Updated
Summary
Polls have just now close in New York, home to seven consequential primaries into special elections that may tell a lot about the role abortion will play in the midterms. Breaking news about the top secret document Trump had at Mar-a-Lago, information being called among the most sensitive secrets the U.S. holds.
Transcript
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: It has this — kind of sums that quality of life, casting some kind of aspersion, even if you haven`t established anything the kind of furthers what a lot of these folks are talking about. Amy Gardner has been doing great reporting on this truly — bizarre story that`s been unspooling. Thank you very much.
AMY GARDNER, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: That`s ALL IN on this Tuesday night.
ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT starts right now.
Good evening, Alex.
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST: Thanks, Chris. It is another election night, big night for al of us here, especially in New York.
HAYES: Enjoy, you get to hang out with Steve Kornacki in person, and I`m jealous.
WAGNER: It`s a dream. Have a great, Chris.
And thank you all at home for joining us this hour.
Tonight, polls have just now close in New York, home to seven consequential primaries into special elections that may tell us a lot about the role abortion will play in the midterms. Steve Kornacki joins us at the big board.
And Florida political guru Marc Caputo is here as Florida Democrats choose their pick to take on Governor Ron DeSantis.
Plus, breaking news tonight about the top secret document Trump had at Mar- a-Lago, information being called, quote, among the most sensitive secrets the U.S. holds. Donald Trump reportedly wouldn`t show some of the material, even to his top aides. One of “The Washington Post” reporters who broke that story, Carol Leonnig, joins us live.
And a jury finds two men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, as the IRS ramps up security because of threats from the far-right.
But we start tonight with what you might call a quintessential New York moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARL PALADINO (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: — I will take you out.
REPORTER: You`re going to take me out? How are you going to do that?
PALADINO: Watch.
REPORTER: So, what, are you threatening me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Simpler times.
That was then Republican candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino threatening to take out a reporter way back in 2010. If you follow New York politics over the past decade or so, you may remember Carl Paladino. He became nationally famous during that race. Thanks to a host of scandals, most notably, for sending racist, sexist and bestiality laden emails that were too graphic for me to describe on television.
Paladino went on to get crushed in the governor`s race. He lost by about 30 points. Now tonight, both New York and Florida are holding primary elections ahead of this year`s midterms. One candidate looking to make a comeback in those primaries is none other than Carl Paladino. This time, Paladino is running for a congressional seat in western New York. Because the Republican primary in the year of our lord, 2022, Carl Paladino has a real shot at winning, even as he continues to make a kind of outlandish statements that lost in that governor`s race a decade ago.
And a recently resurfaced radio interview, Paladino he was praising rate all — eight of health. Nursing he`s the kind of leader we need today. And just last week, Paladino called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to be executed following the FBI search of Donald Trump`s Florida home.
But Carl Paladino is not the only scandal-plagued Republican on the ballot tonight. NBC News projects that Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has fended off his primary challenger tonight, despite the fact that Gaetz is currently being investigated by the FBI for potential sex crimes, including the alleged human trafficking of a minor. In the final days of that campaign, Congressman Gaetz`s opponent suggested that he was the FBI informant who prompted the Mar-a-Lago search which to be clear in Florida`s Republican primary is considered a very bad thing.
But honestly, truly some of the most important races to watch tonight are on the Democratic side. There is the race to try and replace Florida Governor Ron DeSantis where NBC news projects that former Florida Governor Charlie Crist has beaten Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried to be the Democratic nominee for governor. In the closing days of the primary, the two candidates have been blasting each other over their respective ties to Florida Republicans and the Florida Republican Party. Crist, Florida`s former Republican governor who became an independent in and then a Democrat in 2012, criticized Fried for donating to Florida`s current Republican attorney general and working with Congressman Matt Gaetz.
And then there is also the Democratic primary race for Florida Senate where NBC news projects that Congresswoman Val Demings has cinched the nomination to take on senator Marco Rubio in the fall. And in the race to Phil Deming`s seat in the House, NBC News projects that gun safety activist Maxwell Frost has prevailed over a crowded field to win the Democratic primary. At age 25, Maxwell Frost would be the youngest member of Congress should he succeed this November. He would also become the first member of generation Z to enter Congress.
