Summary
A U.S. federal judge has unsealed the search warrant used on former President Donald Trump`s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The search warrant shows the Justice Department recovered high-level `top secret` documents during a raid and the former president is under investigation for potentially violating the Espionage Act. Donald Trump`s lawyer today completely debunked Donald Trump`s own lie that the FBI might have planted evidence at Donald Trump`s home. It turns out Donald Trump was watching the entire search of his home on close circuit television.
Transcript
ALI VELSHI, NBC SENIOR ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Rushdie was taken via helicopter to a trauma hospital in nearby Pennsylvania for surgery. A few hours ago, his agent released a statement with an unfortunate update saying that Rushdie is currently on a ventilator, unable to speak, and likely to lose an eye.
It`s terrible, terrible news today about one of the world`s finest living novelists, and he is in our thoughts.
That`s it for tonight. Rachel is back on Monday and "Alex Wagner Tonight" starts on Tuesday. I`m always grateful for your time and the time that I get to spend with one of the best teams of journalists in the business. Time now for THE LAST WORD with Lawrence O`Donnell. Lawrence, it has been one busy week.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: It has been, Ali. I was literally at sea today, literally, when the news came about what was in the search warrant. And we turned the boat around and came right back here. And there is so much to report tonight.
VELSHI: I`m looking forward to it. I`m glad you`re back. See you, my friend. Have a good show.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. The United States of America versus Donald J. Trump. That will be the legal title of the case if there is a criminal prosecution of Donald Trump based on the results of the FBI investigation outlined in the federal search warrant of Donald Trump`s home that was made public today.
Donald Trump`s 76-year-old knees will weaken if he ever stands in a federal courtroom and here`s the title of that case announced, the United States of America versus Donald J. Trump. Every federal criminal defendant feels crushed when they hear those two things announced, the United States of America versus John Doe. John Doe collapses when he hears that, whoever the John Doe is.
Donald Trump has just suffered the worst legal week of his life. The only way his legal life can get worse from here is for him to actually be charged with a crime, as he may be in Georgia, as we will discuss later in this hour, and in Washington by the Justice Department in what we now know is a multi-pronged federal criminal investigation of Donald Trump.
This is the week that we learned that the ripest of the federal criminal investigations of Donald Trump is the one we now know the most about, his misuse of government records, including classified information.
Think back to one week ago tonight at this time. We had no idea that this investigation was underway. But one week ago, last Friday, in a secret proceeding in a Florida federal court, a federal judge approved a Justice Department request for a search warrant of Donald Trump`s home. And so, at this very hour, last Friday, the FBI had their search warrant. They had what they needed to go search a former president`s home.
In the search warrant released today, it says that the search warrant was signed and approved by the court on August 5th, 2022. That is last Friday. The FBI spent the weekend preparing for the search, which they quietly began Monday morning.
And as the sun was setting over Mar-a-Lago on Monday night, Donald Trump decided to publicly reveal that a large number of FBI agents executed a search warrant at his home that day. That`s how we found out about it on Monday night. From Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, Rudy Giuliani`s lawyers demanded to know whether he is a criminal target of the Fulton County grand jury investigation of election fraud in Georgia. And on Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee won its case in a federal court of appeals to obtain Donald Trump`s tax returns.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump took the Fifth Amendment 440 times in under oath questioning and an investigation by New York State`s attorney general. And also, that day, too much of the news media fell for Donald Trump`s false framing that the search warrant story would somehow be good for him politically.
On Thursday, a crazed Trump supporter who was at the Capitol on January 6th, decided it was time to go to war against the FBI after hearing so much republican condemnation of the FBI this week, including from Donald Trump. That Trump supporter fired a nail gun at an FBI field office in Cincinnati, injuring no one, then led police on a car chase that turned into a six-hour standoff, at the end of which the Trump supporter wielding an AR-15 was shot dead by police.
Republicans and Donald Trump did not tone down their hate rhetoric aimed at the FBI after that.
[22:05:04]
O`DONNELL: While that standoff was going on, on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland made a four-minute announcement saying he personally authorized the search of Donald Trump`s home and that he was authorizing federal prosecutors to ask the judge in the case to make the search warrant public.
And today, Donald Trump decided not to oppose the Justice Department`s request to make the search warrant public. And so late this afternoon, a federal court in Florida released the search warrant. The search warrant says that the FBI was searching for material that was -- quote -- "illegally possessed."
