branch, which the doj falls under, also has kept this at a complete arm's length and didn't know the attorney general was about to speak this afternoon. that's what we're learning from the white house. the attorney general, who was under president george w. bush, michael mukasey is watching with us as well. we're thankful to have him give us his take on this attorney general's comments. lara trump is also here with us watching this. she also as a member of the trump family, very interested to hear what the attorney general has to say about why they conducted this raid. we will also ask her about the potential that there's somebody at mar-a-largo that has turned into a mole for the fbi. perhaps that's what triggered the action that we saw and the manner that we saw it a couple of mornings ago. special report anchor bret baier is here with me in new york. very glad to have bret with us as this unfolds and also joined by shannon bream, the new anchor of "fox news sunday." bret, you always wonder, we always wonder what's going on behind the scenes. it was a fast scramble to put this briefing together. we learned about it a couple hours ago. supposed to happen at 2:30. it's a five-minute statement. they're going over this statement with a fine tooth comb. we're told that he will not take any questions after. no doubt there will be questions shouted and that will tell you a little bit about what is on the mind of these reporters in that room. >> 100%. the start tomorrow was 2:30. we're at 3:02. that is significant for the doj to say reporters be here and we're ready to go, start the coverage and to be 32 minutes late. now, in the middle of these 32 minutes, we have heard from the white house that they didn't know the attorney general was going to make comments, or at least they say, officials say. they don't know what the comments are. that could be interested. maybe those calls could be going on. there were a lot of questions with the press secretary from the press pool earlier this week saying why didn't you know this level of a situation with the former president potential political rival and opponent in 2024, why didn't you know that that was going to happen. so i think that that maybe some of this delay. we'll see if this is a warning here. >> that has come up before and didn't mean anything. at that point i thought maybe he's putting a statement out on the podium, a move that we see when you get a two-minute warning. we just got a two-minute warning, i'm told. let's bring in the former tone general, michael mukasey. do we have him ready to go? mr. attorney general, thanks for being here. your quick thoughts as we have a two-minute warning here, what do you expect to happen today? >> i'm with everybody else on the edge of my seat wondering what it is that he's going to say. jonathan turley said he hoped this swapped down rumors that this has to do with january 6. it would be interesting to see if that in fact happens. because as i may point out later on, there was a flurry of activity going on all related to january 6 and then you have this other investigation on the side relating to documents that everybody knew was there, were there and apparently were unlock and key. the question becomes how come it was necessary to go in the way they did and as quickly as they did to seize them. it will be interesting to hear whether the attorney general in fact does as jonathan turley put it, swat down that suggestion that somehow this is really all to do with january 6 or substantially to do with it. >> martha: could he do that though? the -- whatever information they gathered is sort of a big nest, right? it's the reason for going in was to retrieve documents that they wanted to be returned and for some reason they weren't getting the reaction that they wanted to that and then they come across something that is relevant to another investigation. they could certainly use that information for that? correct? >> absolutely. >> martha: we'll save that question for the other side. >> good afternoon. since i became attorney general, i have made clear the department of justice will speak through its court filings and its work. just now the justice department has filed a motion in the southern district of florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court approved search that the fbi conducted earlier this week. that search was the promises located in florida belonging to the former president. the department did not make any public statements on the day of the search. the former president publicly confirmed the search that evening as is his right. copies of both the warrant and the fbi property receipt were provided on the day of the search for the former president's counsel who was on site during the search. the search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. the property receipt is a document that federal law requires law enforcement agents to leave with the property owner. the department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president's public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances and the substantial public interest in this matter. faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principal of the justice department and our democracy. upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. under my watch, that is precisely what the justice department is doing. all americans are entitled to the even-handed application of the law to due process of the law and the presumption of innocence. makeup 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. federal law, longstanding department rules and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time. there are, however, certain points i want you to know. first, i personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. second, 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 undertaken. third, let me address recent under founded attacks on the professionalism of the fbi and justice department agents and prosecutors. i will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. the men and women of the fbi and the justice department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. every day they protect the american people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. they do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. i