Former President Donald Trump has now officially been informed that he is
currently the main target of a criminal investigation into alleged
mishandling of classified documents.
And there are some signs indicating that he could be indicted in this case
very soon.
Now, Trump's lawyers have been sent a target letter on the matter, and
that target letter makes it abundantly clear that Trump is, in fact,
the heart of this criminal investigation.
I don't really understand why this is such big news.
Obviously, he's the heart of a criminal investigation having to do with
classified documents.
He's the one who took them home.
>> My God.
It turns out Trump's the target.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't understand Cable News, man.
They're like, breaking news.
The guy who took home the documents is the guy who might have taken them.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, that's kind of how it works.
>> I know, Cenk, But prosecutors sent a target letter to his lawyers.
>> But to be fair to them, I will say with this one thing on their behalf,
we cater to the powerful so much in this country.
The idea that anyone who had power could be indicted is shocking to the rest
of the powerful.
They're like, they didn't think it was possible.
I did think it was gonna be the milk boy.
I really did.
>> [LAUGH] >> But now we're all shocked to find that
it's actually Trump himself.
Now, the guardians, Hugo Lowell, broke the story and
spoke to RE Melbourne MSNBC about it.
So you're about to hear some more details about this.
Let's take a look.
>> Trump's lawyers were told last week by letter from the Justice Department that
the Special Counsel's Office considered Trump a target in the Mar-a-Lago documents
investigation.
Part of the reason why we're so confident in the designation being applied to Trump
is because, from what we understand, several of Trump's top lawyers and
senior advisors had a long conversation this afternoon about how to
manage the fallout of this letter.
And they were trying to minimize how many reporters were gonna do a story on it.
And Trump himself was really not keen for this to be reported out.
And I think when we learned that,
we were pretty confident that Trump has been designated a target.
>> Guys, this isn't a story.
>> Okay, that's not the story.
We do have a story here.
>> We have other elements and other updates to this investigation,
which we'll get to.
It is amazing how Cable News can take something
that is not a story and turn it into one.
>> I actually thought it was Professor Plum in the library with the lead pipe,
but it turns out it might be Trump after all.
But there are relevant portions.
>> There are relevant portions, okay.
So a breaking news story today has to do with a former White House official,
a career person within politics, right?
Not necessarily an elected person.
I say this because the individual has not come out by sharing their identity,
but they have been interviewed by investigators both by the prosecution
in this case and also by the individuals who want to investigate Biden and
his possession of classified documents.
But with that said, we're learning interesting information because this
is the person who was tasked with briefing both the Obama administration and
the Trump administration on how the declassification process works.
And the reason why this individual's testimony is so important is because
the main defense from Donald Trump and his team of lawyers is that he had the ability
to just think about declassifying those documents and boop, that's how it works.
More on that in the next video.
Let's take a look.
>> This official, who served in both correct me if I'm wrong about anything,
of Trump and the Biden administration's.
A careerist familiar with the classification process,
has spoken to federal prosecutors about what Donald Trump knew,
what Donald Trump was told while he was in the White House about the process.
He understood the rules, number one, plus, spoke Don McGahn, the former White House
counsel, John Kelly, the former White House Chief of Staff, John Eisenberg,
the former National Security Council lawyer.
Big players, smart people, close people to Donald Trump inside the White House.
They all knew the process, and they talked to Trump about it as well.
So what Trump says publicly contradicts what you have learned here.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> So that's mounting evidence that is not going to bode well for Trump.
And as a result,
there's a lot of speculation that very soon he will be indicted in this case.
According to the Independent, prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors
to approve an indictment against Trump for violating a portion of the US
criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits gathering,
transmitting, or losing any information respecting the national defense.
The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information,
is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short
circuit Trump's ability to claim that he used his authority as president.
To declassify documents he removed from the White House and
kept at his Palm Beach,
Florida property long after his term expired on January 20th of 2021, Cenk.
>> Okay, so look, every part of this conversation is absurd.
We now have to debate things that are just preposterous because just because
the right wing wants to debate them, like, we think that he could declassify
the documents just by looking at them or touching them or thinking about them.
These are all things that Trump has actually said.
And Magga then goes, of course, you just laseride the documents.
Sometimes you can just [SOUND] you smell the documents and they're declassified.
>> That's my favorite method.
>> Right?
But there's nothing too absurd for Magga to believe it.