That was their phrase, "illegally possessed" by Donald Trump, including -- quote -- "national defense information or classified material," or "any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction or concealment of any government and/or presidential records or of any documents with classification markings."
The search warrant indicated that the Justice Department is investigating possible violations of three laws against hiding, removing or destroying classified material, gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.
The inventory of the completed search, a copy of which was given to Donald Trump, lists over 30 items, including -- quote -- "miscellaneous top-secret documents, miscellaneous secret documents, info regarding president of France, and executive grant of clemency regarding Roger Jason Stone, Jr."
Leading off our discussion tonight is Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general, Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel, former chief of the criminal division of the Eastern District of New York, and professor of Practice at NYU Law School. They are both MSNBC legal analysts. Also joining us is Bradley Moss, a national security attorney.
And Andrew Weissmann, let me begin with you and what you have found in this search warrant that tells us -- that might tell us where we are going legally here.
ANDREW WEISSMANN, MSNBC NEWS LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL, FORMER CHIEF OF THE CRIMINAL DIVISION OF THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, PROFESSOR AT NYU LAW SCHOOL: There are a couple of things that are quite notable. I think before we saw the information today, there are a number of people, including myself, who thought that what was going on in this search was the Justice Department simply retrieving information that is vital to the national security of the United States, and very secondarily concerned about a potential criminal case, meaning that his was more of a retrieval operation than anything involving a crime.
However, the information that was set out in the material that was unsealed this afternoon suggests that this really could be the subject of a viable and, I think, very strong criminal case for which there is precedent for bringing such a case.
And that`s because not only did they allege that there was serious information that they wanted to find in Mar-a-Lago of a classified nature, but this was top secret compartmentalized information. That is the most sensitive information that the government has. And it was found. Not only did they seek it, but it actually was found, and there were lots of it.
Furthermore, by charging 1519, the obstruction statute, that is a huge aggregating factor, meaning not only did he possess the most classified information that the government has, but he obstructed justice.
So, those are both very serious crimes, and all you have to do is look at let`s say General Petraeus who was charged for, I think, offenses that pale in comparison to what appears to be the case here.
O`DONNELL: We have a defense tonight issued via Fox from a Trump spokesperson, a statement, and it is -- Bradley Moss, tell me what your legal reaction to this is.
This is the statement. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, to the residents. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office taken to the residents were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.
[22:09:58]
O`DONNELL: Bradley Moss, that is the defense as of this hour tonight.
BRADLEY MOSS, NATIONAL SECURITY ATTORNEY: Yeah, well, first, let`s (INAUDIBLE) this, Lawrence. The idea that Donald Trump was going to the residents with things to read at night, you know, come on, if you believe that, I`ve got a bridge to sell you in Alaska. But no, there is no evidence that there was some standing order, and even if there was, we have no reason to believe the White House was enforcing that.
That would be insane to try to enforce. That would mean staff officials would have to follow him to the residents every single time he brought those documents with him to make sure to cross out markings and stamp it declassified so that other officials, when they saw it, knew it could be handled as unclassified. There is no indication any of that happened.
He`s flailing about -- he is throwing everything he can at the wall. He`s previewing a defense he might have if it`s a criminal case. None of this is going to hold up.
O`DONNELL: And Neal Katyal, it strikes me as, well, nothing short of madness. I mean, first of all, let`s just not insult the audiences` intelligence. We know this isn`t true. But for the moment, let`s pretend that it was actually true. So, Donald Trump, good student that he is of all the homework he has to do, takes this classified homework with him because something important has to be done about it tomorrow. That`s why he is taking it home tonight to study.
But in the process, he is the classifying this material that was a minute ago incredibly, carefully protected material, and now won`t be. That`s the theory of the behavior they are describing here.
NEAL KATYAL, NBC NEWS LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ACTING SOLICITOR GENERAL, PROFESSOR OF LAW AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: It`s ridiculous, Lawrence, because you don`t get to declassify something just for yourself, you declassify for everything. So, is the claim that every time he brought something home and now just allow the entire federal government and you and me to see are nation`s most sensitive secrets?
We are talking about, you know, sensitive compartmented information. These are covered operations, these are electronic intercepts, all sorts of stuff. It`s ridiculous.
