s abortion, gun control, a lot of non- economic issues -- Republicans have nominate a lot of weak Senate candidates -- and now you`ve got this another example. And the entire party, for the most part, with just a couple of notable exceptions, is all in on the Trump show.
So, I do think potentially, it has an effect in 22. But certainly in `24 it adds to the sense that this is a guy with historical problems. And there`s going to be a lot of people like DeSantis and others who will say, you know what, you can get all the macro policy stuff without all this other stuff, and sort of legal MAGA, if you will. And so -- but I think that statement is, you know, if you study him over the past decades, not just his last few years in politics, this is his MO.
MENENDEZ: Right. I think what is complicated about that, Dr. Greer, is that if you can sort of have all the Trumpism without Trump. The Trump ism has so deeply seeped into this Republican Party. Even the autocratic tendencies have so deeply seeped in that I`m not sure it is a distinction without a difference -- difference, yes.
GREER: Well, I mean, sadly, the Republican Party has turned into the party of Donald Trump and extremism. So, we do see, you know, Governor Youngkin and his little lands invest saying many, you know, vitriolic and incendiary things, same with Governor DeSantis, and we`ve seen it across the country. We`ve seen the Senate candidates in battleground states who are election deniers and, you know, trying to come into office in a Trump sort of umbrella.
I think, though, you know, David is incredibly correct, though. You know, why not, you know, pitch to the RNC and to the larger party to say you can get all of these policies where we can, you know, take rights away from women and people of color and all the things and you just -- you don`t have the baggage of Trump.
MENENDEZ: David Plouffe, Christina Greer, as always thank you both.
Coming up, the multiple investigations into Donald Trump and the multiple raids on his associates and how they could relate to the FBI searching Mar- a-Lago today. Next.
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[20:45:00]
MENENDEZ: Today`s FBI action at Donald Trump`s home at Mar-a-Lago is just the latest a string of FBI raids on key figures in the investigation into January 6. Back in June, we learned that the FBI ceased a cell phone belonging to John Eastman, you know, the lawyer to Donald Trump and author of the infamous coup memo. That came on the same day that federal agents raided Jeffrey Clark`s home and Clark opened the door in his underwear.
Clark of course, the former Department of Justice official who supported Trump`s claims of election fraud and tried to help him overturn the results. And tonight, we are learning more about what went down at the ex- president`s residence in Mar-a-Lago.
Harry Litman is a former U.S. Attorney and a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He is the legal affairs columnist at the Los Angeles Times. Jill Wine Banks is a former Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor and former General Counsel for the U.S. Army. They both join me now.
Harry Litman, you heard me just dial through all of those. Do you see it as part of a pattern?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Certainly, but there`s a really big point, Alicia, that I`m not sure others have focused on to date. This is by far not the one of the biggest crimes he`s been charged with but it carries the penalty that someone who`s convicted of it is disqualified from running for future federal office.
So, 18 USC 2071, if he destroyed records -- and by the way, when they came and talked to him a few months ago and carted stuff away, you had -- much of it was documents that had been ripped up, you had just today pictures of him stuffing things down the toilet. They may have decided to go after this. Disqualify him from future office, secure a conviction and have that be the broad resolution of the whole problem Trump. That in any event, it`s huge, but this, you know, feature of it that he couldn`t run for office in the future is really a an enormous aspect of it. [20:50:58]
MENENDEZ: Jill, I want your thoughts on everything top to bottom, but I had to speak with you specifically about the former president making a comparison to Watergate here, so I`m going to read it one more time for our viewers. What is the difference between this and Watergate where operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee? Here in reverse Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.
There was a viewer on Twitter who thought I was making that argument. I would like to clarify that was not me, that was former President Donald Trump. I don`t even know what to say, Jill.
JILL WINE BANKS, FORMER ASSISTANT WATERGATE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I heard it, I laughed uproariously because that is one of the funniest and silliest and saddest commentaries that I have ever heard from the President, former President, and he`s made plenty of them. Of course, the difference is that suites conducted after a judge determined that there was probable cause to enter the premises identified in the search warrant to look for a crime, this was done under the law, not in violation of the law.
The break in at the Watergate was the crime. It was an illegal burglary. They entered without any legal authority. They were not agents of the FBI. They were former CIA agents. But that was not what their current job was. So, there`s a huge difference between the FBI having a legitimate warrant from a legitimate judge then breaking in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters. This is how our law works. And that`s very important for people to understand and to remember that a judge determined there was probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence would be obtained by entering Mar-a-Lago. That says a lot.
MENENDEZ: I only have about a minute left, but I want to get you each in on the same question. Harry, starting with you, where does this go next?
LITMAN: Possibly it goes to a charge of just this crime. The vast majority of people who have search warrants served on them are charged. Now, we thought it was part of a bigger deal, but for the reason I said, this might be where the DOJ is heading.
MENENDEZ: Jill?
BANKS: I love what Harry said. I agree that having a disbarment from running for office is a very immediate and necessary goal. This or 2383 which is the insurrection statute both carry that penalty, and that`s important. I think we should continue the investigation beyond this. All the other possible tentacles of the conspiracy that has been laid out whether it`s the pence or the state legislators or the fake electors, there are so many things to look at that are important. But this could be a very good and big first step. This is amazing news for tonight.
