Page 715 - Obstruction News Today

Prove intent. my bad, i realize i have a whole bunch of classified information in my basement. here you go. i dont want it. its yours. you should have it back. to matts point, thats not really a prosecutable case anymore. when you culie, when you obfusce and mislead the fbi about what it is you have, thats obstruction and helps to establish intent which is the hardest thing to prove in these types oft cases. so, matt, i understand why he was our head communicator. hes really good at this. >> mat...

Simply say you do not take picture. a good, a skilled adversary could potentially, if you bring your phone can themselves take pictures or over here things. i mean, we are talking about very wicked and ingenious adversaries. and, you know, documents strewn around on the floor just leave you incomplete cold sweat thinking about it. but to get to your question, it does not matter, the crime here, the obstruction is he took them, he knew he did not have a right to take them, he lied about having gi...

And obstruction? what is it that was in these documents that they were trying to cover up, in some sense, or potential interest to seriously, use for other purposes? >> we certainly want that question answered. in the meantime, donald trump has expanded his legal team, and the former florida solicitor general chris kies, who is also the former adviser to governor ron desantis. does this signal just how concerned trump must be about being indicted in this mar-a-lago probe, do you think? >> i woul...

Obliterates that argument. i think the thing that stands out to me most from the language in this filing is they have gone to great pains to show there has -- not only has there not been cooperation from the trump team, there has been allegedly obstruction and deliberate obfuscation. so the affidavit or affirmation signed by the custodian of records who we believe is the attorney, christina bobb, it couldnt be more inaccurate. they say they conducted a diligent search, they say they recovered an...

The evidence is? >> its insane. they asked for, basically they asked for the justice department punch them in the face. and that is what the justice department did in this brief. as elliott points out, they talk about obstruction. these documents were moved around, from room to room. and they focus, they actually show us the certification. i dont think weve seen it before, the certification for trumps lawyers that said, hey, there were no more documents, no more classified documents left here, i...

Goes back to matt millers really important point about obstruction. so if a lawyer told the united states department of justice, that there is nothing else here, there are no classified documents, there is nothing pursuant to the presidential records act, you have everything, weve turned it over. and thats not true, the next question is, why isnt that true, stephanie? is that not true because the really bad lawyers, and they didnt do due diligence, is it true because he asked trump, and trump li...

Need to start moving people, do you need to start removing technologies and -- >> caroline, i have to ask you this quickly, because there is evidence here, but we have seen in trumps history for years evidence of obstruction or at least the allegation -- im curious what is practice is with a former president, i suppose we havent faced something like this before, or public officials, what standard has to be met, a higher standard for a justice department to make a decision to indict? >> yeah, i m...

And forth trying to recover this important material and then at the very end they had as the document indicates multiple sources to indicate that documents, despite the assurances they had been given, still existed on the property, and were being moved to other locations contrary to their instr instructions. s so it is really damning on the facts. >> so, caroline, from a legal perspective, im curious what is necessary in court to prove an obstruction charge? as andy was saying, there were more c...

The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the governments investigation. this included evidence indicating that boxes formerly in the storage room were not returned prior to counsels review. thats strong language on the possibility of obstruction. >> it raises a lot of questions of who was moving these documents and why they were moved and where they were moved. the big iss...

Counsel robert muellers investigation. he was, also, you could see him -- there he is. head of the dojs enron task force, which prosecuted arthur andersen tax form for, you guessed, it department of justice. andrew, thanks for joining me. >> nice to be here, its obscene a photo from that many years ago. >> its all that were talking about department of justice and paper trading all over again. >> absolutely. one of the things that is really interesting is that the work that service actually did i...