And also, I will point out that the three crimes that were in issue in the warrant today that were named don`t rely on classification at all. In fact, some of them predate our classification regime altogether. So, even if he did, even if he bought this bogus defense, it`s not going to get him out from under these three crimes.
And that`s why, to me, Lawrence, just to put a finer point on what Andrew was saying, the headline is, the former president of the United States is now under an investigation for violation of the Espionage Act and other federal crimes, and things are looking very serious for Donald Trump far more so than -- it`s far more likely that he will face a criminal trial than at any point in his life.
We have already known since Monday, he was the first president, former president to ever have been searched his home. And now, it looks like the FBI found of the goods. And, you know, before I was acting solicitor general, I was national security adviser at the Justice Department and I can tell you, this is incredibly serious stuff that they found.
And yesterday, when we were on the program and we learned about the nuclear revelations, that the FBI was looking for nuclear information and signals intelligence, I said, you know, we have to be cautious. That is just what they are looking for. We don`t know what they will find.
But now, we know today, Lawrence, it`s not just the warrant, it is the documents that the FBI seized, and the documents on that list include SCI, sensitive compartment information, most sensitive information.
And that is why Donald Trump, since Monday, has been, you know, pointing the finger at everyone saying, oh, you know, planted evidence, this and that. I mean, it makes no sense. If the FBI planted this evidence, then what in the world are you talking about the declassifying this information? How can it be that you declassified it if it`s stuff that the FBI planted? It doesn`t make any sense.
One other thing is --
O`DONNELL: Go ahead.
KATYAL: -- if he did declassify it, why he declassified it? Why in the world are you bringing this stuff to your home in Mar-a-Lago now, you`re not the president, with nuclear secrets, evidence about foreign leaders, all sorts of classified information? None of this makes any sense. He is scrambling. It looks very, very bad for him.
O`DONNELL: And to game out the Trump defense here -- and in fairness to Donald Trump, look, we all know he does have the stupidest most incompetent lawyers in America who put the statement together for him tonight.
But, to gain this out, if you have Donald Trump on the witness stand under oath about this, you then ask him, so, when you brought the documents back into the Oval office in the morning, were they automatically reclassified? Was there standing order to automatically reclassify them?
Because apparently, they were such serious important documents that you had to spend the night doing homework on them for the big important meeting the next day.
Andrew Weissmann, do you want to add anything to this defense advanced by Donald Trump tonight?
[22:15:00]
WEISSMANN: Yeah. I just want to sort of reiterate and sort of stress something that Neal said, which is, defense number one that we heard was these documents were planted. In other words, he didn`t know anything about them. This was the FBI just, you know, surreptitiously going in there and putting these documents there, and did it without anyone being president, even though we now know his lawyers were present.
But defense number two is, I declassified the documents. Those are fundamentally inconsistent. So, now, it`s not planted at all. His second defense, which is these are these are declassified, is actually not a legal defense. It is as irrelevant to the charges.
So, we now have a person who by all accounts has committed a serious felony. Actually, serious felonies, plural. There is precedent for people who have done lesser crimes being charged. And remember, Merrick Garland, as somebody who is a former judge, is going to be looking at precedent.
And it is hard to see what the defense is here, because we have heard two completely inconsistent defenses, one of which is not actually a legal defense. In fact, it is much more of an admission to say, I declassified them, because that would mean he actually knows about them and saw the contents.
O`DONNELL: Bradley Moss, there is an event in the timeline that we don`t completely understand yet and that the search warrant documentation does not illuminate.
And that is after a meeting that the Justice Department lawyers had at Mar- a-Lago in June about this, where they were in that storage room looking at what was there and deciding what to do next, one of the things that happens after they leave, in addition to telling them a few days later, you should put a good lock on that door, is they subpoena the Trump resort surveillance video that would presumably show, may show, who is going in and out of that room.
Maybe that video actually includes that room. We don`t know. But for some reason, they subpoenaed that video. After the subpoena of that video, we then get to a search warrant. What might they have seen? What might that video be telling us about the road to the search warrant?
MOSS: Yeah, I can point to a number of things. One is, how many different people were coming in and out of that location and had access to those boxes? Typically, documents that are classified are sitting in secured location.
And those that are classified, you know, the TS/SCI, top secret/sensitive compartmented information, those are usually sitting in a location called the SCIF, sensitive compartmented information facility. Those are very narrow locations that have special locks. This is just a basement door with a padlock on it.