am honored to work alongside them. this is all i can say right now. more information will be made available in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time. thank you. thanks for your questions. that's all i can say at this time >> martha: with that, the attorney general leaves the room. no questions. a little shy of five-minute statement from attorney general merrick garland. we're going to continue our coverage of this throughout the course of this hour. you've been listening to fox news coverage of attorney general merrick garland. i would point out a couple of new items here. one, he says the department of justice filed a motion to make the warrant and the receipt of what was taken from the property public. but it is up to the former president to do that. he says he has received, the former president received both of those. the warrant and the receipt of what was taken. he said the department has filed a motion to make both public. he also said i approved this search warrant, and he said whenever we can, we try to take a less intrusive means, suggesting that in this instance he did not think that that was feasible or appropriate. he didn't use those words. i'm gathering from what he said he felt there was no other measure other than to approve the search warrant in the manner that it was delivered. he also addressed the attacks on the fbi, their integrity. he says these are dedicated patriots to the service of the country. so there you can see the aerial shot of mar-a-largo. this is the scene of the raid that unfolded 72 hours ago in the predawn hours ago. with that, we ask you to stay tuned to fox news channel and this fox station. we will have continuing coverage of this breaking news throughout the hour. i'm martha maccallum in new york. >> martha: with that, we bring in brand new anchor of "fox news sunday", shannon bream. congratulations to you. i speak for all of us when i say you're one of the best anchors we have and we're thrilled you're taking over this sunday spot and we look forward to seeing that starting september 11th. so this is the way it works around here. we jump right in. without further adieu on that, we'll continue our coverage. so those are the things that jumped out at me, shannon. the first of which is that he said that the former president received the warrant, that he received the receipt of the warrant, which details what was taken during that search. the department filed a motion to make that public given the public's interest in this highly unusual situation. we haven't seen those documents come forward from the former president as of yet. your reaction to that part of the news from this briefing. >> so of course very standard they would leave that warrant and that itemization list on site after they carried out their raid. but here's what it left out of that. there's a lot of underlying stuff, other information that would have been used to go to that just to justify that warrant. i didn't hear the attorney general say that's the stuff that he wants unsealed. that is the subject of a number of legal challenges and requests by media outlets including "new york times." they want to see everything. that would give us much more information. so i don't think the attorney general will be pressing for that level of detail and all that underlying juicy stuff to be let out. so what he's asking for sounds like is exactly what they left with the former president and his legal team. so sure, they can allow that to go out as well. as you noted, he said yes, he approved the search or the effort to get the warrant. that still makes a difference because we've had reporting that he didn't know about the exact raid. those two things could be true. he knew the position that the department was working toward that warrant. he knew about that effort but didn't know about the specific timing of the exact raid. so i feel like we've learned a lot of nothing because it leaves us with more questions at this point. >> martha: indeed it does. we talked about that. the underlying affidavit is more meaty, has more information about what caused the judge in this case, this magistrate judge who is under scrutiny, what caused him to say to the officials in florida and also fishes on the scene from washington as well that he approved that search warrant that they can go in. so the affidavit is under seal. what could change that? there's petitions to get that released or are they likely to be honored? >> it's possible. you know, a number of these media organizations have said the public has an interest in stories like this, a story of this kind of import, a former president's personal residence being, you know -- the subject of an fbi raid. so i think they have a strong argument. there's be many times that the courts have rules including supreme court that certain information should be made public in cases like this. only that magistrate will know. he knows the details of that information. he has ordered everyone in those private attempts to get this material to get on board and tell the government that you have monday until 5:00 to get a response to this. we'll have a separate filing by the attorney general. he's not going to be for all of that underlying stuff to be released. but these organizations feel like they have a good public interest argument. this is a case first of its kind in our country. >> martha: what does it tell you that he said basically that we try to proceed in these situations in sort of the lowest level intrusion necessary. yet that is not what we saw. we saw a very large presence, we saw sirens up and down the entire area in front of the house and something that went on for hours and hours. by some people's estimation on site was quite intrusive. what does that tell you about what he okayed? >> so what we're hearing from the trump time, would sound like a different story. his attorneys, family members say they were having good conversations, having visits. there were negotiations ongoing and they thought according to their side of the events that they had a good conversation and relationship going with the government about these documents. so for the attorney general to say there wasn't a less intrusive means says on their end, there is something that we need to get to that