they do.
>> That's exactly right.
Great to see you, great
reporting.
Out front, Alyssa Farah griffin,
communications director for
then president trump.
Also, Ryan Goodman, co-editor
in chief of just occurred and
former special counsel at the
defense department.
CNN senior political analyst,
John.
Thank you for being here guys.
Let me start with you, you just
heard Evan's reporting, what do
you make of, you have to say is
the possibility of other
locations being searched, what
do you make of them?
>> It stands to reason that for
national security reasons, we
want to have these are the
proper search because in a case
that there is any likelihood
that other classified documents
are out there, they want to
recover them.
For legal reasons, you think
that in some sense, this will
have been done --
it is surprising that they
didn't do all of the properties
that Biden was at.
He might have stored files
there.
The fact that it's happening
right now is a bit of an
oddity.
That said, if you just compare
to the trump case, president
trump's team was notified in
may of 2021 by the archives
that they were missing
documents.
It took them until November of
2022 for them to conduct other
searches.
They did find additional
documents.
>> Also, you now have, John,
the white house secret service
says that there are no visitor
logs at Biden's home in
Wilmington.
This came up because as I
mentioned with Evan, James
comer, house oversight of the
Republicans are saying that
they want to be investigating
this.
The fact that there aren't any
visitor logs, is that a problem?
>> It is troubling, I think
there should be visitor locks
for presidents private
residences.
But I think Republicans have a
fundamental problem with
consistency because, trump
white house didn't have visitor
logs, let alone for bet Miller
and mar-a-lago.
You can't credibly, as
Republicans rail on this as a
security failure when the
president from your party
ignored it altogether.
There should be consistent
standards applied.
I think going forward, they
should be the standard.
>> Comer also says that the
investigation is coming.
As we are seeing, as far as we
know, Republicans have not
announced any investigation
into Donald Trump and his
handling, his refusal to turn
over documents.
Comer was asked about this
difference or distinction, or
both.
Let me play what he said,
listen to this.
>> We have been so many
investigations into president
trump, I don't feel like we
need to spend a whole lot of
time investigating present
trump because the Democrats
have done that for the past six
years.
>> What does that tell you
about where this is headed?
Does the signal and thank you?
>> First, as a factual matter,
of course the mar-a-lago event
and the documents were a post
presidency wrongdoing by the
former president.
Of course, Democrats did not
previously investigate that.
That would be something that
frankly something the oversized
would look at if they want to
have a credible investigation
into both the former president
and the current president
handling of classified
information.
I think it signals, feels like
committee is gonna be very
political, it's gonna be very
partisan.
I think the white house expects
that.
Many Republicans frankly want
that.
There are areas they can do
oversight like Afghanistan,
border security.
They are not going to learn
anything that the justice
department isn't going to know.
I think it's frankly a waste of
time.
>> In terms of oversight of,
let's say, the classification
process, there's some to be
learned here, there is
potentially an area where real
oversight could be done.
But it is not when you see --
it does not seem like it is
heading that direction.
>> No, they seem determined to
take a bipartisan approach to
oversight.
What we need to do is to break
this all together.
We need to be applying
consistent standards with a
sense of perspective on these
documents.
>> Even if it hasn't been done
in the past, it is important
that it happens at some point.
>> Yeah, clearly going forward.
Whoever the president is,
whoever he visits with, that is
important to the American
people.
Look, let's talk about the
areas we can talk about.
Biden shouldn't have had any
classified documents anyway.
That's the law.
If there's anything nefarious,
he should be held accountable.
It is good for the interest of
transparency and consistent
standards of the special
counselor.
The Biden white house got
caught flat-footed on this.
Biden has to take
responsibility for that.
But the mythic moral
equivalence between these two
cases, not muddying the waters,
doesn't serve the clarity,
perspective, or an educated
guess.
>> People should have two
thoughts in their head at one
time.
I'm not saying you can, but
some might be able to.
On the point of how it is been
handled, Ryan, it is not just
Republicans who are critical of
how the white house has handled
this.
We now have reporting that
Biden's --
one, Biden is frustrated about
this.
But, a source close the
investigation says the pace of
the searchers by Biden's team
came as was being described as
a source of consternation
amongst the Chicago team that
was first looking into this
matter.
That sticks out to you why?
>> It sticks out to me because
in this --
it dovetails with president
Biden's concerns about the
white house messaging.
The white house messaging, they
said that Biden's team had been
closely quantity with the
justice department.
Now we find that the U.S.
Attorney in Chicago who had
condemnation about the pace of
their search.
As Evan pointed out, there is
this open question that has not
been answered.
Why do take them from November
2nd to December 20th to finally
conduct the second search?
They find documents, why does
it take them again until
January 11th to go back to the
same home, to the room adjacent
to that garage?
Now we see that it is not what
we might have imagined.
Maybe the FBI was slowing them
down, maybe the archives was
slowing them down.
Now it seems to be that the
U.S. Attorney was concerned
that the Biden team space of
doing these searches was the
problem.
>> In terms of president
Biden's frustration behind us
scenes about how this is
playing out, I spoke with the
former attorney general
Gonzales, one thing he said is,
if you could offer advice to
this white house, he would say,
you need to separate this.
You need to have a separate
spokesperson, separate legal
team to take all these
questions.
He says, if it is not already
becoming a distraction to this
white house, it will dock you,
it will eventually become a
very a big discrepancy.
Do you think that is needed?
>> I think that is very smart.
Two things, I think it is
important that the president
and his team set expectations
now to say, there may be
additional documents that come
out.
We are fully compliant, this is
what we are doing.
Just be as transparent as
possible.
The other thing you can't
ignore of this, I'm hearing
frustration from supporters of
the president.
And frankly opponents of Donald
Trump who are saying you just
handed such a victory to trump
because what mar-a-lago is
thinking now is, there is no
way trump gets indicted because
of how Joe Biden has handled
this.
There's a lot of political
frustration in this handling.
I'm not reading the legal tea
leaves, but I think the more he
can separate from the white
house officially and set
expectations low.
>> Look, the Biden team to the
right thing by having --
the justice department did the
right thing by appointing a
former trump U.S. Attorney to
be special counsel.
That is the way it should be
done.
It ensures a degree, not that
the credit will be given, of
impartiality in this very
serious investigation.
The fact the of two parallel
special counsels going forward,
they should be making decisions
on the merits, according to the
law and not playing the ref
through politics in the court
of public opinion.
>> The challenge in all of this
is, if and when they do that,
and they explain that only on
the facts to the public, you're