And then, of course, there is — there`s even more in New York. Earlier this year, a court battle over redistricting essentially through New York`s congressional map into state of pure chaos. Now in New York`s 12th congressional district, House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler has been forced into a primary against House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, two sitting chairs of two very important committees forced to face off against each other because of redistricting.
That kind of dynamic is playing out all across New York state. In New York`s 17th district, Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney and Mondaire Jones, both of them congressmen, were almost forced to run against each other as well. Congressman Jones ended up agreeing to run for Congress in a different district, one that didn`t have an incumbent, which was supposed to ease the pressure on those Democratic members of Congress.
But now, both of those incumbents are locked in tough primaries against different opponents. Congressman Maloney is facing a progressive fire brand state senator, her name is Alessandra Biaggi who has this and she has the support of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And Congressman Mondaire Jones is locked in a wide-open primary against a bunch of challengers including a popular state assemblywoman, a popular city councilwoman, and Dan Goldman, the former House counsel for Donald Trump`s first impeachment.
On top of all of that, there is also a special general election for a swing district in New York. Former New York candidate for governor Mark Molinaro is facing off against Democrat Pat Ryan in a race that many are expecting to be an early test of Democrats messaging around abortion and abortion`s impact on Republican candidates in swing districts heading into November. As proof of that, Democrat Pat Ryan has peppered the district with pink yard signs like this one that read “choice is on the ballot”. Like I said, there is a ton to get to tonight.
And there is no better co-pilot maybe even pilot than the great Steve Kornacki who is at the big board where he`s getting the first results from New York.
Steve Kornacki, my friend.
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Alex, yes, we`re getting them quickly here in that special election, we don`t have any from yet but we actually have a ton right now in the 12th district. And you`re just talking about this is where Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, two long-serving Democrats each in the house for 30 years, both elected in 1992, pitted against each other and you can see Nadler with a lot of votes that just got reported out, a two to one advantage here over Carolyn Maloney.
Again, we`re looking at, you know, nearly 40,000 votes now have just been reported out in this district again what this basically is the dynamic at work here for folks in New York City, for folks who know Manhattan. Jerry Nadler has represented the upper west side of Manhattan for the last 30 years, Carolyn Maloney has represented the upper east side of Manhattan for the last 30 years. The two sides were merged in this district.
There`s also a third candidate who would run against Maloney a couple years ago. There`d been some late polling in this race that suggested Nadler might actually be pulling ahead. And certainly, that seems to be what we`re seeing in the early — in the early returns here. I say early, this is a substantial amount of vote that is in here in the 12th district, and Jerry Nadler with a two to one advantage here over Carolyn Maloney.
We are also getting a substantial number of votes you can see in the 10th district, some complicated dynamics here in the 10th district Democratic primary. Again, we are talking about Manhattan and this goes into a little bit of Brooklyn as well. Daniel Goldman though, you remember him, the lawyer — the former federal prosecutor who was a part of the Democratic impeachment proceedings, counsel for the Democrats in the impeachment proceedings of Donald Trump comes from some money and spent a lot of that money here and he has jumped out to an advantage here of just over a thousand votes, you lean new running in second right here.
Interestingly, Mondaire Jones, he`s listed as the incumbent. Now, Mondaire Jones was actually elected to a district — to represent a district up in the Hudson Valley. Because of all the redistricting chaos in New York, he ended up coming and moving to and running in this district. There are no constituents in this district, this 10th district though who Jones currently represents in Congress.
So he`s listed as the incumbent but this is an entirely new district to him. He`s an entirely new congressman for the constituents in this — in this district and he is running in third here. You can see, you look at a city councilwoman here, Carlina Rivera, Liz Holtzman was a member of Congress back in the `70s until 1980s. She`s been seeking a comeback.
But Dan Goldman out to the early lead here and you can see Jerry Nadler with a big advantage over Carolyn Maloney in this race. And I`m just checking in just let`s — check in here to see if we have any numbers we don`t in the 17th, and I`m just going to look to see we do have our first numbers in the special election here.
[21:10:08]
So let me get to that and that`s going to take me one second to call up on the screen but let`s get to the special election here. Yeah —
WALTER: In Ulster county.