we're not getting to from the former president. we talk about this naivety. doj officials said they thought they could do this in low key manner, doing in plain clothes and do it quietly when the president is not there. astonishing us in to the media to believe it could be done that way. >> martha: i'm astonished that it happened at 6:30 a.m. and nobody reported it until 12 hours later given how high profile a place that mar-a-largo is as the former president's resident. shannon, thank you very much. congratulations again. >> thank you. >> martha: with that, let's bring back judge michael mukasey, the attorney general under president george w. bush. very glad to have him with us today. general mukasey, your reaction from what you heard from attorney general merrick garland. >> two words that leaped out at me from his presentation. the words "when possible." he said "when possible we try to use less intrusive measures." what was it that made it impossible to do it in this case? that doesn't require disclosure of what was in the affidavit. it requires a statement of what it was that made it i'm pocket. he didn't tell us that is a large gap. you don't have to disclose what else was in the affidavit in order to disclose how come they had to do it this way. >> martha: so what does that tell you? it would suggest that they felt that they weren't going to get cooperation, right? >> okay. but they could move to compel compliance with a subpoena. there were other measures that they could have served another subpoena or move to compel a compliance. there was apparently something that made it compulsory in their view for agents to be on site and to be taking the documents themselves. as you pointed out before, there's a rule that says if you're searching for evidence of one crime and find evidence of another, you're permitted to use that evidence. it's hard to escape the belief that somebody hoped that there would be evidence of another crime, i.e. something related to january 6. unfortunately although we were told that the affidavit established probable cause to search for missing documents, we already knew that. the question is whether people at the justice department entertained that hope and if they had a reason for doing it. >> martha: let me ask you questions about surrounding events to this. during that gap period, we saw the apprehension of jeffery clark's cell phone. we saw the interaction with attorney eastman as well. both advisers during the period post election who were advising the former president on what means were available to him prior to january 6. also you have scott perry, congressman scott perry's phone that was also taken by law enforcement. what do you make of those other law enforcement issues with regard to this? do they relate? >> well, yeah, as to the first, the searches of eastman and clark, we were told that those were simply matters that were undertaken to help the inspector general conduct an investigation of mr. clark. mr. eastman was not an employee of the justice department at any relevant time during that period. the inspector general is not a law enforcement agent. he has no authority to get a search warrant. so that was a fib at best. we were told basically not to worry our little heads about it. it's related to the a.g. investigation. i and many others do not believe that. as you point out, after the search at mar-a-largo, scott perry, a congressman from pennsylvania that was active in trying to get the election overturned had his telephone confiscated under a warrant. the agents approached him while on vacation and took hit phone. that relates to january 6. so there's this flurry of activity. the justice department served subpoenas on pat cipollone and pat philbin as well to testify in front of a grand jury related to january 6. there's this flurry of activity related to january 6 and then we're told that this other investigation had absolutely nothing to do with january 6. that's difficult and yet they put 30 fbi agents on it to go in and seize documents that presumably everybody knew was there. >> martha: it may be -- >> it's a hard scenario to accept at face value. >> martha: it may be that the nara archive request is what was signed off on separate from a january 6 issue. as you pointed out, if something was retrieved during that period and what kind of document they pointed to. the attorney general said the department has filed a motion to make the warrant and the receipt of what was taken on the property public. so the only person that could do that would be the former president and his team, correct? >> well, the court could do it if the motion is granted. the president and his team can do it any time they chose. they have the warrant and they have the inventory, which is the list of documents that were taken. i don't know how detailed and we don't know how detailed that inventory is, whether it suggested there was anything relevant to something other than classified documents or not. that obviously is significant. i don't think the president, by the way, did himself any favors by suggesting the other day that the fbi agents because they were not accompanied or not watched had an opportunity to plant evidence. everybody knew the documents were there. i don't know what evidence he's talking about. if it relates to january 6th, that's not helpful to him. >> martha: what about the fact that if true and we're figuring this out, his attorneys were not allowed to observe the search? >> that is fairly unremarkable. i don't know precisely what the protocol is. it might have been perhaps more helpful if they had been. again, the rule requires that the agents file an inventory of everything seized, all items without exception. that is supposed to provide the protection against any claim that there was unlawful activity or activity not authorized by the warrant. >> martha: given what has happened so far, what would you expect to happen next? >> i left off suggesting what was going to happen next several weeks ago with the way events have unfolded. i expect that at some point the warrant and the inventory will be disclosed. that will present perhaps more questions than it answers. because again, we don't know what it was that made it not possible to use less intrusive methods. >> martha: okay. attorney