MENENDEZ: Harry Litman, Jill Wine Banks, thank you both so much.
I want to turn now to NBC News Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss. Michael, thank you so much for jumping in the chair. I wanted to make sure we got a chance to speak.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thank you.
MENENDEZ: I have asked this question 10 different ways, but I think the way I`m asking of you is the most important, which is, you know, there`s what this means legally, there is what this means politically, and then there is what this means for our country and for our democracy. So, understanding that this is unprecedented, what is going through your mind as you watch today`s events unfold?
BESCHLOSS: Well, just in case there are any younger people watching, and I`m sure there are, you know, don`t think that this is something that has ever happened before in American history. Let`s pause for a second to look at how weird and horrible this is. You know, the FBI is going in to search the house of an ex-president because there`s serious suspicion that a federal crime was committed here. You know, they don`t do this is just for fun. So, that`s something serious, number one.
Number two, the reason we are finding out that they probably did it, at least in part tonight, is something called the Presidential Records Act. And you know, Alicia, tonight of all things is the exact anniversary of the night that Richard Nixon resigned and was driven from office to keep from having to go to prison.
As a result of Nixon, Presidential Records Act 1978 said, a president can`t just take, you know, documents out with him when he leaves, can`t destroy them, can`t give it to a friendly intelligence service or some other country, can`t sell them on eBay, has to preserve these things and protect them, and make sure that they are under the ages of the National Archives. That`s a real law.
If Donald Trump violated that law, and we may find that the FBI is finding evidence of that tonight, that has real penalties, including the fact that he may never be able to serve in federal office ever again.
[20:55:55]
MENENDEZ: I take your description of what happened today weird and horrible and imagine that one day my two daughters will read a history book where today goes down as weird and horrible.
BESCHLOSS: Right.
MENENDEZ: There`s what happened prior to today, which you and I have talked about a lot, there is what happened today. There`s also the what is going to unfold politically in the days ahead, right? A potential inflection point for members of the former president`s party where they can decide if they want to stay all in or they can decide to opt out. Talk to me about sort of the precipice that the party is on in this moment.
BESCHLOSS: Well, I have felt that a lot of these Republican leaders and Republican voters who love Donald Trump, love what he did, can`t understand what`s wrong. Once they see the FBI raiding his house, once they see him potentially indicted, once they see him fingerprinted, even for people who are not schooled in the fine points of law, someone is going to get the notion that maybe not only is this not a president in the mold of anyone else that we have ever seen before, but also for Republicans who are eager to elect Republicans to Congress this fall and to the White House two years from now, I think they may finally get the memo that this guy may not turn out to be very electable.
MENENDEZ: What I don`t need to tell you, Michael Beschloss, because you know it well is that there will be people who will turn a corner and there will also be people who take the former president at face value when he tells them that the Democratic Party and the FBI are one in the same when he tells them that the justice system in this country is not to be believed.
What does that look like, right? What does that mean for our democracy in the days and weeks ahead, that there are still going to be a significant group of Americans who was listening to the former president as this all unfolds?
BESCHLOSS: Well, it`s disgusting and it`s heartbreaking because, Alicia, let`s turn the clock back to early 2015 before he and his wife walked down the golden elevator and he gave that speech announcing most Americans had faith in the rule of law. Most people felt that if an FBI raided an ex- president`s house, God forbid, there must be a reason for it.
And Donald Trump for seven years has been assaulting that principle with the enormous bully pulpit that a president has and the conservative media sphere. And as a result, if Richard Nixon, for instance, who, as I say, resigned tonight in 1974, if he had been shown to have the crimes that Nixon committed in 1974 yet you had a conservative media sphere saying Nixon has been treated badly, unfairly, he really isn`t guilty.
I think that in the 2022 arrangement, Nixon might very well have gotten off and serve the rest of his time in office.
MENENDEZ: I got to ask you. My question is, if you are this former president, why are you going out of your way to invoke Watergate? I`ve got about 60 seconds left.
BESCHLOSS: Because he thinks -- he was very friendly with Richard Nixon in their last few years oddly enough. He wrote him letters to Nixon saying, I think you were one of the greatest presidents in history. He shared Roy Cohn, his lawyer, you know, known for his horrible tactics with Richard Nixon and others.
So, this is not someone who sees Watergate the way that most historians do which is until now the worst effort by a president to break his oath and steal our democracy. What Donald Trump did on January 6 and as far as I`m concerned for the last seven years, puts Watergate way in the shade.
MENENDEZ: Michael Beschloss, what are you looking for in the days and weeks ahead?
BESCHLOSS: I`m looking for any movement in those Republicans who, you know, most of their careers have spent believing in the rule of law, talking about the difference between right and wrong. If you saw CPAC, you saw senators who for years you might not have agreed with them on policy, but you thought that they observed the law. That`s changing. Maybe this will help to change it back.
MENENDEZ: Michael Beschloss, as always, thank you so much. That is ALL IN on this Monday night, this big Monday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Hi, Rachel.