Assert Executive Privilege News Today

northeast, accusing them of, quote, playing politics with human beings. they white house today the president is expected to personally meet for the first time with the families of brittney griner and paul whelan. the biden administration repeatedly saying securing their release from russian custody is top priority for him. lets begin this hour with our colleague katelyn polantz on the appointment of the special master to review the documents. it is a miracle as many pointed out tha...

being here with us tonight. the remember when donald trump and his allies were very, very concerned about the mishandling of classified information? it was the thing they cared about almost more than anything else. much of trumps presidential campaign was premised on the idea that his opponent could not be trusted, because she mishandled classified information. in fact, trumps campaign was so concerned about the proper handling of government documents, they believed hillary clinton sho...

look into your situation. >> its just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. >> because he would be in jail. >> should hillary clinton be in jail? yes or no, mayor giuliani? you know her. you are a prosecutor. >> if i did what she did, i would be in jail. >> if i did a tent -- a tenth -- of what she did, i would be in jail today. >> remember the crowds at the republican national convention just thundering over and over...

Are there attorney/client privileged documents among these classified documents? well, for a document to be protected by the privilege it has to involve a legal issue being discussed by trump and a lawyer. these are classified documents involving national security, there are no legal issues involved with respect to those. the other issue of course is whether executive privilege applies to any of the documents and courts have kind of universally said when you are out of office as president trump ...

This be for the committee if it were fast tracked? it would be something. >> i do think they will take the case. this is just a major separation of powers issue. its never been settled in the supreme court before. you have this very unusual situation of the executive branch and the legislative branch in agreement. president biden thinks the records should be turned over, but former president trump does not think they should be turned over and the supreme court has held in the past that former pr...

And then the inherent contempt powers that congress continues to have. and donald trump just sued us. so that creates yet another opportunity for us to get at trumps team. >> so you dont think that he could drag this out until congress turns over possibly and becomes republican -- >> no way. no. theyre thinking about the mcgahn litigation, but mcgahn had a president who was on his side who was trying to exert executive privilege. donald trump didnt come to steve bannons aid. he didnt contact our...

Bannon is doing the same. he knows that this legal fight could take years. he wants to drag this out. >> he thinks its going to take years, yes. but i dont think it will. i think this could happen very quickly. remember, all thats been used so far is criminal contempt. but there is also civil contempt that is very much out there. and then the inherent contempt powers that congress continues to have. and donald trump just sued us. so that creates yet another opportunity for us to get at trumps te...

Are folks that have the ability to say im not coming. there are various methods of enforcement when you go to court, there will be executive privilege as you mentioned the former president trump said hell assert that. it doesnt fly, as you know, because the right to assert executive privilege is held by the office of the presidency and whoever the current occupant of that office is. in this case, its joe biden, not former president trump as much as he wishes that were so. its also true one of th...

Already said hes going to assert that. it doesnt fly as you know because the right to assert executive privilege is held by the office of the presidency and whoever the current occupant of that office is. in this case its joe biden, not former president trump as much as he wishes that were so. its also true that one of the four people was not even an employee of the government, with whom there couldnt be an executive assertion that steve bannon.. my guess is youll see a lot of back and forth, cr...

>> well, so we dont know. you know, its interesting. this notion of absolute immunity, its not new to trump. previous administration departments and both administrations have taken that position. the whole issue is the constitution tries to set up this balance of power between the president and congress with the president being not so powerful as a king but also not having congress as his boss. so its this delicate balance. what we do know, though, is that this is going to take a while to play o...