So, they may have seen who is coming in and out, were documents being removed, and more concerning, were Trump`s lawyers going in there, was Trump himself going in there, what exactly was happening at that room, and why were they not able to get the documents over the last few months?
This comes back to that obstruction charges I referenced. Was there an effort to resist turning over all the records to Justice and to (INAUDIBLE)?
O`DONNELL: Christina Bobb, one of Donald Trump`s lawyers who was until very recently an anchor on a right-wing propaganda channel, was asked tonight on the Fox propaganda channel about the possible presence of nuclear documentation there at Mar-a-Lago. She said, I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear materials may or may not have been there. I do not believe there were any there.
Neil Katyal, that is the state of the Trump public position on exactly how much nuclear documentation did he have at his home.
KATYAL: Yeah, and so, you know, it is not just the nuclear information, which is obviously some of our nation`s most secretive things. It`s also, you know, every time there`s a classified document of this nature, it can be reverse engineered, Lawrence, to discover the sources and methods that produce that document.
So, if it`s information, for example, about nuclear powers of some foreign government, it may be produced as a result of human intelligence by spies, it may be the result of electronic intercepts, all sorts of America`s technical capabilities here.
[22:19:58]
KATYAL: That`s why this information is so important and that`s why there are such serious penalties.
So, you know, these three crimes that are enumerated on the warrant, two of them are really about that and about the protection. You know, you can`t grossly and negligently handle classified information of this nature or national defense information, even if it`s not classified of that nature.
But there`s also this third crime that surprised me in the warrant. That is 18 USC 1519, which governs the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in a federal investigation. What that`s about is saying, there is some ongoing investigation and, you, the target of the search, are doing something to interfere with that by maybe destroying the documents or something like that.
That`s a harder thing for the FBI and Justice Department to allege in a warrant without some inside source saying, look, here`s what`s happening as a result of your investigation, documents are being flushed down the toilet or burned in the fireplace or what, something like that.
So, to me, that really stood out. That`s a sentence with an up to a 20-year punishment under our federal code, and I suspect we will be hearing a lot more about that in the weeks to come.
O`DONNELL: So, the Republican critics, attackers of the Justice Department and the FBI this week moved the goal post today. They had been demanding, show us the warrant, we need to see the warrant, show us the warrant. They got the warrant today.
So, now, Lindsey Graham, who has been the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and knows better and is an attorney, said, okay, now you have to show us the affidavit that convinced the federal judge to issue the warrant. And that affidavit, of course, contains with the judge decided was probable cause in each one of these crimes that is listed in the search warrant.
Andrew Weissmann, can you explain to Lindsey Graham why we did not see the affidavit today?
WEISSMANN: Sure, but I have to say, be careful what you wish for. Frankly, that`s the last thing they want to have in public. I mean, that`s just going to be more evidence that is going to bury the former president. We know that because the judge signed the search warrant.
Look, there are good and sufficient reasons why the underlying affidavit typically is kept under seal. That is because it`s an ongoing investigation. You don`t want to give all those details out. And very often, you are identifying sources in that -- and the reliability and even sometimes identifying them by name to the federal magistrate. Obviously, you`re not going to want to make that public.
That being said, there is a pending motion that various media outlets have made to the magistrate judge to have that affidavit unsealed. And I personally think that the Justice Department, obviously without having seen the underlying affidavit, should try to see whether they can redact the information that would protect classified information, that would protect sources and methods and means, and once again, sort of call the Republicans bluff because that information has to be incredibly damning.
And Lawrence, one final thing I want to say is that, you know, one of the things that we`re assuming is that the federal government actually retrieved all of the classified information. You can be sure what is going on right now is to see whether that is the case because -- I mean, this is speculation but, you know, the worst possible thing is that during that 18- month period, Donald Trump has disseminated that and you can be sure that the FBI is going through this and combing to see whether they can account for all of the TS/SCI information.
O`DONNELL: Just quickly before you go, Neal, an item like -- the number one item in the inventory, of all things, which is the executive grant of clemency, Roger Jason Stone, Jr., why would that be in a list of possible criminal evidence? Isn`t that just a piece of paper that -- is it wouldn`t be classified in any way?
