it s 4:00. we ve got news we have a behind the scenes legal battle with potentially major consequences for the justice department s investigation into the ex-president s handling of classified documents at mar-a-lago the washington post is reporting this quote, a federal judge has at least partially granted a request from u.s. prosecutors to force an attorney for donald trump to testify before a grand jury about the former president s possession of classified documents after leaving office that s according to two people briefed on the decision. evan corcoran had refused to answer investigators questions about his interactions with trump. prosecutors sought to show the chief u.s. guess strict judge beryla.howell of washington that there were grounds of a crime-fraud exception. they spoke anonymously because this is under seal this breaking news is is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends jackie alamany is here her by-line is on that neil is here
investigation into him, the one that was conducted by the muller team i think there were six, there was the obstructive act, there was the next specific crime and we all became terrified to check rosenberg and how to prove obstruction. one thing that was said derisively and dismissively by the justice department at the time, without an underlying crime, the obstruction stuff was just process do you think this justice department sees it that way? not at all. so, i mean, process crimes, first of all, can be incredibly important because the system depends on people coming forth and telling the truth, even after they ve made mistakes. so if you re hiding evidence, you know, the way that it looks like evan corcoran might have been involved in, that s a serious problem in and of itself the second thing, there might have been kind of convoluted arguments about no substantive crime in the russia investigation, i totally
which i think makes it very, very hard for a prosecutor to look the other way i don t think jack smith is wanting to indict. i certainly don t think merrick garland is wanting to indict as we talked about yesterday, but i think sometimes events force your hand and this looks like an event that is now forcing the justice department s hand. you know, jackie, something that s so distinct in this investigation, and there s been a feeling of sameness in talking about documents, right, once they found some in the biden library and then low and behold pence had them, wherever he now has his office stuff, we all know what that s like, move our office boxes stuff around, is the mountain of evidence the government has released to the public in releasing the affidavit and obstruction of justice investigation which makes it reminiscent in terms of the muller probe there was evidence of criminality which was in the affidavit, the sensitive classified material that was
there were some questions that do reach the threshold of the crime fraud exception. again, what questions evan corcoran is going to have to answer still remains to be seen. jackie, there s been some reporting this week about a specific phone call being of interest in this investigation, and if you put the timing of what was reported to be that call on a time line, it pre-dates the court-approved search of mar-a-lago but it comes sort of at the tail end of what the justice department describes in its own affidavit as mounting evidence of the crimes of obstruction of justice of this probe. do we know anything about what specific interactions with trump the justice department is probing here yeah. nicole, there are a few pressure points that we ve previously reported and that excellent reporting that came out this week about this phone call and some of the communications between corcoran and donald trump. we do know that investigators,