KORNACKI: Again for the special election and this should call up. Here we go, okay, we are getting our very first reports here and let`s put the counties up so we can get a sense where this is coming from here. But the Demo — the Republican here again, we`re talking okay now we got a ton of votes here and I`m guessing we just got Ulster County.
Okay, what just happened is the Democrat here, Ulster County, he is the Ulster County executive. And so, what was just reported out here in Ulster County, Ulster County is the single largest component of this district. It`s about one quarter of the district in terms of population, one quarter of the district is in Ulster County. Ulster County is the most Democratic County in this district and Pat Ryan is the Ulster County executive. This is his home base.
Now, the numbers that you just saw reported out here in Ulster County, this is the early an absentee vote. This is important because we always talk about how there`s this big split now, when we look at Democrat versus Republican races, the early absentee vote, vote by mail is the strongest vote for Democrats that you see. So that`s what was just reported out here in Ulster County.
So I want to give you a sense here. Ulster County in the 2020 presidential election went for Joe Biden with 60 percent of the vote. Overall, Biden won this district by two. So if you`re Ryan, you really want to be running above Biden`s number. You know, anything above, he wants to get a few points above 60 percent. That`s where he wants to land at the end of the night.
Now, he just got a big boost from the early and absentee votes. That is expected as I say. Democrats do best with the early and absentee. But one thing I can tell you, by comparison, this same batch of votes in 2020, Joe Biden got 77 percent of the early absentee vote in Ulster County in 2020. Ryan is getting basically 80 percent of the early absentee vote in Ulster County.
So what`s going to happen now in Ulster county is they`re going to start counting up the same day vote, and the same day vote is always vastly more Republican than the early in absentee. So the Molinaro number is going to come up, the Ryan number is going to come down and the key here in a place like Ulster County is Ryan wants to land probably above where Biden landed in because there are some other parts of this district where Molinaro is expected to outperform what Donald Trump did.
So in this initial big batch of votes from the biggest county in the district, Ryan is getting I`d say the number he wants to get. He wants to be a little bit better than Biden. He is a little bit better than Biden in the early absentee component.
Let`s see what happens as the same day vote comes in from the rest of the district, and let`s also just check back to see if we`ve got more numbers from elsewhere in the district that`s mainly what we`re getting right now. Again, I`m just trying to see they`re not lighting up here so just see where the other county is.
Okay. It`s Sullivan County and again so give you an example this is this is sort of how it works here. Molinaro running at the Trump number already in Sullivan County and again I think you`re looking at likely early absentee here. So when you say Molinaro is expected to outperform Trump in some other parts of the district, this could be an example of that.
So again, those are the two counties. Ulster and Sullivan, that we have numbers from. We don`t have — I`m just checking in on Dutchess County, Dutchess County is the second biggest county in this district and it`s where Mark Molinaro is the county executive and this one`s going to be key because Joe Biden carried Duchess County. The Dutchess County component of this district, Joe Biden carried it in and this is where Molinaro, because he`s the county executive.
He`s won countywide elections here before. He is definitely expected to improve on Donald Trump`s the numbers in Dutchess County. It just makes that more important for Ryan, in place s like Ulster and some of the other parts of this district to outperform what Joe Biden. So, again, no numbers yet form Dutchess.
Real key question is how much Molinaro can outperform Trump. Just checking back, in again, basically they got a big chunk with that early absentee with Ulster County, went through the significance of that. But the number should be coming in pretty quickly here from elsewhere in the district.
WAGNER: I have spent time in the 19th at town halls when Antonio Delgado was representing that county, and I can tell you it is not overstatement to say it is a bellwether for swing districts across this country. It is truly — it`s an Obama, Trump, Biden county, and for that reason alone, it deserves our attention as we look to the midterm.
[21:15:01]
Steve Kornacki, thank you as always. We will be back to you when you have more news.
Now I want to turn to NBC News national political reporter Marc Caputo who is in Florida.
Marc, let`s just first talk about the headline news which is the Democrats have picked their nominee to head up against Ron DeSantis in the fall. What do we make of Charlie Crist`s chances given the fact that he`s a party hopper, someone who is well known to Floridians? What do you make of the odds here?
