Good evening. It's great to be with you. And we start tonight with
the latest surrounding the FBI seizure of classified documents from
former President Trump's Florida property. This Thursday, A federal
judge will decide whether to grant Mr Trump's request for a third
party, a so called special master to decide if some of the documents
are legally protected. The judge has already signaled a quote preliminary
intent.
To do so.
And as we've reported, U. S intelligence officials informed Congress
that they will evaluate the potential national security risks stemming
from Mr Trump's possession of the classified materials. Hugo Lowell
is a congressional reporter for the Guardian. And he's with us now
to discuss all this, Hugo. It's great to have you with us and the
fact that this U. S District Judge Eileen Cannon, who was nominated
by Trump in 2020, the fact that she's now granting his legal team's
request for a third party to review the documents seized
During the FBI search. What does that mean? Practically
Practically it means that the DOJ is going to have to file a response
and all of the interested parties. So that's Trump's legal team and
the Justice Department or going to go down to Palm Beach on Thursday,
and they're going to make that case for either to appoint a special
master word in during the DOJ is case dog to oppose the motion entirely.
The preliminary order effectively means that the judge in this case
is suggesting that she is likely to grant a special master unless
he hears
Arguments that compel her to rule otherwise, so that's the kind of
practical implications here.
The bottom line, though, is that it doesn't change the underlying
facts of the case. Nor does it limit Donald Trump's legal exposure.
Is that right? It doesn't It doesn't change the underlying facts.
It doesn't change underlying investigation. The fact of the matter
is the former president had a bunch of classified documents at Mara
Lago that range from kind of classified to top secret to some of
the most sensitive government secrets that the that the United States
holes and the FBI is investigating Trump for under the Espionage
Act.
And also for potential obstruction. And so whether or not he gets
the special master in this case is not going to change that investigation,
And I think that's the one thing that Trump's lawyers have fixated
on, and I'm kind of worried by because they're not sure where this
investigation goes next. We also learned this weekend that intelligence
officials are planning to conduct an assessment of the national security
fallout.
And what's striking about this is that it's the first known acknowledgement
by the intelligence community of the potential damage caused by Mr
Trump's possession of these highly classified documents, including
human source intelligence.
Yes. So the D. N I told Congress on Friday that she was going to
initiate a risk assessment little bit different from a damage assessment.
The risk assessment. Basically means was. There are risk national
security through Trump's mishandling of these government documents
that he had hold it at Mara Lago. The fact that the risk assessment
suggests to me that the intelligence community is not sure whether
they've been accessed by adversaries or spies, or any sort of people
who didn't have the clearance to actually look at this document.
That might harm the United States. So that's kind of the preliminary
basis. If they do the risk assessment, and they find there was exposure
to sources and methods to the identities of kind of clandestine sources,
then it becomes a damaged assessment, and that's much, much more
serious, and that would greatly increase the legal exposure that
Trump has here.
A big picture question for you, Hugo because I've been talking to
legal experts and former prosecutors as I know you have who say that
there exists in the public realm. Enough evidence to indict Donald
Trump The fact that the DOJ hasn't done that the fact that the DOJ
fought the release of this redacted affidavit suggests potentially
that there's something else here that there's something more to the
heart of this case. Is that your assessment? Is that your read of
things based on your reporting
I think that's right. So the fact that this is still an investigation
in early stages. That's what the Justice Department said in court
last week. I think it's really interesting a lot of the obstruction
elements and a lot of the sources and methods that the FBI and the
Justice Department is using in this investigation will all redacted
from that affidavit. That really suggests that this is an ongoing
investigation. They don't know where this may lead. The fact of the
matter is they have a lot of civilian sources and people close to
former president that this
Still interviewing. I thought it was really interesting. I spoke
to a number of people close the former president and they said, Look,
we've been contacted by the FBI, but we haven't actually spoken to
them. Yet. That's that's a big development because that means the
F B. I managed to get a search warrant based on partial information
animals already so damning that the judge granted it and now they're
moving towards actually speaking to people close to the former president,
and that could really open the investigation much, much further.
I was going to ask you what you were hearing from people in the former
president's orbit. I think you were just down at Mara Lago doing
some reporting. Where are you going to be watching for? As this story
progresses as this case really progresses.
I think the one thing we all have to focus on is the obstruction
element of this investigation. I think people are really focused
on the espionage element because there were so many classified documents
at Mara Lago that Trump had hold of their But the real possible legal
peril that could arise from all of this is the obstruction. Did Trump
intend to impede an official investigation into his mishandling of
these documents? Did he try and stop the National archives from getting
the documents back? Miss leaders lawyers did he instruct his lawyers
not to cooperate with the
Destination. I mean, that's the one thing that the trump lawyers
don't like talking about. They have to talk about everything else,
but the one thing they don't have insight into, and the one thing
that I think quite anxious about.
Is this obstruction and whether this starts to take on a whole new
dimension of its own great reporting, as always, Hugo Lowell of the