that comment from his former attorney general really got under trump s orange tinted skin as he prepares for tomorrow s historic arraignment. the first former president to face federal charges and the possibility of prison time. also tonight, the extreme denialism of trump defenders. what they get totally wrong about the presidential records act, how declassification works, and the biden and hillary clinton false equivalencies. and we begin tonight with donald trump s reverse snow bird commute to florida. the twice impeached, twice indited liable for sexual abuse president arrived today in miami, and is spending the night at his doral resort as he awaits his unprecedented arraignment tomorrow. he faces 37 felony counts of illegally hoarding classified documents and obstructing the justice department s efforts to get them back. while this is his second indictment, this one carries the very serious prospect of significant prison time. he and his personal valet and alleged
nbc s gabe gutierrez in miami. stay safe. thank you very much. join me is jill banks who served as an assistant watergate prosecutor. and former federal prosecutor paul butler, who is a professor at georgetown school of law. let s start with representation. if donald trump does not have a florida barred attorney with him in court, is that a problem? does he need to find one first? could it delay anything? it shouldn t delay. in most cases you have to be a member of the actual district bar where you re representing someone who is being prosecuted. but for a first appearance, most judges will allow another attorney to stand in for that person. yeah, okay, so let s talk about this judge. i m going to bring jill in first. let me play you what former attorney general eric holder had to say about judge aileen cannon. i m concerned about her handling this case. based on what she did in the earlier phases of this matter,
i m not sure she has the legal acumen to be a judge in charge of such an important case. jill wine banks, 28 u.s. code 455-a states a judge shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which his or her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. it is her choice whether she will do that. and my understanding is or reporting from slate is special counsel jack smith does have the option, he can request a different judge. and the 11th circuit precedent allows reassignment when the presiding judge appears unable to put previous views and findings aside. that feels like it fits judge i aileen cannon to a tee. your thoughts? i think you have set it up exactly the way it is. it is a right for the prosecution to ask for a removal of the judge and appointment of
one count of false statements to the fbi, five years. let me just read you what he did. he is interviewed by the fbi, jill wine banks. the question from the fbi, in knowing that we re trying to track the life of these boxes of classified material, and where they could have been kept and stored and all that kind of stuff, nauta, question, do you have any information that could, that would, that could help us understand where they were kept, how they were kept, where they were secured, where they were locked, were they locked, something that makes the intelligence community feel better? nauta, i wish i could tell you, i don t know, i don t know, i don t know. here s what he actually did, and there are tapes of him doing it. between may 23 and june 22nd, 2022, before the attorney corcoran was allowed to review trump s bosses, nauta at trump s direction, moved 64 boxes from the storage room to trump s residence and brought to the storage room only 30 boxes. neither trump nor nauta inform
found not guilty, the government can t appeal. that is it just seems to me, it s so balanced imbalanced, jill wine banks. not only against the people of the united states, whose national security was put at risk by this man, but also against walt nauta. trump can play all kinds of games with attorney/client privilege. walt nauta cannot. first, his lawyers are paid for by trump s pac. so he s at trump s mercy in terms of he would have probably have to have a public defender. he still works for trump. is still his valet. and it is really not arguable that he lied to the fbi. first of all, let s put up what he s facing. one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation. one count of scheme to conceal, and he shares those with trump, maximum sentences there, 25 years kunlbined.