MARC CAPUTO, NBC NEWS DIGITAL NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, I`ll tell you what Democrats make of the odds. Both consultants, grassroots activists, lawmakers and former lawmakers, all Democrats, some Crist supporters, some Fried supporters, I spoke to more than 20 for the article we just moved, none of them give Charlie Crist much of a chance.
In fact, a Chris advisor said to me that this is basically the Powerball election. Like, hey, we still got a chance. The chances of winning the average Powerball is one in 292.4 million.
WAGNER: Can`t win if you don`t play, Marc. You can`t win if you don`t play.
CAPUTO: This is true. You miss all of the shots you don`t take, right?
So, Charlie Crist is taking a shot. Now, this is his second go round for governor as a Democrat. It`s the second time he`s defeated a woman in the primary in this case, it was Nikki Fried who is the only statewide elected Democrat.
Now, if things go as Democrats fear, again if they go as Democrats fear and if Charlie Crist loses to DeSantis as the polling indicates, and the other cabinet members who are all Democrats who are little known and underfunded who are running against incumbent Republicans, if they lose, then no statewide elected Democrat will hold a seat in Florida for the first time since reconstruction, gives you a good idea of how terrible the Democratic Party`s fortunes are here.
In addition to DeSantis leading in the polls, he`s sitting on at least $140 million cash on hand in the bank as a war chest. We`ve never seen that before here or in any state for anyone running for governor. In addition to that, national Democrats understandably so aren`t so keen about playing in Florida. They`re not really interested and President Biden`s poll numbers aren`t doing much favor for Democrats down ballot. That`ll include Charlie Crist.
Now, there is a potential bright spot for Democrats here. It`s Val Demings. She won a kind of against token primary, opposition. She`s going to take on Senator Marco Rubio in the general election. So you`re going to see Democrats kind of place a lot of their hopes and their eggs in that basket.
WAGNER: I do — it`s probably worth mentioning the popularity of Governor DeSantis who we`ve talked a lot about especially last week. His policies seem to be resonating with conservatives in the states. He has a new ad out today where he`s pretending to be — he`s doing some cosplay as Maverick in Top Gun, riding a fighter jet and briefing Floridians on the rules of engagement.
It reminds I think a lot of us who are old enough to remember of Michael Dukakis and his 1988 campaign gaffe when he sat on top of a was — it a military tank?
Is there anything DeSantis can do to lose support between now and November? Or do you think that and the days of Florida even being a swing state are completely over, this is the hot — this is the sort of — I guess the Petri dish for national Republican policy and for a new kind of conservatism it sounds like.
CAPUTO: Right. As for how DeSantis — I can`t really say how the ultimate race is going to shake out, obviously, you know? But I can just say that there`s a reason Democrats are really worried. It should be pointed out that, yes, DeSantis was in the navy. He was a JAG officer. He was a lawyer. He was not a fighter pilot.
Nevertheless, the difference between him and Michael Dukakis is DeSantis has built quite a brand for himself in the party in taking on the press, attacking the, quote-unquote, corporate media, even though he certainly does lots of hits on Fox News, where he built kind of his brand and got President Trump`s attention which in turn led to an endorsement and helped him win his primary in 2018, and ultimately, the governor`s mansion.
So the fact is, is that DeSantis has captured not only the hearts of Republicans in Florida but increasingly nationwide in polls of a potential 2024 Republican primary. Trump is still on top in fact. He started a kind of surge over DeSantis in part because after the Mar-a-Lago search warrant that was executed by the FBI, there`s been a rallying around of former President Trump.
I don`t know how long that`s going to last, but for the time being, President Trump is telling folks that he still feels pretty good about that despite the mounting legal challenges that are starting to kind of close in all around him.
WAGNER: Well, we will have much more on those mounting legal challenges later in the hour. Marc Caputo, NBC News national political reporter, thanks as always for your time tonight.
We have some breaking news from the primaries this evening, and from the elections this evening happening in New York and Florida especially.
NBC News is projecting that Jerry Nadler defeats Carolyn Maloney in New York`s 12th congressional district. That is a new district drawn in part by the new redistricting that happened as a result of the latest census and then there was a lawsuit and now to I would say titans of the Democratic Party in Congress, head-to-head matchup tonight.
