For maryland and was appointed by former President Trump. I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity, but under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a Special Counsel for this matter. This Appointment Underscores for the public, the departments commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. Now earlier, President Biden confirmed that more classified documents from his time as Vice President were discovered. This time at his wilmiwilmingto delaware home. They were locked in his garage. Another document was found inside the house. Now the Attorney General revealed that the Justice Department learned of the second set of documents in december as this timeline shows here. It was in november when the president s attorney found classified documents in a d. C. Office that the former the thenVice President used with his work at the university from 2017 to 2019. Republicans are now calling for investigations, trying to equate this to the case of former President Trump who had more than 300 classified documents at his florida home. A separate Special Counsel is on that case. Joining us now is arlette sainz, evan perez, abby phillip, and harry litman. Harry, first to you, the appointment of a Special Counsel now, and how this changes the investigation, changes the look into these documents for the president . It takes it completely out of the normal doj process. Hur will set up a whole special office and look into things. Its interesting, however, victor, because under the regs, you have to the criminal investigation is warranted. There are policy questions, political questions. Its unclear though, what is the potential criminal liability of anyone much less biden . Thats what hur will be digging into, and thats what preli preli preliminarily, they will be looking into. You report to hur, guarland himself, and just as with barr and mueller, he maintains authority. How does that explain the timeline, how they discovered this two months ago, but were learning about it now . The question is why they did not disclose this when they first discovered those documents at the Penn Biden Center between being vp and coming to the white house as president. Now we have continuously seen this drip, drip, drip of Information Kopg come out about when exactly theyve found those documents. Today they revealed they found additional documents at his will mon Wilmington Residence, and they want to allow the Justice Department review to play out. They are clearly entering New Territory when it comes to the appointment of the saleSpecial Counsel, and one thing the white House Counsel has tried to make clear in recent statements since this announcement is that they are trying to follow the protocol and comply with all of the requests that are coming their way. Theyre pointing out that theyre working with the National Archives, that theyre working with the Justice Departments on their requests, and ultimately white House Counsel said in a statement that, quote, theyre confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced. They believe that is what reviewed, and thats what the Special Counsel will show. Theres a headache the counsel has to deal with, and theres a Messaging Issue that they have to deal with if there are still questions about why exactly they didnt disclose information earlier, how these documents were able to make their way to the Vice President s residence, and then that office where he worked here in washington, d. C. , and so in just a short while, well be hearing from the White House Press secretary, her first availability since the Special Counsel was announced. If you remember yesterday she was not able to share any information when it came to these documents related to this. There are so many more questions awaiting this white house as the counsel gets under way. Evan, the extraordinary circumstances that this these documents were found in the ags boss home, the president of the united states. So he reached this decision. How did they come to robert hur to take this position . Yeah. This was a textbook decision according to the Justice Department officials. They viewed this as something that was necessary, certainly once john lausch, the u. S. Attorney in chicago who did the initial investigation, once he came back and made the recommendation, it was abu abundantly clear they had to do this out of the, you know, certainly the protection of the department to make sure that there is no conflict of interest in the way this was being handled. Robert hur is something who was a longtime career Justice Department official, and a political appointee under Donald Trumps administration, and so what it does for the Attorney General and for the Justice Department is it helps give that appearance of independence to make sure that, you know, people understand that this was being handled independently. Were just watching to see if Karien Jean Pierre is speaking about this now. We will take that as soon as she is talking about that. At the moment shes talking about the damage from tornadoes near selma, alabama that we have been talking about. So lets continue our conversation for the moment because i dont think shes yet addressing the classified information. Abby, politically speaking, the fact that look. There are a lot of distinctions here of course, between how President Bidens team has handled this, and how President Trumps team has handled this. For instance, the National Archives didnt have to spend 14 months trying to extract these documents, what we think are 12 oh, shes making a statement right now. Lets listen. A small number of documents were found, and we will continue to cooperate. We have cooperated closely with the Justice Department throughout its review, and we will continue that cooperation with the Special Counsel. We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake. With that, my colleague is here, john kirby, to talk through that tomorrow, and also with the japan Prime Minister next tuesday, and then ill come back. Lets continue talking about this for a moment, what we just heard from karine jeanpierre. Harry, let me go to you legally. She said that the evidence will reveal that these documents were inadvertently misplaced and handled once they were discovered. Does that make a difference legally . It makes a difference legally in terms of a criminal investigation, all the laws that are in place that people are thinking about for trump, for example, all involve intentional action, either taking it away on purpose or not giving it back on purpose. So far theres no indication of that, and garland could have stood behind that point and pointed to the regs which require some criminal basis for investigations, but he was really just playing it out of abundance of caution, and i suspect the white house welcomes the Decision Just to be able to say, were totally on the up and up and doj is handling it with a hardnosed u. S. Attorney which hur is. Abby, as alisyn was going to say, is the distinctions between the documents found at maralago and these documents found at properties related to the president , his office, his home, theres a long list of the distinctions here, but what does this realign, now that they both have classified documents and theyre both being investigated by Special Counsel . I think that the findings of additional documents is probably the most significant part of this. If this had just remained the first batch, fewer than a dozen that were found, you know, by that attorney in his office, that would be one kind of story, but its another kind of story to find additional