0 from the company that powers more businesses than anyone else. call and start saving today. comcast business. powering possibilities. and good day. this is andrea mitchell reports in washington. the affidavit the justice department used to win approval for the fbi's search of mar-a-lago is being released at any moment by order of the justice department approving it by the federal judge magistrate on the case. much of it is likely to be redacted to conceal critical information about sources and methods the government used to persuade the judge there was probable cause for him to -- of potential crimes to justify the search of the former president's home. the judge ordered the unusual release of the affidavit in part to de bunk the explosion of conspiracy theories about the search. the escalating threats against the fbi and other law enforcement officials. all of this sharpening the country's political divide as president biden escalates his attacks on what he is now criticizing as, quote, maga republicans, calling the maga philosophy semi-fascist, later speaking at his first campaign rally ahead of the midterms. >> donald trump isn't just a former president. he is a defeated former president. trump and the extreme maga republicans have made their choice to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate, and division. we choose to build a better america. >> joining me now nbc news justice reporter ryane miler and nbc news senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell. ryan, what is the latest on this? >> just to hit the docket just now is a motion to unseal or order rather. this will be unsealed any moment. i think we are all sort of waiting on the federal court docket system, the electronic system basically stuck in the 1990s as we're trying to get this updated and online. we're just waiting for them to formally unseal the document. the docket entries are all there. basically it seems doj has hit their deadline. there is an order to unseal the documents but we are just waiting for this all to get refreshed on the federal court system. >> so, kelly o'donnell, the release is coming a little more than two months ahead of midterm elections. president biden is really sharpening his rhetoric against former president trump and republicans. this is potentially reframing the debate although abortion and other issues, certainly inflation and the economy, have been the top issues, not this whole controversy over the mar-a-lago search. >> andrea, just a short time ago at an unrelated event at the white house the president was asked by a member of the press pool today if he believes national security has been compromised by what was found at mar-a-lago. we know there were 11 sets of classified information that were taken during the seizure and the execution of the search warrant. prior to that there were other things returned in the back and forth between officials from the federal government and the national archives and the former president. and president biden said, well, let the justice department determine that and see where it happens. again president biden trying to give separation between himself, this white house, and activities of the justice department with respect to his predecessor, saying he had no advance warning of the execution of the search, nearly three weeks ago at mar-a-lago, and wanting to communicate to the public that there has not been coordination from the biden white house. the fofrmer president has mocked that on his social media and suggested of course president biden must have known and there is a message war over that. what will be so interesting to see when the document does become available to us is what can we discern about what has played out here? we know the most sensitive things will not be included -- names of witnesses, grand jury material which has to be under seal. names of law enforcement. we know the threats have risen against members of law enforcement since the search was executed. but might we learn more about the timeline, might we learn more about the attempts the government made to try to get information, retrieve it from the former president? we know that he has in his own filings talked about the fact there were subpoenas that were executed and to provide video of the storage location at mar-a-lago, to provide documents. could we learn more about how long this has been going on and what possible other clues there might be in this? typically an affidavit is not released until there are some charges. we have no way of knowing if charges will ever come. it is that early in this case. we just can't forecast it to that future point if that comes. but the judge in this case said making some of this information public is necessary because of the high interest in this case. it has become a political firestorm for allies of the former president. he is using his own social media to talk about this all the time, to proclaim his innocence, offer varied and sometimes conflicting explanations for what has gone on here, and the justice department has spoken through its filings and in a limited way by that unusual statement from attorney general merrick garland who talked about the fact that he authorized the search himself. and of course we know the judge who has reviewed all of this material was persuaded by the probable cause in the affidavit to say that the fbi had the authority to go in. so there is a lot to learn. it will take us a little time as we get the document to read through it to discern what is new and to put the pieces together so viewers will need to be patient with us a little bit. we expect to learn some things but maybe not the biggest things about this very certainly captivating investigation with so many secrets about secrets and what has been kept at mar-a-lago. >> andrea? >> i know you'll be standing byment ryan reilly as well watching the computer for every post. joining us now, senior member of special council mueller's investigation of donald trump and former fbi general counsel and also with us three former u.s. attorneys, joyce vance, harry litman who also served as deputy assistant attorney general and the former fbi director for counterintelligence so we have the team all assembled. one thing that most likely -- what are the things we most likely will learn, not sources and methods. some of the classifications potentially. we already know some of this from reporting how top-secret some of these things were, special access documents. but perhaps we'll learn the time frame. how long it has taken for the national archives to get what they were legitimately seeking from any president, all presidents up until now from the former president when he left the white house and how many attempts at cooperation there were to de bunk the narrative from trump world that there was no cooperation and this was a completely unexpected, unwarranted, and illegal search? >> absolutely. one thing just to point out is magistrate judge reinhart did issue the order unsealing the necessary documents and then promptly