[21:20:11]
And it looks like Jerry Nadler is the victor in that by a fairly large margin.
We will have more on the election results from New York. But up next, breaking news from “The Washington Post” about Donald Trump and the top secret documents he had at Mar-a-Lago. New reports about how sensitive the material at Mar-a-Lago really was. Carol Leonnig, one of the reporters who broke that story, joins us next. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:25:19]
WAGNER: Shooting yourself in the foot cutting off your nose to spite your face, pressing the button on self-destruct, you can call it whatever you`d like. On Monday, two weeks after the FBI executed a search warrant on the former president`s palm beach estate, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit asking for the FBI`s review of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago for that review to be put on hold until a third party what`s called a special master is appointed to review the seized materials. In that lawsuit, Trump argued that he has cooperated perfectly with federal investigators and the National Archives throughout this whole mess that began in January of 2021.
His lawsuit states, quote, all facts show that there was complete cooperation between President Trump, his team and the appropriate agencies. It even includes a quote from Donald Trump himself. Why raid my home with a platoon of federal agents when I have voluntarily cooperated with your every request?
Are you sure about that?
Last night, we learned from “The New York Times” that the National Archives recovered more than 150 classified documents from Trump`s Florida home in January, which were squirreled away in 15 boxes of documents. We also learned that Trump personally went through those documents before he turned them over. In a bid to somehow help the former president, Trump right-wing media ally John Solomon late last night published a letter from the National Archives to one of Trump`s lawyers. It`s dated May 10th.
Now, Solomon hyped this letter as evidence that somehow Biden had sicced the FBI on Trump. But as it turns out, Solomon was really sort of shooting himself or rather Donald Trump in the foot. For starters, this May letter from the National Archives confirms “The New York Times” reporting that over 100 documents retrieved by the government in January from Mar-a-Lago, that they were marked classified, The National Archivist details that specifically, it was over 700 pages of classified information just hanging out at Mar-a-Lago.
Included in some of these were documents with some of the very highest levels of classification, including special access program materials, which even if you have top security clearance, you still need additional clearance to see that kind of document.
The letter, again, the letter somehow meant to exonerate Trump implicate Biden, it also confirmed the Trump and his crew had been dragging their feet for weeks, asserting bogus claims of executive privilege in an attempt to delay the seized document for being handed over to the Justice Department. So while the archives retrieve the boxes of documents in January, the FBI and the DOJ didn`t get access to the contents of those boxes until the month of May.
Donald Trump clearly has a different definition of cooperation than most of us do. But that is not all. In June, when the Justice Department officials went to Mar-a-Lago to ask Donald Trump, hey, are there any more classified documents lying around? Trump`s former crossfit lawyer reportedly signed a statement saying that Trump had handed over all the documents. She signed a statement saying, yes, that is the — nothing else to see here, folks.
But even after the June visit, even after Trump`s attorney swore there was no more classified documents and Mar-a-Lago, double pinky swear, the Justice Department was not convinced. So in August 8th, the FBI executed a search warrant where they found, you guessed it, more documents at Mar-a- Lago marked, top secret.
“The New York Times” reported late last night that in fact federal agents in total retrieved over 300 classified documents, with hundreds of hundreds of pages of classified material from Mar-a-Lago.
That record of obfuscation and foot-dragging, and false statements is apparently Donald Trump`s definition of complete cooperation. And we have breaking news tonight about that supposed cooperation. “The Washington Post” reports what happens when archives first received the documents in January.
Quote: When archives employees began opening up and sifting through the material, they noticed an immediate problem. The boxes arrived without any kind of logs or inventories to describe their content according to a person familiar with the recovery.
Instead, they contained a hodgepodge of documents, including some that didn`t even come from Trump`s time in the White House. But some of the White House records had obvious markings indicating they were classified. Now, NBC News has not yet confirmed this reporting. “The Washington Post” report continues to chronicle how the FBI conducted its investigation and just how — just precisely how involved Donald Trump was personally with overseeing the documents.
Quote: As the fight with the archives came to an uneasy conclusion. The FBI proceeded with interviews with others in Trump`s orbit including vales and former White House staffers.