KATYAL: You`re right that that wouldn`t be classified, but it`s still government property. So, one of the things -- we`ve been talking about the national security side, which is obviously incredibly important, but the fact remains, Donald Trump absconded with the property of the United States government and brought it all to Mar-a-Lago. You don`t get to do that as former president.
[22:25:00]
KATYAL: And so, you know, sometimes, criminal statutes are in play in those things. Obviously, that doesn`t have the (INAUDIBLE) of nuclear secrets or intelligence intercepts or things like that, but it`s just part of a pattern, a troubling pattern, we`ve seen with Donald Trump over the last years. He just thought everything was his own for the taking.
And those of us, all three of us, our guests, see tonight how, you know, the privilege of having national security information. It`s not our information. It`s the privilege -- it`s a property of the United States government. That`s the way every intelligence professional sees it. It is just unfortunately not the way Donald Trump saw it.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, Andrew Weissmann, and Bradley Moss, I can never thank you enough for joining us on this very important historic night here. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Congressman Eric Swalwell will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:29]
O`DONNELL: Here is Donald Trump`s lawyer today completely debunking Donald Trump`s own lie that the FBI might have planted evidence at Donald Trump`s home. It turns out, Donald Trump was watching the entire search of his home on close circuit television according to his lawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINA BOBB, TRUMP LAWYER: I think the folks in New York, President Trump and his family probably had a better view than I did because they had the CCTV that they were able to watch. They`re actually able to see the whole thing, so they actually have a better idea of what took place inside.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Congressman Eric Swalwell, who`s a member of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. He served as an impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Congressman Swalwell, thank you very much for joining us tonight. When you hear things like that, you see that there are so many lies being told by Donald Trump this week about the search of his Florida home that even his team can`t keep up with his own lies.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): And he was checkmated yesterday by Attorney General Garland, who called his bluff and put Donald Trump in the position of having to agree to have the search warrant in the inventory released.
And By the way if you`re keeping track of THE crazy here Lawrence, Donald Trump is alleging essentially that he declassified this information which congress was never notified of, which the public has a right to hear about all declassified information and never heard about. He declassified this information but the FBI planted it there.
So you have two competing, you know, theories that don`t even align and again, it`s just somebody who was faced with the indefensible.
And frankly, Lawrence, this is where it was always going. This is where candidate Hillary Clinton predicted that Donald Trump would take the country. This is where impeachment manager Adam Schiff predicted in the first impeachment that Donald Trump would take the country. And this is where the Trump train is headed.
O`DONNELL: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse --
SWALWELL: Misplacing, mishandling (INAUDIBLE) classified information and putting a target on the back of law enforcement.
O`DONNELL: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said today -- he outlined the procedure that anyone can follow if they believe the FBI has conducted an unfair and unreasonable search and seizure in their home. That there`s a litigation route to follow that.
But of course, if you do that -- if Donald Trump did that then the affidavit would be made public. The affidavit outlining exactly why the FBI wanted to search his home.
SWALWELL: And the affidavit on the Trump side would also be under penalty of perjury and as an officer of the court his attorneys would have to have la good faith, to put a pause -- so that`s never going to happen.
But what is happening from Donald Trump to Kevin McCarthy to Elise Stefanik, earlier today is they are putting targets on the back of law enforcement. And by suggesting that the FBI planted evidence, by suggesting that they have gone rogue as Steve Scalise said earlier this week they are inspiring individuals who are armed to the teeth to take up arms and go after law enforcement.
It happened yesterday in Cincinnati. Thankfully that individual was taken down by police. But every law enforcement officer is more vulnerable today because of the target that Donald Trump and his supporters have put on their backs.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Eric Swalwell thank you very much for joining us on this important night.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up presidential historian Michael Beschloss will join us to put this week in perspective as only he can. That is next.
[22:34:09]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Our next guest, Michael Beschloss, joined a group of historians last week in a meeting with President Biden to give the president of the United States an historical perspective on where America is today and where American democracy is today.
We will once again call on Michael Beschloss to perform that trick for us to put the present in an historical perspective. This is of course unfair to Michael and any historian because historians are allowed years and years and years of deliberation and study to find the right way to describe periods in our past and in our distant past.
So asking an historian to explain the president is more than a bit unfair. But Michael does it so brilliantly that we can`t resist.