general mukasey, thanks very much. served under president bush and we always appreciate your experience and your insight in these matters. this is an unusual one to be sure. i expect to talk to you again. thanks very much. always good to have you with us. good to see you. >> thank you. >> martha: david spunt at the justice department with breaking news with a letter sent by christopher wray to fbi employees across the country. hi, david. >> fox news looked at this letter, reviewed this e-mail, i should say, that the fbi director sent out to rank and file employees across the country. thousands of them in all of the field offices telling them it's been a tough week for the fbi. i want to read part of it to you. director christopher wray said in part, our focus must remain always on our mission and on doing the right thing in the right way no matter how loud the noise gets. let's me also assure you that your safety and security are my primary concern. security division is working a cross the agency action we continue the stay vigilant and adjust our security posture accordingly." the fbi director was in nebraska meeting at the field office there. he did take some questions from reporters. he said he couldn't speak specifically about what happened monday at mar-a-largo, but he did address what he calls an increasing threat toward fbi agents that he has seen over the past several days. authorities have been monitoring some of that on social media today. we don't know if this is related, but somebody shot at an fbi field office in cincinnati. we're told the building is secure. nobody was hurt. we're continuing to follow that story and hear from authorities. there's no indication that that was related to monday. it's something that is notable today. i was in the room with attorney general merrick garland as he delivered that statement. that's not something an attorney general typically does, speaks about an ongoing investigation. but as we have said before, he's the attorney general and he has the discretion to do so and he did so today in this statement that was shortly under five minutes, martha. >> martha: david, thanks very much. david spunt at the justice department. we'll go back to david as news merits throughout the hours. bret baier back on set with us now here in new york. bret, you heard the conversation i had with the former attorney general, michael mukasey. the two most important words here were "not possible." merrick garland said that in every situation, they try to go in in the least intrusive way possible, but that in this situation that was not possible. >> bret: i was struck by that. i was struck by that he personally authorized the decision to search the former president's home and he did not take it lightly. he said that as part of this filing, the justice department invites the former president to object. he's filing for the release to make public the search warrant and the list of items taken and trump and his attorney could object to that motion, which is fascinating. basically what he said in the five minutes is we had to do it this way because it was just not possible. could be argued there on a number of fronts. then he said because the former president said what he said when it was happening, we then had to file for this to be open. otherwise we would not do that this way. obviously there there be a decision about releasing that. he went on to say the former president and his team at any time could have released the search warrant and the list of items taken. >> martha: there's some reporting from trump attorneys that the warrant was partially sealed. that wasn't indicated by merrick garland. he's saying that they have the warrant, they have the receipt as you say of what was taken. but what they don't have is the underlying affidavit that prompted this judge to say, okay, go in, based on what you're saying is potentially criminal, that needs to be taken out of that residence right now. i mean, it all goes to the question which understandably michael mukasey couldn't answer but where is this going? >> bret: where is it going? you know, you still don't see a tie to january 6. you see classified documents. we don't have the answers to the key questions yet. even though there was this five-minute statement, we have a lot more questions now i think. we have one question answered that the attorney general was personally involved. that was from sources, various sources and various media outlets not clear. other people in the doj said he was removed from the decision. that was all straightened out from his point of view. what was not is the cause. they're saying it's going to come in coming hours once they get this ruling, if the former president doesn't object to that. we're in unchartered territory here. this is very unfamiliar because we haven't been here. not only in a political way, but in a judicial way with a president, a former president, a potential political opponent the next time around. >> martha: i'll tell you something else that feels unchartered to me, that is the silence from the former president. >> bret: he's not known for being silent. >> martha: generally he comes out swinging no matter what. >> bret: he's had a couple of forceful statements. but since then -- >> martha: we haven't heard him make an appearance or statement. he released initially what looks like a presidential campaign ad the night of that -- of the raid about a response, a declining america. a former president who is looking at running again, he has $100 million in his war chest to run again. no matter what, this is going to be perceived by trump supporters as a way to take him out of this race. >> bret: and they're pointing back to past egregious elements that say see in the russia investigation and leading up to that on a number of fronts. we should point out we welcome to former president to come on our air and sit down for an interview. >> martha: i'll open the phone line right now if he would like to respond to what attorney general garland just said. does he want to release the warrant and the list of what they took, which the department of justice says there's a public interest in seeing. >> bret: and there's more questions to the trump legal team. knowing to react to the attorney general. you have two tracks going on