for days and nights on end, hoping for a slim chance to get through those taliban checkpoints and the threats and on one of the few remaining flights out of the country. i ve spoken to people who have tried to go through this. you see the smoke dispersed there, most likely to control the crowds. a local journalist who shot this video says the taliban even sprayed water on people to push them away. they re not allowing access for many afghans. our team of reporters covering this developing story from all angles in these critical last hours of the evacuation, let s begin with cnn s nick payton walsh. he is in doha. nick, you have reported this morning that the fact is the window is closing and it s closing before that august 31st date. reporter: i mean, i think as many expected familiar with the operation, there would need to be a period of days at the end it shifted from evacuation to the military withdrawal. i understand from a source familiar with the situation on the airport that t
expect to be still be doing the large bulk of processing of applicants, of afghan evacuees by the weekend. so as the 36-hour window left for them to work in, less now, in fact, given the time currently in kabul. so this operation coming certainly to a close. doesn t mean, for example, if an american passport holder turns up saturday, sunday they ll be refused evacuation, but that the large numbers we ve been seeing daily, remarkable that they are, in the tens of thousands now reduced, though, to 13,000 in the last 24-hour period. that that may get even less still, for the simple fact, jim, we ve been reporting the gates are shut. abby gate, a key access point is closed. the crowds around it appear to be dispersed and lessened. you saw there the images of the taliban controlling access to the airport as well. so it s exceptionally hard if you are an siv applicant to get into the airport at this point. and that, of course, means that
trump including his wife and children. it will rest with the current president and administration. cnn legal national security analyst joins us now to discuss. good to have you this morning asha. so, president does this all the time, right, tries to block access to documents, to testimony, et cetera. can he block this access? well, jim, it s going to be an uphill battle for him this time. so, executive privilege is not a personal privilege. it is a separation of powers, principle, that protects the executive branch from congressional or judicial overreach. and so the privilege itself is held by the sitting president. now, even so, because it s about the office, typically presidents want to, you know, keep the scope of that privilege as broad as possible. they don t want to create precedence that could be used against them, for example, or people in their party in the future. but the department of justice in
americans will be gone. this is a hostage crisis of the biden administration construction and yesterday we heard tony blinken saying 1500 americans is in conceivable that they would be evacuated by august 31st. under any circumstance. and that doesn t let s not forget the green card holders and the siv 1 visa holders and others. so it seems that the evacuation surely will be halted or suspended and maybe it is over. peter burgen, one final question, the taliban, the u.s. one evacuationplace plan is dependent to the taliban. you ve heard the taliban say they will allow access to the airport. thoughts about evacuations post august 31st and u.s. officials have said we hope to be able to negotiate a arrangement with them to get people out after the deadline. but we should remember, folks at
time. so you can imagine it s going to be very busy there right now while they try to tend to those who may be wounded and try and determine exactly what has happened. and, of course, as cnn has reported for several days now, the u.s. has been very concerned about the threat of an attack at the airport from isis-k, essentially, isis in afghanistan. as you have reported, jim, there is very specific intelligence for the last several days that isis-k was planning an attack at the airport. we don t know if this is isis-k, but it is something that u.s. intelligence and the u.s. military had been watching for around the clock, jim. barbara, of course, a question is effect in ongoing attempts at evacuations, there had already been access issues for afghans and even american citizens who want to flee the country. one, because the taliban blocking access. two, because of concerns about