[22:39:35]
O`DONNELL: So at the end of the day that we learned that the previous president of the United States is the subject of a criminal federal investigation of possible violations of the Espionage Act and that that former president publicly defended himself by falsely claiming that his predecessor Barack Obama committed all of the potential crimes described in the Trump search warrants, we turn to Michael Beschloss.
Joining us now, Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian. His most recent book is "Presidents of War".
Michael, I don`t even know how to frame this for you. I mean I just -- I just tried. But this is the roughest seas we have seen in the post- presidency of any president.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENT HISTORIAN: That is for sure. And could I have a word on your earlier conversation about the stuff where Trump supposedly had to standing order to have declassified all those documents that he took home and studied I assume by candlelight?
The question I have got and maybe I shouldn`t ask this for legal scholars - - so does that mean that all those documents about nuclear weapons that we have been hearing about this week that were stuffed into the basement of Mar-a-Lago are those declassified too?
Which is great news for people in my business because I will go and get a sleeping bag tonight and sleep outside the National Archives waiting for it to open so I can get to read those documents if they are open to everyone and declassified. Shows a little bit how farfetched this whole explanation is.
Back to what you spectacularly raised, Lawrence we went to see President Biden eight days ago on Thursday. He still had COVID so he was sitting up in that office upstairs that used to be the treaty room, presidents now use as an office they sit at the table used to be that of Ulysses Grant`s cabinet.
And we were down in the map room downstairs two floors below, so we talked to him by video link about four or five of us for about two hours. And interestingly enough with the big exception needless to say of Donald Trump, presidents in recent times have tended to call on scholars and historians sort of in the same way.
Everyone except Trump -- I have been at these sessions all the way back to Bill Clinton. And they don`t always ask the question but the subtle expectation is that we will talk to the president about what in these times reminds us of something in history.
And not to make my answer to long but most of us said some form of the same thing which is democracy is in danger, reminds us of 1860 when we were at the precipice of a civil war. And also the 1930s when a lot of people in this country were out of work and dissatisfied, looking for answers. And there were fascists that had an awful lot of support.
O`DONNELL: We saw this week one crazed Trump supporter go straight at the FBI. He ended up dead as will all other and any other crazed Trump supporters armed with firearms who go after the FBI. They will all end up dead. There might not be any more of them. The disincentive might have been established this week.
But we haven`t heard anything from Donald Trump about that, about his supporters --
BESCHLOSS: Of course not.
O`DONNELL: -- doing that. We haven`t heard Republicans closing ranks around the FBI, going for example to FBI headquarters, or Republican members of Congress going to their local FBI office and standing there with them in unity.
And that too, outside of the presidential realm, that as well as something that we have never seen before where, you know, the FBI`s attacked and no one in the Republican Party thinks they have to step forward and do or say anything about that.
BESCHLOSS: That is the scary part because Americans -- conservatives whether you agree with them on every issue or not they believe in three things. They supposedly believed in the rule of law. They supposedly believed in protecting our institutions of democracy. And they supposedly believed in protecting our national security.
And what we are seeing with Donald Trump and those Republican leaders, which is most of them who are kneeling at his feet, they are basically saying we don`t care about the rule of law anymore.
National security? You want nuclear documents in your basement? Be are guest, we will not criticize you. We will bless it as soon as possible.
And as far as institutions, like the FBI or the Department of Justice or the Defense Department, you know, let`s just run those down too and make sure that the public has no respect for those.
[22:44:46]
BESCHLOSS: So that conservatives or people who call themselves conservatives these days are oftentimes not conservatives but I would say members of the radical right, people who want to destroy, and in certain cases anarchists. We are living in a world that`s upside down.
O`DONNELL: Michael Beschloss, thank you very much for joining us tonight, we really appreciate it.
BESCHLOSS: My honor. Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up on top of the federal search warrant of his Florida home, Donald Trump suffered a big legal setback in a criminal case in New York today.
And the Georgia grand jury is closing in on possible Trump co-conspirators Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham today. That is next.
[22:45:27]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: The good news at this late hour tonight for Donald Trump is that all of the courts in America are now closed for the weekend. The end of the worst legal week of Donald Trump`s life today included a New York State court judge ordering the tax fraud case against Donald Trump`s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to go forward and scheduled a trial date for October 24th.