Agents we`re told that Trump was a pack rat who had been personally overseeing his collection of White House records since even before leaving Washington and had been reluctant to return anything. The FBI became increasingly convinced that the former president continued to hold classified documents in Florida. It could not be determined who was involved with packing the boxes at Mar-a-Lago or why some White House documents were not sent to the archives, though people familiar with the episode said Trump oversaw the process himself and did so with great secrecy, declining to show some items even to his top aides.
Some material recovered in the search is considered extraordinarily sensitive because it could reveal carefully guarded secrets about U.S intelligence gathering methods. One of them said the information is among the most sensitive secrets we hold. Around that time, Trump Attorneys Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb together provided the Justice Department with a written assurance about Trump having returned classified materials a person familiar with the matter said. The person did not provide the specific wording of the letter, which was signed by Bobb. A person familiar with the matter said the document is of interest to the FBI which is investigating the veracity of its claims.
Joining us now is “Washington Post” national reporter Carol Leonnig, who is bylined on the story tonight.
Carol, thank you so much for being here. It is breaking and it is it is explosive. I think the first thing that at least grabbed me in reading this article is just how deeply the former president appears to have been in selecting these documents. What more can you tell us about that?
CAROL LEONNIG, NATIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, what`s clear in the both the interviews we`ve done with sources and also as revealed in a lot of new records and letters that are coming out is that the president was very involved, the former president was very involved in at the last minute hastily and chaotically packing up his documents that he thought were, quote/unquote, his and arranging for them to be taken to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and part-time residents.
And that also importantly, Alex, despite the government — despite the former president`s claim that all he`s done has been cooperative what we found is that week after week, he was the person resisting providing records. He was the person along with his lawyers asking for delay in allowing the FBI for example to look over the classified records that they found to their horror, to their shock, in a group of 15 boxes of records that they retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.
And so, the president is really — the former president is very, very much at the center of this drama, and now, his own advisors, legal and otherwise, are growing increasingly concerned and have been since June, that this is a criminal investigation in which the former president is in legal jeopardy ultimately of his own making, that if perhaps he had turned over the records willingly and forthrightly right away in January or in December or in the fall of 2021, all of these times that it was asked for, that it might not have morphed into a criminal investigation looking at the willful retention of some of the highest and most sensitive secrets our government holds.
WAGNER: Yeah, I think we should focus on that a little bit because this isn`t like a former president sitting at his kitchen table leafing through memorabilia that he mistakenly brought home, right? I mean, you specifically say in the story that he was going through these documents with, quote, great secrecy declining to show some items even to top aides. And what are we talking about, Carol? I mean, some of the most sensitive secrets we hold. Can you talk more about that and just the amount of — I mean not only the recognition of that among the people reporting on this story, but within Trump`s circle it sounds like nobody really wanted to touch this case with a 10-foot pole.
LEONNIG: Oh, such a good point and I promise we will circle back to that Alex, about the 10-foot pole that a lot of people were avoiding taking hold of.
So your first question about the sensitivity of this material. As described in the inventory, some of this material is top secret, secure compartmented information. That means that people have to, as you described earlier so well, people who are in government have to have a absolute reason to know and access this information as part of their job. It has to be somebody who`s incredibly trustworthy and has this very high security clearance and usually secure compartmented information involves intelligence gathering methods.
The records that were seized on August 8th, just as the FBI and the Department of Justice feared, were some of those holiest of holy kinds of records, that if shared indiscriminately or handled carelessly in a private restaurant, club, if ever on — if other if ever disclosed would cause immediate grave danger to national security because it would reveal how the U.S. gathers the intelligence that it has. That includes, for example, you know, how — which allies provide us special intelligence that they don`t share with others. That includes, for example, covert programs that we have that gather intelligence, and if those details were revealed to a foreign adversary, our chances of protecting national security would be greatly diminished, grave threats.
Now, you asked that good question about people who during this period who worked for Donald Trump or were in the Trump orbit, trying to avoid being involved in this case starting in the fall of 2021, Donald Trump was resisting turning over records he believed were, quote/unquote, mine — meaning his.