Nothing too absurd.
Donald Trump could say, well, look, the documents are obviously classified.
Normally, you go through a very detailed process, and that's the law, but
there is an exception, if you take them, and you rub them under
your underarm declassified, and Magga will be like, that's definitely right.
You guys are so biased against Trump.
You know that if you do this, it always declassifies.
You know that Biden did that once, okay?
It's absurd.
Of course he took them home.
They said to him, bring them back we know you have them.
He actively hid them.
They have guys on tape moving the boxes.
>> Yeah.
>> And then the lawyer then goes into the place where they move the boxes and
only finds a certain amount.
Then the government says, no, we know you have top secret documents.
Give them back.
He's like, no, I don't, no, I don't.
Then they go into Mar-a-Lago, and they find all the top secret documents.
>> Yep. >> It's an open and shut case.
There's no question about it.
There's only two reasons why we're debating it.
One is the right wing will believe anything, and we'll debate anything.
And two is that the people in power are kind of skittish about it
because they've never prosecuted anyone in power, and
they're worried that it might come back on them at some point.
So they're like, we really got to get this guy.
But on the other hand, what if we were held accountable?
That's the only reason why we're having these nonsense conversations.
>> What if the- >> This guy should have been arrested
a long time ago?
Yeah, what if potential insider trading among members of Congress
were actually investigated by an independent third party.
>> There's no way that any Republican or Democrat is gonna agree to that.
>> Yeah.
>> Because they're all corrupt.
Okay, now look guys, there are two parts of this that are interesting in terms of
there's two layers, right?
The first layer is, did he break the law by taking the top secret documents and
not returning them and obstructing justice?
That's an open and shut case.
Now, my question is,
did he actually try to do something more nefarious with the documents?
Like maybe share them with Saudi Arabia, who's been funneling him and
his family millions, if not billions of dollars right after he left office with
the private equity deal, with the live golf deal, etc?
But so far,
I haven't seen anything leak from the prosecutors that leads in that direction.
So I'm actually a little disappointed.
I haven't seen any hint of evidence in that direction.
And you need evidence.
You can't assume that one.
There's no way.
>> Ofcourse. >> That one's not at all obvious, okay.
And then finally, the other giant thing is Mark Meadows.
Mark Meadows now apparently testifying against Trump.
That's his former chief of staff.
There's some reports unconfirmed that he is going to plead guilty,
and that would be shocking.
If he did that that means he's giving them he's in a lot of trouble, and
he's giving them tons of material on Trump who's then in a lot of trouble, but
we don't know that fully yet.
So one other thing that I wanted to mention, which would explain what we
slug this story fashion flood is a flooding incident that is strange.
And I just wanna note that there's nothing proven by this, right?
But it is strange.
So it turns out that an employee at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence
drained the resort swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room
where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept.
Now, those are the video logs that investigators want to review in this case.
And you're about to learn more about this convenient flooding and
how it might actually backfire in the next clip.
>> Then, late October, the Justice Department sent another request
to the Trump Organization asking them to preserve surveillance footage.
That is that same month that we are told that this pool at Mar-a-Lago was drained.
So there are a lot of questions, of course,
about how this is factoring into Jack Smith's investigation,
whether or not they believe this was intentional or if it was simply a mistake.
But another notable detail that our team has uncovered here, Wolf,
that maintenance worker in this case has had his phone seized.
He has also spoken to investigators.
So clearly this is something that they are certainly pursuing and
certainly asking witnesses about.
>> So, look, it's good that they're looking into that.
I mean, it could just be a very strange coincidence.
It could be a strategy to essentially tamper with evidence.
I don't know.
No one knows, but according to the report you just heard from the prosecutors
are looking into that.
>> Yeah, so my thought on that is, when I first saw Cable News reporting
that there was inappropriate flooding at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, I was like, come on,
guys, you're taking it too far, right?
But it turns out it's not flooding, they drained it on purpose, and
it turns out it just got directed to the one room with the surveillance video.
>> Yeah, how does that happen?
>> Right after the authorities asked for the surveillance video,
which then makes it 10,000 times more fishy.
But having said that, that's exactly the type of thing that is not obvious, right?
Meaning that we don't have enough evidence publicly now to say
that that's definitely true.
That's what you go to court for.
And if you got the evidence showing that, then I think it's pretty damning.
It's among many things that are damning, but they gotta show that one in court.