And in Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis made her case for enforcing a subpoena against South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. In a court filing saying, quote, "In the midst of an ongoing recount for the election of Senator Graham`s political ally, he called the official in another state charged with supervising the recount and suggested he change his methods. The official, as well as other participants on the call, indicated that the senator explored options to discard votes in order to assist the president.
To this, Senator Graham responds that the other participants on the call must all be mistaken and he asks this court to end the inquiry there.
Joining us now is Tim O`Brien, senior columnist for Bloomberg opinion and author of "Trump Nation", and still with us is Andrew Weissmann.
Tim, what happened for Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump today in court with a trial date now scheduled?
TIM O`BRIEN, AUTHOR: Well, in addition to this being the worst week in the courts for Trump, Lawrence, it`s one of the craziest weeks for bad excuses to get cases dismissed being ignored by judges. But Lindsey Graham said the subpoena against him should be quashed because everyone else who is on the call was wrong.
And Allen Weisselberg said that the New York -- the Manhattan district attorney shouldn`t be allowed to prosecute him because he was being prosecuted simply because he was associated with Donald Trump.
And the court said well no, it is apparent that you broke the laws and we`re going to take this to court to make sure that that was the case.
I think the issue now that I think is very interesting in the district attorney`s case is whether or not this finally compels Allen Weisselberg, Trump`s longtime CFO to cooperate with the Manhattan district attorney investigation.
So far he`s been, I think much more resilient than anyone thought he would be. I think there was -- I thought he would`ve cooperated with investigations sooner than he did.
Be that as it may, it`s going to -- jury selection begins in late October, and Allen Weisselberg is going to have to decide whether or not he`s going to want to absorb the full brunt of tax charges against him in the service of protecting Donald Trump.
And I think that`s going -- he`s got a lot of thinking to do between now and October. And if he does decide to flip and testify against Donald Trump, he has a wealth of experience and knowledge in Trump organization. He was Fred Trump`s accountant. He became Donald Trump`s chief financial officer. He knows where all of the financial skeletons are buried in the Trump Organization`s closet.
and presumably I think he is going to think long and hard about cooperating with this investigation. And so of course that has to focus Donald Trump`s attention on his own well-being.
I think the Manhattan district attorney`s case had lost a little bit of steam in recent months. And I think it`s gotten some renewed life.
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann, let me give you two questions here. One New York, on Georgia.
The quick New York one is, in your experience, when someone like Allen Weisselberg sees Donald Trump being weakened every day with this federal investigation that is going on, does that make him, any -- Allen Weisselberg -- any more likely to cooperate against Donald Trump in that state tax fraud case?
And then in Georgia, what do you make of Lindsey Graham`s attempt to not testify and what Fani Willis is saying about the evidence she has about what Lindsey Graham did?
ANDREW WEISSMANN, FORMER PROSECUTOR: So on Weisselberg, which I find quite interesting, I think it certainly doesn`t help that -- when he sees what is going on.
But I think the more important thing is these are state cases. So nobody can hope that a Republican president is going to come into office and pardon somebody. You know, if he is convicted, that`s going to stick, and it`s going to stick for good. He maybe wait and see if he gets convicted at trial and then cooperate.
[22:54:46]
WEISSMAN: The other thing that the Manhattan district attorney`s office can do is if he doesn`t cooperate voluntarily after the trial, they can just immunize him and put him in a grand jury and force him to testify. And then if he lies then, he`s going to face additional time.
So they have a lot of tools up their sleeve and they don`t have to worry about the 2024 presidential election, and Weisselberg doesn`t that as a possible out. So they are sort of like things to come there. I wouldn`t count the Manhattan district attorney`s office investigation out just yet.
And then Fulton is fascinating. Lindsey Graham, to answer your question, is making any and all arguments. I mean to me, it wreaks of what we are seeing the former president do, which is he`s going to do anything he can not to show up there. The last thing he wants is to be a witness against the former president.
But it may be worse than that. I mean let`s just get real. It`s not just that he can have evidence that hurts the former president, it`s that he could find himself being a co-conspirator with the former president.
And so, it will be interesting to see whether he is forced to testify and ask to show up, whether he takes the Fifth and does exactly what we saw the former president do in New York this past week.
O`DONNELL: Andrew Weissmann and Tim O`Brien, thank you both very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
We`ll be right back.
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O`DONNELL: Big win for Joe Biden today in the final passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. More on that next week.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.