here. meantime, we're going to get to something. they have to fish or cut bait. >> martha: do we have that sound bite? what attorney general michael mukasey said, the two most important world are "not possible." that's what i would expect we'll get a reaction from from the trump side about what wasn't wasn't important in terms of a way to get into the house and get what they were looking for. that would be something that we would love to hear from the other side. >> bret: why was it possible to negotiate with the hillary clinton team. why was it possible to negotiate with sandy berger. why is it possible when you have classified documents of concerned and highly secretive documents that you went to attorneys talking to each other and eventually got to a conclusion. why is it possible and not now? >> martha: let's break it down and listen to what he said on that comment. >> the department does not take such a decision lightly. where possible, it's standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative as a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. >> martha: yeah, that is the bone of contention right there. why was it not possible. did they refuse? did someone refuse to let them in? what role does this potential informant play in terms of whether or not there was any reason to think that that document would be disrupted or something would happen to it. >> bret: last thing. we know there's a grand jury subpoena for these additional documents in early june to the time of the raid on monday. that's the hole that we have to fill. the attorney general did not fill it. he said that the public filing to release this is in motion and will happen barring some objection from the former president or his team. we don't know that part of it until then. >> neil: . >> martha: there's other steps between where they were and where they ended up with parade of fbi vehicles and a parade of 30 people going to the house. the attorney general said it's not possible. we want to know why. bret, thanks. see you at 6:00. we'll see you popping up between now and then as well. with that, we want to bring in jonathan turley, law professor from george washington university and fox news contributor. jonathan, welcome. anxious to hear your reaction to this statement by the attorney general. what did you think? >> martha: well, much of it was boiler plate, trust us, we're the government type of language. i'm not so sure why it merited the delay. the minimum that could be said. the attorney general reaffirmed the commitment of the department of justice. none of us expected that this was a political got-you moment. the big disclosure is they'll be moving to unseal the warrant and also the list of material that was acquired in the search. but that immediately led to a number of us saying how about the affidavit? that's what you really want to see. the affidavit is what the agents told the court as to the basis for this type of search. the attorney general said it was not possible to have any other means to acquire this evidence. this affidavit must have made that case. the question is why? if they were looking for an identifiable document or documents presumably they asked the trump people to turn it over. did they just tell them to take a leap out of a window? it's surprising that that would be the case but we don't have those details. when you say it's not possible to use any other means, you're saying we couldn't issue another subpoena that specifically identified these documents and required that they be turned over. we couldn't send just a couple of agents over to say this is going -- subject to a search warrant. a lot of real estate between that june meeting and this raid that has a lot of us wondering why he said it's not possible to do anything else. >> martha: here's why we need to see the affidavit. when you say that, when you say this is the reason, the underlying reasons for the search, right? everybody is just supposed to accept that, that there was no other way to go about it. immediately your mind goes to the fisa filing, that we couldn't see for a really long time. it goes to all other things in the russia collusion that we were supposed to accept were legitimate underlying evidence like the steele dossier, that merited the surveillance of people like george papadopoulos and carter page. we were supposed to accept that they had the goods, otherwise they would have never taken this measure, right? this is what i pointed to, which is sad in the destruction of trust in the country. we can go on for quite a while. but that's why we need to see the affidavit. we need to see it and see it quickly i'd say. >> right. in fairness to the department of justice, the 15 boxes that were required at the beginning of the year reportedly did contain classified information, did contain material that should have been turned over. fine. they have a right to that information. what we're questioning now is the means and why this ratcheted up to this criminal investigation. because there does appear to have been compliance with the earlier subpoena. one of the things that i felt was interesting about what attorney general merrick garland said, he was prepared to talk about collateral issues, but he didn't say, and, by the way, people are saying this is really about january 6. i want to put that to rest. the purpose stated in the warrant that we'll presumably see is the only purpose for which attorney was being gathered. he didn't have to get into any more detail than that. we'll see in the warrant what the parameters were in terms of the gathering. attorney general mukasey is correct. these warrants have boiler plate language that says if you come across evidence of other crimes, you can share them. but what we're really talking about here is that this was always intended as a pretext. this was an effort to get january 6 evidence. that would be pretty serious breach given the history of the department of justice. >> martha: we need to see there was a pretext, there was a reason to go in. i'm always a little weary when people said we turned over 15 boxes or 33,000 e-mails be, if those don't include the -- if somebody that is being withheld that is relevant, those are the documents that matter, correct? if they said you must turn this over and they didn't