And the archives knew that he had a lot of records the things were missing that they needed them. Eventually, Donald Trump`s team turned over 15 boxes of records. The shocker for people who had previously worked in president Trump`s White House counsel`s office was that those records included highly classified materials. When they were notified, in particular deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, when he was notified in April that the National Archives found that there was classified information in these documents, he was stunned and he was being asked at that time to help team Trump review the records, to go up to the National Archives and review what had been turned over and figure out what`s in what are in these boxes which you would think they would have looked before.
But Patrick Philbin and others backed away from this request by Team Trump. And pretty soon, the FBI was knocking on their doors asking the deputy White House counsels, we need to interview you. You`re now a subject witness. You may be a witness for us about what`s going on in this withholding of what appear to be incredibly sensitive documents.
WAGNER: At this point, can you really blame any lawyer who doesn`t want to work for Donald Trump?
Carol Leonnig, “Washington Post” national reporter, thank you so much for joining us this evening and with that breaking news to boot.
Up next, a federal judge that Donald Trump appointed calls into question the lawsuit he filed against the DOJ. Former prosecutor Rebecca Roiphe joins us next. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:42:52]
WAGNER: We are continuing to follow this new reporting in “The Washington Post” tonight, chronicling former President Trump`s reluctance to hand over classified documents to the proper authorities. Also — also tonight, in the latest legal setback for the former president, the federal judge overseeing Trump`s lawsuit a judge who was by the way appointed by Donald Trump is asking Trump to clarify the exact purpose of the lawsuit that he filed yesterday, the one asking for a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI in August.
Joining us now is a former prosecutor and Manhattan district attorney`s office and a current professor at New York law school, New York University Law School, Rebecca Roiphe.
Rebecca, thanks for joining me. We have a lot to talk about here.
REBECCA ROIPHE, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Thank you.
WAGNER: So, first, let me just get your reaction to “The Washington Post” reporting about how centrally Trump was involved in the selection of these documents, that it was shrouded in secrecy, that the documents themselves were highly sensitive. What do you see as potential legal implications of all of that?
ROIPHE: Well, you know, in order to prove any kind of crime especially, you know, that there`s been a lot of discussion about the Espionage Act since we saw the search warrant, you need to show two things — the act actually happened and that the person possessed the state of mind that`s required in order to have criminal liability.
And so, this is relevant for both of those things. He was in possession of these documents that were highly classified and highly sensitive. We should really use the term sensitive because the criminal statutes don`t refer to classification level. They just refer to something that implicates the national security. And so, he had those documents.
The next question is did he willfully retain them? And that`s — you know, this is this reporting is so critical for that because what it essentially says is that he was personally involved in this, he can`t blame somebody else, it was him. And also, that there were all of these repeated requests to cooperate.
And so, that makes it look like it wasn`t any accident. You know, he was really doing this on purpose.
WAGNER: The fact that a Trump ally released one critical piece of paper in a paper trail that shows Donald Trump was not willing and was not cooperative really does — I mean, it fits under the dictionary definition of shooting oneself on the one`s own — one`s foot.
[21:45:09]
I mean, did you think that there was any credence to implicating Biden somehow in any of this?
ROIPHE: You know, here`s the thing, is that when Trump`s legal avenues start to close, when there`s start to be fewer and fewer legal claims he can make, he retreats to this one thing that has worked for him repeatedly, which is the witch hunt.
You know, this is the Democrats. They`re out to get me. This is a politically motivated thing. And it has worked for him politically, not legally but politically.
And so, in that regard, I suppose there are little crumbs in here that you might, if you twist around, make it look like, oh, Biden who keeps saying that he`s leaving this all to his Department of Justice was involved. But if you look at it a little bit more closely, that disappears because he actually — he was only involved in a sort of nominal way because he is the president. I mean, these documents belong to the presidency.
WAGNER: Right.
ROIPHE: So how can you approve their transfer to the Department of Justice without him signing off on it? But he specifically said, look, I`m deferring to the Department of Justice in terms of the legal determination of whether or not these are privileged? All I`m doing is saying, like, okay, if this is a determination, that`s been made, I give my okay.
And so, he`s not meddling in some kind of improper way in the investigation or in this — if it turns into an ultimate prosecution. That`s not what he`s doing. But through smoke and mirrors, I suppose they were trying to make it look that way.
