During a segment on MSNBC this Friday morning, the panel discussed a federal judge's recent unsealing of a list of items the FBI seized from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
According to NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian, it's hard to believe Donald Trump's lawyers' previous claims to the Justice Department that they initially could not find the classified documents the DOJ was looking for.
Dilanian contends that the issue is not just about classified documents, but "lying and deceit when these documents were in plain sight.
Former FBI official Chuck Rosenberg then chimed in, saying that the new developments will very likely make Trump's attorneys "witnesses in the case," adding that the question that must be answered is why the lawyers would make false statements to the government.
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One possibility is the lawyers "did a really bad job" scanning Mar-a-Lago for the outstanding documents the government was looking for, but being a bad lawyer "is not a crime."
Another possibility, Rosenberg says, is the lawyers were simply "misled by their client."
The Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday that documents at Trump's Florida home were "likely concealed" to obstruct an FBI probe into his potential mishandling of classified materials.
The filing provided the most detailed account yet of the motivation for the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, which was triggered by a review of records he previously surrendered to authorities that contained top secret information.
Before the raid, the FBI uncovered "multiple sources of evidence" showing that "classified documents" remained at Mar-a-Lago, the filing says.
"The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed... and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation," the filing adds.
The DOJ said it provided the detailed background on the build-up to the raid "to correct the incomplete and inaccurate narrative set forth in (Trump's) filings."
Watch the full segment below or at this link.
With additional reporting by AFP
