Thank you.
William: Attorney general
Merrick Garland announced today
that he personally approved the
decision to seek a search
warrant for former president
trump's home in palm beach,
Florida.
FBI agents executed the warrant
at
mar-a-lago earlier this week.
Reports indicate they were
searching for classified
documents but more details could
soon be revealed.
Garland said today that the
department of justice filed a
motion to make the search
warrant, and a receipt of the
items taken, public.
>> The department does not take
such a decision lightly.
Where possible, it is standard
practice to seek less intrusive
means as an alternative to a
search and to narrowly scope any
search that is undertaken.
Much of our work is by necessity
conducted out of the public eye.
We do that to protect the
constitutional rights of all
Americans and to protect the
integrity of our investigations.
William: To help us understand
what this all means I'm joined
by former federal prosecutor and
professor at the Cardozo school
of law, Jessica Roth.
She's been following this of all
closely.
Great to have you back on the
newshour.
Garland came out today and said
I authorized this, we are going
to try to make this warrant and
the list of what we took public.
Again, we know that Garland
likes to let his actions and his
department's actions speak for
themselves, so seeing him in
front of the cameras today was a
bit striking.
Did you see it the same?
>> Yes, absolutely.
It was very striking and
unexpected for me to see him
today at that rest conference,
but I think it was important
that he do what he did today,
entirely appropriate under the
circumstances, and I think it
was very important and
appropriate that he filed the
motion at this stage come as is
set forth in that application,
there are really two reasons
primarily want search warrant
applications remain under
sealed, usually at this stage in
the proceedings.
One is to protect the privacy
interests of those that are
searched, and the others to
protect the integrity of our
ongoing law enforcement
operations.
In this circumstance, former
president trump himself
essentially cited he didn't want
to keep it private.
Attorney general Garland is
essentially saying in the
department of justice's opinion,
the application, at least in
some redacted form, can be made
public without compromising law
enforcement concerns, and that
there is a significant public
interest here, so it is
important that the public have
accurate information about
precisely what it was the
department was investigating,
and if the application is
granted, the public will know
what facts are in the possession
of the department to set forth
probable cause that specific
crimes were committed and that
evidence could be found in the
former president's residence.
William: So the former president
can object to that, what would
be the objection -- what would
be the basis for his objection
to that happening?
>> He could object on the basis
that he does have ongoing
privacy interests that would be
compromised by the release of
this information.
Is one thing to announced there
was a search of your home, it's
another to have it out in the
public exactly what crimes the
search was there to look for
evidence of, and the specific
facts that establish probable
cause to a judge's satisfaction
that those crimes had been
committed and that evidence of
them was to be found in that
location.
So if the motion is granted, the
public will soon have specific
information about what the FBI
alleges had occurred and the
evidence, as well as -- the
public will have a sense of what
the evidence was that was put
forward.
William: Can you take a step
back and just remind us, given
there are so many of these cases
ongoing, as far as we know, what
is the doj looking at here?
What was the FBI trying to find,
as best we know about?
Jessica: It is important to
state at the outset that we
don't have official confirmation
about the nature of the
investigation that gave rise to
the search warrant.
However, the fact that the
motion to unseal the search
warrant application was signed
in part of the chief of the
department of justice
counterterrorism section tells
us that it likely was part of
the investigation he was
overseeing, which means it would
involve counterintelligence
interest and that would be
consistent with reporting that
has been done about the buildup
to the search, which was a
back-and-forth between the
national archives and the
president's representatives in
an effort to recover material he
took from the white house when
he left and when the archives
did recover some of that
material they found in it
classified information that
should not of been taken from
the white house.
In their ongoing determination
that there were still classified
materials that were missing.
So the fact that the motion
today was signed by somebody who
is in charge of
counterintelligence
investigations suggests that
that is the focus, at least
primarily, of the search
warrant.
William: Arlen's comments come
amidst the remarkable
conservative backlash to this
raid on the former president's
home.
Some very angry, violent
rhetoric being directed at the
department of justice and at the
FBI over their actions in this
case.
We saw this attack today in
Cincinnati, it is unclear if
that was related to the FBI
office.
Do you think of some level that
is partly what motivated the
attorney general to come out
today to try to cool some of
that down?
Jessica: I think the attorney
general felt it was important to
get accurate information about
what the department is doing out
into the public domain.
There has been a lot of
misinformation and
disinformation out in the public
domain.
Some of it may be responsible
for some of the violence or the
rhetoric that you are talking
about.
I'm not confident that those who
take part in that rhetoric and
those actions will necessarily
hear what the attorney general
had to say today, but
nevertheless it is important
that he not see the entirety of
the public domain, to
information that is inaccurate.
I also think it was important
that he stand up for the
personnel of the department of
justice, including the FBI
agents come as he said at the
press conference today, to stand
up for their professionalism and
integrity in facing such a task.
So when it is permissible for
the department of justice to be
somewhat transparent about its
actions and to explain the
actions it is taken on behalf of
the American people, it is
important that it do so.
William: Lastly in the few
seconds we have left, we heard
attorney general Garland say he
would've preferred a less
intrusive approach.
He is implying there that in
essence that we send subpoenas,
we asked for this to go down in
a gentler way, and that didn't
Is that how you read that?
Jessica: Yes, what he was making
clear is that the department
prefers to act in ways that are
less intrusive than a search
warrant.
It is intrusive upon the
interest of those who are
searched.
What he was broadcasting was
that the department did not move
automatically to that method,
that it sought to obtain the
material by subpoena first.
The reporting has suggested date
sought to get it Priebus lead by
consent and there was a
back-and-forth effort to get it
at the reporting suggest the
material was not provided in its
entirety, and for the department
to have taken the action that it
did and obtain the search
warrant, it must have deemed the
material so important that it
had to recovered through this
measure.
I think that is what Garland was
trying to speak to some of the
misinformation or incomplete
information that has been in the
public domain about what
happened.
There has been so much -- it is
important to remind viewers that
this was a lawfully executed
search warrant pursuant to a
court ordered warrant where a
judge found there was probable
cause that crimes had been
committed and evidence would be
found on the residence and it
was executed pursuant to that
court process.
William: Jessica Roth, thank you
so much for helping us wade
through all this.