get cooperation on that, would -- that would potentially create a situation where they had to do what they did, right? >> absolutely. what i'm looking for in the affidavit, a, b and c are missing. they're classified and sensitive. that's the type of stuff you'll find in the affidavit that is critical to legit mating the raid. >> martha: we need to know what made it not possible and it may be there. we stay tuned. thanks, jonathan. good to see you. so fox is now confirming that the white house will not release any reaction to attorney general merrick garland's remarks. they are being diligent in keeping this at an arm's length in many ways. jacqui heinrich is traveling with the president. he's on vacation right now in south carolina. hi, jacqui. >> hi, martha. yeah, that's right. the white house is not issuing any kind of statement, any kind of reaction. they don't want to touch this with a ten foot pole to avoid any appearance of being some sort of political involvement on their part with the investigation from the justice department which they maintain is independent from the white house. an official made sure to tell me that they learned of garland's upcoming remarks through the media. so they're not only not saying anything, they're saying we're finding out about the latest developments from you. in a briefing this week, i noticed one thing. it's significant now that the white house is distancing themselves from any sort of discussion about trump. karine jean-pierre was asked in the former president was still a favored opponent of president biden. she made the claim that they don't talk about trump in the briefing room, which they have done in the past on a number of issues. since this came to light, they're taking a step back from engaging in this material in any way. officials are getting questions about it. they're sort of parroting the points that we heard from the president since he appointed merrick garland. you'll regard a little over a year ago when biden appointed garland, he gave the remarks about how important it is to restore the integrity of the justice department, saying it had been politicized under president trump and he said that garland would be the right person for that. you're hearing now white house officials making those same remarks. kate bettingfield was asked this morning for reaction. she said the justice department should not be the president's personal lawyer. the justice department is independent. they make their own decisions without interference from the white house. so you'll have to direct those questions to the justice department. so of course, the white house, cabinet and staff will continue getting questions from the press and getting pressure from lawmakers to get out there and make some statements. i expect to hear a lot of what we've been hearing so far, which is we're not talking about it, martha. >> martha: thanks, jacqui. jacqui heinrich traveling with the president in south carolina. i'm be joined by lara trump and get her reaction to what the attorney general had to say about the fact that it was not possible to go in any other way than the way that they went in. but first, i want to bring in joe concha, columnist for "the hill" and a fox news contributor and clay travis, founder of outkick. good to have you with us today. you've been covering this closely yourselves as most of us have. joe, your reaction to what you just heard from merrick garland. what stood out? >> well, martha, i think the appearance just made things worse for the white house. again, they somehow insist they weren't given a heads-up about the raid, right? which is very hard to believe. they weren't even given a heads-up that the attorney general would be making a statement today? if you believe that, you believe that we're currently experiencing zero inflation. right? if this ends up being about documents for the national archives, it will be the biggest debacle since the pull out from afghanistan. after this statement from garland, we clearly have more questions than answers to echo what shannon and bret said. that was 4 minutes and 40 seconds and a nothing burger with no bun. why did it take 72 hours for the attorney general to make a comment regarding a raid that has dominated our news cycle since the beginning of the week why did he take any questions? where was it prewritten? there's flashing lights and dozens of agents when the former president was cooperating. the documents that they sought were needed for the national archives. if so, how do you justify not obtaining them in a lower key manner. what stood out, he had to point out that he personally approved this raid that would be the case. newsweek said that he didn't approve it. more questions than answers right now. >> martha: he's saying i authorized the raid. he's not saying they called me before i went in and i said okay, go. that's the nuance there. we heard from a number of former high-ranking officials at the department of justice that it would be highly unusual for merrick garland not to be the person who made that call. he said that yes, indeed he did approve this search warrant. clay, the other thing that stands out and joe just touched on it, that it was not possible to go in any other way than the way that they went in, which suggests that they had hit road blocks, that they needed something that was in there and they better be able to substantiate that claim, that it wasn't possible to handle the former president of the united states' home in any other way. >> yeah, that's the key here. this is unprecedented. i don't think we should miss what is really going on here. we have the attorney general of the president that just ran against the former president and might be running again against him in two years investigating that president. how in the world has merrick garland not recused himself from this investigation? to me, joe hit on it. i think the most significant part of this press conference was merrick garland, let us know that he is personally shepherding this investigation by and large. it's under his authority. why in the world is there not an independent counsel here? why is merrick garland, who is joe biden's hand-picked attorney general, able to investigate both the past and potentially future person who is going to be running