documents in other locations, and i think that that is where the political problems really begin for President Biden because it makes it much more difficult to draw a contrast in the conduct in terms of how careful one must be with these kinds of classified documents. Thats totally putting to the side this idea of cooperation which as you pointed out, victor, it is really Night And Day in terms of how the cooperation went with trump versus how it went with biden, but on the question of how people handle classified documents, whether it was a mistake or not, the diligence that one must have with these kinds of documents, it really makes it hard for President Biden to make that argument, and i think that that is one of the reasons why this is not something that i think the Biden White House likes that they have to deal with with. However, theres theres no doubt in my mind that garland really didnt have a choice but to appoint a Special Counsel in this case just for the purpose of creating some sense with the public that this is being handled in a way that is outside of this relationship that garland has which is that biden is his boss, and so it needs to be put to the side and handled in a separate manner to give people confidence its being handled even handedly. Lets bring in now democratic congresswoman jayapal. Thank you so much for being here on this busy news day. How big of a political problem do you think this discovery is now for President Biden . Well, alisyn, its great to be with you. Look. I think the first thing is this is what it looks like to have an independent Department Of Justice, and a president who is cooperating with, not obstructing an investigation. Second, i think that it is, you know, there are a lot of facts that have to emerge, and what occurs to me is we really need to have the Intelligence Community look at the bigger process by which documents get taken out of secure locations. I mean, this is something that i have been listening to some of the analysts who say that this happens often. It happens are yroutinely. I dont think it should, and there needs to be a bigger look at how this happens. All of that said, there are clear differences here in how this president is handling it and well just have to wait for the Special Counsel to do his work. Lets talk about that because back in september when it came out that this was happening with donald trump, you tweeted, donald trump stole classified documents. He put not only our National Security at risk, but the security and safety of our allies around the world. He must be held accountable to the full extent of the law. Should President Biden be held to that same standard . I mean, he you said President Trump stole the classified documents. Isnt it possible that President Biden is putting our National Security at risk also . I absolutely think that is why the Department Of Justice has appointed the special couple, but again i would just point to the fact that these documents so far that we know what we know is they were kept in a locked place that was a very small number, and, you know, i dont know how important these are. They might be incredibly important. They were marked top secret, but the storage and the approach to this is completely different. That doesnt mean that there isnt a problem here, and certainly theres a political problem for all of us as democrats, but i do think that there are significant differences, and i do think its important to look at the fact this president is cooperating completely with the investigation. He is not obstructing. He is not saying that this is a witch hunt. He is not doing any of those things. It is his Department Of Justice that has appointed a Special Counsel who was appointed under trump, and who republicans and who was confirmed unanimously in the senate, and who republicans and democrats both respect. So there are significant differences. It doesnt take away my concern about the overall situation, and i do think we have to continue to look at the facts. And i just want to ask you about the timeline because this has also come up. We know that the white house knew about this longer than the press or the public. So on november 4th, okay . Before the midterms, the National Archives informed the doj informed that the doj oh. Informed the Department Of Justice these docs had been found at President Bidens former office from when he was Vice President. Some people have said that was before the midterms. Do you think that he should have disclosed that to the public then . Theres really no way for me to know that. Obviously, you know, this is going to be apart of the Department Of Justices investigation. What did they communicate at that time . What did the Department Of Justice know . What did the Biden Administration what did the president think was in there . We continue know any of those facts. I think its early, but i think the difference is this has never been a president who has deliberately obstructed and stopped any investigation. He hasnt, you know, his track record is very, very different. Im glad theres a Special Counsel thats going to investigate. I dont think Merrick Garland had a choice but to appoint a Special Counsel here because, again, its about the integrity and the interpretation of the public, and i do think quick resolution of this issue, i hope, is forthcoming because thats important for the public to be able to trust that these things are being handled fairly. As you know, the republicans came in saying that one of their priorities was to investigate the biden family and investigate the Biden Administration. Do you feel that this now gives them more of a rationale . Well, its not great, you know, because obviously they will pounce on anything regardless of how different the circumstances are. Their intent, the republican intent is to undermine faith in government overall, and certainly in democrats. They have an extreme republican agenda that we have seen rolling out. We saw the chaos on the house floor, and with this unity of republicans, they are dying to have something to change the conversation from the chaos and disunity of republicans, and so this has always been their extreme agenda. Theyre going to kuse it, alisy. Ive seen it over and over again. When theres nothing to talk Ana Cab Cabrera about, and you give them a piece of information like this, and theyre going to push on it, but i think its up to us to keep calling on these fundamental piece. Is the president obstructing an investigation . This president is not. Is the Department Of Justice operating independently . This Department Of Justice is. So i think these are big differences that the public really needs to take into consideration. Congresswoman pramila jayapal, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, alisyn. Abby phillip, let me come to you with what we heard. Well hear from democrats discussing nuance, and distinctions. Republicans trying to say, oh, its pretty much the same here. Look at what we heard it from Speaker Mccarthy saying, he had documents unlocked everywhere. When we look back at the trump documents, its much the same. Yeah. I mean, as a republican told me this week, theyre not going to be playing in the nuance of this at all. I think they see that as just the political reality of it, but i mean, i do think we have a responsibility to the facts here which is just to point out that there are really significant differences in the handling of these two cases by former President Trump and by nowPresident Biden, and those significant differences matter when it comes to the legalities of it all. I did liste