WAGNER: Well, I mean, we — there`s more to get to in future hours ahead, Rebecca, including the appointment of a special master and whether we think that`s going to happen, even though it`s a Trump appointed judge who`s looking at that.
Rebecca Roiphe, former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney`s office, thank you for your time, I appreciate it, and your wisdom.
Up next, two men were convicted today for their role in one of the highest profile domestic terrorism cases we have seen in this country in decades.
Stay with us.
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[21:51:38]
WAGNER: First, there was the unlock Michigan protest. More than a thousand cars draped in Trump flags surrounded the Michigan state capitol in April of 2020, demanding not just an end to the state`s COVID restrictions, but also to get rid of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. They called her a tyrant for imposing those restrictions and they compared her to Hitler. President Trump himself supported their cause, two days after that protest, tweeting liberate Michigan.
Conservatives and conservative media took up the cause, repeatedly calling Whitmer an authoritarian and a tyrant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, not impressive, has imposed what might be the most authoritarian restrictions on daily life in the history of this country.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Sort of like an out-of-control tyrant.
RONNA MCDANIEL, GOP CHAIRWOMAN: I`m saying hello from the police state of Michigan, where I live under the martial law of Gretchen Whitmer.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
WAGNER: And then two weeks later, things just escalated. Hundreds of protesters, many of them heavily armed rushed the Michigan state capitol, they chanted “let us in” and demanded to be let onto the House floor.
They were trying to put pressure on Michigan state lawmakers who were voting to let Governor Whitmer`s emergency declaration expire. This is a photo that a Michigan state senator took of armed protesters, yelling down at them during that vote from the balcony. Again, these protests were both against COVID restrictions and against Governor Whitmer herself.
President Trump responded to this round of armed protests by calling the protesters, quote, very good people.
Then a few months after that, the FBI foiled an alleged plot by two conservative Michigan militia groups to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Starting in June, the groups had begun tactical training, firearms training and combat drills. They learned how to use improvised explosive devices. They conducted surveillance on Governor Whitmer`s residences and ultimately, they meticulously plan to kidnap Governor Whitmer at her vacation home.
They thought they would avoid local law enforcement by blowing up the bridge near her home and potentially escaping by boat. They called Governor Whitmer a tyrant, they wanted to hog tie her and take pictures like it was a drug bust.
Again, the FBI detailed that whole plot in public in October of 2020. Here was President Trump talking about it earlier this month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: As another example, the sting that they did involving Gretchen Whitmer was fake, just like those who instigated January 6, it was a fake deal, fake. It was a fake deal. Gretchen Whitmer
Gretchen Whitmer was in less danger than the people sitting in this room right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Today, two of the men central to that very real plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer were convicted of their crimes. They face up to life in prison for them. Actions do in fact have consequences.
But if this whole thing, the storming of the state capital, the extremist plans for violence, President Trump claiming it was all fake, if that all feels familiar to you — you aren`t crazy.
The storming of the Michigan state capital and the plot against the governor there were in many ways the ideological precursors to January 6th, the first real manifestation of the idea that if a civil servant doesn`t do what you want, you should go physically threaten or harm them.
[21:55:04]
We saw that on January 6 with the chants of “hang Mike Pence”. We saw that again earlier this month when an armed man tried to attack the Cincinnati FBI field office after the FBI raided president Trump`s Florida home. Everyone from the judge who signed the search warrant in that case to the FBI agents involved, all of them are facing threats of violence from the right.
Even county level election officials across the country are facing consistent physical threats these days, for the crime of trying to fairly administer our elections. And then tonight, we just got the news that the IRS is launching a full security review of all of its facilities nationwide because of just how many threats that the IRS is getting. It is all concerning and it is worth remembering that Donald Trump is continuing to fan all of the flames. But it is also worth remembering that America is still a country of laws.
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WAGNER: We have one last primary result to get to tonight, some breaking news here, in New York`s 17th congressional district. NBC News now projects that Sean Patrick Maloney, who`s chair of the DCCC has defeated State Senator Alessandra Biaggi. MSNBC will have election coverage throughout this very exciting night.
Now, it is time for “THE LAST WORD” with my friend Lawrence O`Donnell.
Good evening, Lawrence.