against joe biden? this is madness. there's no precedent. this is me putting my lawyer hat on here. there's no precedent in american political history for an attorney general of an opposing party to be investigating man running against his boss. that is a clear direction of bias. it's a clear indication of impropriety. i'm flabbergasted that more people are not discussing this and asking -- joe said why did you have to go in this way? that's a very fair question. why are you helming up this investigation is the single most important question that merrick garland should have to answer? >> martha: a really good point. everything that we've mapped out in terms of the political environment here. we're about to enter the mid-term elections. the next day you'll entered the presidential election cycle. >> no doubt. >> martha: you have this environment that a lot of americans will have deep discomfort with. look at the way the government is set up, right? you have the executive branch. under the executive branch is the department of justice. americans remember eric holder saying was president obama's wing man. we know president trump at times wanted the department of justice to act in ways that he wanted them to act and he ran into walls on that in a couple of occasions. >> remember what happened in the trump attorney general jeffers pulled himself out of investigating russia collusion and they put in an independent counsel. that was president trump himself being investigated, but the bias i would argue is far more pronounced in merrick garland investigating his boss' top political opponent. how in the world is this happening? >> martha: final thought, joe. we need to know what it is. the american people need to know what the goods are to the greatest extent possible. i do worry about people's reaction to this. it's very -- it's a deep level of discomfort on all sides. >> yeah, the longer this goes on through -- it will go through the weekend. the president is on vacation for an indefinite amount of time. he won't be commenting on this. you won't see merrick garland on this. chris wray won't be in front of a microphone on. the longer this goes on, the more suspicious goes on especially those that support the former president that says this is a ball of wrong, this is not how the country works. i imagine the sober moderate democrats are uncomfortable with this. it's getting worse before it's going to get better, martha. >> martha: a lot of freewayed emotions over this and clarity would help a lot. we understand it's an investigation and there's limits to it. clay travis, great to have you with us. joe, concha, good to see you. thanks, gentlemen. >> thank you. >> martha: so now we have reaction from former president trump writing on truth social, i continue to ask what happened to the 33 million pages of documents taken to president by president chicago writes the former president on his social media site. the fake news media refuses to talk about that. they want it cancelled. so that's what we've heard on social media from the former president. i'm joined by lara trump, the former president's daughter-in-law married to eric trump. he's the former 2020 senior campaign adviser to the trump campaign and a fox news contributor. lara, very good to have you with us. i'm sure there's a lot going on in your heart and mind as you watch this unfold. we're not insensitive to that. what is your reaction to what merrick garland had to say? >> i'm kind of shocked to tell you the truth that it took three days for him to give us no information. a lot of americans were looking for something, anything that they could look to from the attorney general that would reassure them that this was not a political attack, that they were overly aggressive. breaking in to the home and raiding the home of a former president of the united states, that is a big deal. shocking by the way the way that they thought that they were going to do this in a low-key manner. and then to hear the attorney general tell us we should be trusting the fbi. they're great men and women. i have friends that work with the fbi and they are -- many of these people are great individuals, but the american people have a hard time trusting an agency that used fabricated documents to get a fisa warrant to kickoff the russia collusion hoax. look at the way that parents have been targeted at school board meetings. you have a whole host of things not the least of which is the fact that a whistle-blower or several at the fbi have recently told us they're trying to cover up information over there for hunter biden. this is where the fbi chose to focus. as an american, i can tell you, i've had so many people reach out to me the past several days saying we cannot sleep. our stomachs are in knots. this is not something that you suppose will ever happen in america. yet here we are. we're supposed to accept what the a.g. said. we have no info. >> martha: a couple of questions for you. one is this issue of an informant or a mole, someone who reached out to the fbi and indicated that they needed to come back and even according to these reports directed them to where they would find it. what is the former president saying about that? >> he has no information on that. >> martha: is he concerned about that? >> we're shocked to hear that. sadly, look at his white house. look at the number of people that seemed like they were out for sabotage at all times. seems like you always have to look behind your back especially when your last name is trump. there's always somebody out to get you. i don't know in particular that he's focused on this one. a general sense of you have to look out for yourself. >> martha: let me ask you this. the attorney general said it was not possible to do it any other way. he said we would like to go in unintrue sieve as possible. in this case it was not possible. suggesting that they had tried other measures to retrieve what they wanted to go yet and that they were stonewalled in some way. were they stonewalled during that three-month period after the initial meeting which we know was very cordial according to our reports. >> yeah, not to my knowledge. in fact, the last word spoken on june 3 when the investigators came in is they were told anything you need, let us know by my father-in-law verbatim. a day or so later, they were asked to padlock that office that had the filed in that they were interested in. they followed that to a tee. the next thing we know, here we are on monday morning getting a call saying the fbi is on the door step of mar-a-largo. so to our knowledge, there was nothing more that could have been done. there was nothing that happened in the interim that would have warranted such an aggressive heavy-handed approach to something like this. specifically and especially when it's a former president. >> martha: can you confirmed there was no communication between the fbi and the former president or his lawyers between that june 3 meeting and the padlock discussion and monday morning? >> i just spoke to his lawyer moments ago before i came on with you. that's what i was told. that was their last communication, was many -- a couple days maybe after june 3 to confirm that the padlock had been put in place. other than that, that's all that they heard. >> martha: did they have any feeling about who this informant person might be? >> no. i mean, i think that's news to a lot of people. i don't know that that is the case to tell you the truth. that is a bit of hearsay. i think the fbi alluded to that. to our knowledge, there's no one hoff concern, there's no one that we would even consider could have anything to say. quite frankly, we don't know what they would say. >> martha: how would you characterize how the former president is doing? is he nervous, concerned, anxious about this or not? >> i don't think he's specifically anxious about this. i think it's just an overall feeling that, you know, where are we in the united states of america when this sort of thing could happen? your two previous guests laid it out well. you look at the fact that man, look at the bidens. look at the clintons. they have a history of criminality and covering it up and there's nothing done to them. why is it only the trump family and donald trump that seems to continue to have thinks witch hunts against him? his constantly attacked. we know that from the day he came down to escalator and said he was running for president of the united states. so it's an overall feeling of more of the same. sadly you get used to it at a certain point not that anyone should. it's really concerning this sort of thing is able to take place in america because it's something that we expect to see in a third world country. >> martha: you're not alone in that feeling for sure. before i let you go, any impact on his decision making process and when he may announce that he is likely or is going to run again? what is the impact of this on that? >> well, i think he know what's he's going to do. for americans, this just solidified a lot of enthusiasm behind donald trump. a lot of people feel like he's been given such a raw deal so many times. look at the incredible things that he did when he was president of the united states. with so much scrutiny, so much incoming, with so much pressure on him. he got so many great things done. man, do we need donald trump back now more than ever. this country is in a dire situation. i think they know he's the guy that can get it done. so i think people now more than ever want donald trump to run for president in 2024. this just solidifies a lot of support behind him as far as i'm concerned. >> martha: lara trump, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. >> martha: so let's get final thoughts from "special report" anchor bret baier back with me here in new york as we continue this big story. >> i missed the very beginning. was there any thought that the former president is going to stop -- try to object to the release of that warrant? >> martha: no, not at this point. yeah. basically the question of whether or not there was reason -- the back and forth with whether or not there was reason. we don't know if they're going to release that document. it was suggested that it can come straight from the justice department. they can unseal it on their own. we heard merrick garland say that they're urging the former president to do just that. it was all about barack obama's 33,000 e-mails. no indication of whether or not he's changing his mind. >> bret: that's the next shoe to drop. if this is all happening because of the original statement by the former president about the raid, that will be an interesting dynamic. i think -- listen, this is historic. people are so fired up on both sides. the country is already divided, this is dividing the country even further. there are some who say this is the moment he's going to be walked out in an orange suit. the other people are saying this is the moment where government overreach has tipped the balance and this cannot happen in our country. those are two sides. in the middle, we have a lot of questions. we have more questions today. there's some that were answered by the attorney general. some were not. what was clear is that he wanted to make the statement at the end that the fbi has very good people, they're doing great things, stopping couldn't irterrorism. they work for the american people every day and he's not going to stand for either attacks on the fbi physically or rhetorically. >> martha: it's interesting. david spunt keeps reporting that things are quiet at the justice department, not that they're taking on this enormous case situation. it feels like that bubble dynamic exists that they don't get incensed how outraged people are. >> bret: people are fired up. i've talked to a lot of people that don't get fired up. but they're fired up about this. closer to the election, it's about how they feel about the pocketbook and inflation and everything else. >> martha: thanks, bret. that is "the story," quite a story nor august 11. "the story" goes on. see you back here tomorrow at 3:00. "your world" starts right now. >> justice department has filed a motion in the southern district of florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court-approveder is thatch the fbi conducted earlier this week. that search was a promises located in florida belonging to the former president. >> charles: this afternoon, the doj breaking their silence on the mar-a-largo raid. attorney general mar-a-largo confirming there was a search

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