the pacer system which is the system in which everything is posted and numerous people and i'm sure msnbc and nbc are included, that system crashed, presumably too many people accessing it all at once. >> you're telling me the justice department's computer system crashed. >> the court system. >> like all of our systems crash, i mean people have experienced this. we've all experienced this. >> yes. >> understandably. >> that's what happens when you have that many people expressing this interest. so we've momentarily will be getting these documents but i agree with you that what we are most likely to get if anything is that period of the negotiations with donald trump and his team and it's really important to note that that really goes to two issues. it goes to the question of why did merrick garland have to authorize a search warrant? in other words, why did it come to that? why didn't something voluntary or a subpoena, why didn't that all work? but there is a second way in which that is relevant and that is to a potential criminal case because that really goes to establishing the criminal intent that this wasn't an accident. that there were repeated efforts that were rebuffed and while some documents were returned not all documents were returned. so really strong evidence of intent could come out of what happened during that period and that we may momentarily learn more about. >> joyce vance, what are you looking for when these, when the computers get back up to speed and we see what the judge has ordered to be unsealed? >> well, it is interesting, andrea. there are confusing notations on the pacer system andrew has just noted has crashed. that is the court system where lawyers every day file their pleadings in court and judges enter their orders. this is pretty much the lifeblood of the federal court system. interesting that it couldn't handle the traffic here. when it's finally unsealed and the notations are confusing, there is some indication some sort of an appeal has been taken, but since we can't actually get into the documents, we don't know what's going on for certain. i think the assessment of so many of the lawyers that doj will have been very limited and very careful in what it reveals will prove to be accurate but nonetheless some of the details that doj is comfortable revealing could be very interesting for many of us. one of the chief devices that the former president has used to slip out of responsibility for his acts on so many occasions is to refer to what lawyers would call his state of mind, his mens rea to say i didn't know. i didn't know i was breaking the law. i thought i was doing the right thing. one suspects this affidavit will contain very convincing evidence that trump was repeatedly advised about what his obligations were under the presidential records act and he continued to violate them despite being warned repeatedly these documents needed to go to the archives. in and of itself that proof of trump's state of mind and that he behaved willfully in holding these documents could be very damaging to his ongoing narrative that he is innocent and a victim of federal investigators. >> the fbi as well as the justice department at large and certainly the judge in this case, because fbi agents who serve the warrant and the judge's name were revealed by people from the trump team and they were not secret names but they were in the original search warrant. they've all been under threat and of course we've seen what happened at the fbi field office in cincinnati. so this is partly, perhaps, going to be helpful in de bunking some of those conspiracy theories. >> yeah, i think what everybody has been talking about, which is the reasonable kind of lowest expectation or best expectation we could have right now is indeed we get a comprehensive chronology of the history of the timeline that gets us to the search warrant. i think that will for those who choose to read it largely put to rest the notion that this went too fast for doj. that the search warrant was largely unnecessary and that no attempts at negotiation or other techniques were there. but you also rightfully raise the security and safety issue not only of personnel, of course, and as recently as yesterday an arrest made at fbi chicago someone jumped the fence to the property at fbi chicago and started throwing items at the building. so it's there. but not only protecting personnel but protecting even the nature of the material seized. while i would like to see a hint of course and we may well see the number of top-secret, the number of sensitive, compartmented documents and then confidential and then secret, you know, i'm hopeful there will be at least a hint. i don't think it's likely. but there could be a hint that, hey. in the top-secret realm this got into national defense or this involved plans for war. i doubt that's going to happen but that's in the high end of expectation. i think we'll see a lot of blacked out lines with regard to that portion of the probable cause statement. >> let's talk from your experience about how unprecedented it is to release this kind of affidavit before charges, before a case has proceeded. >> yeah, so it is not -- unprecedented is a little strong but extremely unusual especially early in the investigation, which we know that it is. of course that is because this was on two tracks. it is early in the investigation because the initial reason was to get the docs back. now that it is unsealed i think we can look to find probably three things. the first is as others have said we knew the timeline beginning and end but all of the mid points of an increasingly exasperated archives and doj saying give us back these documents and the trump team bobbing and weaving. second, as andrew and joyce have properly underscored, when you take out everything the judge says we won't talk about, it's pretty ironic that what will be left are things that trump already knows and that is the evidence of willfulness, knowledge, intent, which has become more and more complete with the public reporting. finally, i'm interested in just how long this sucker is going to be. i think we're looking at a very -- many, many blacked out pages but we'll be able to see even under the black it is a bit of a parlor game how methodical they were and what is generally there in very, very broad black strokes. >> a document i just read has been released explaining why the redactions have been made if someone can print that but it basically says, hereby is a redacted version of material previously filed in this case, etcetera, in the interest of transparency as well as the principle that limitations on public access to judicial proceedings should be narrowly tailored and they cite several cases, the government will move at the appropriate time to unseal this notice and redacted version of its ex parte memorandum. so that is another preliminary filing that has just been released. we're getting the run up to the affidavit but not the affidavit itself. the former president has escalated his attacks though amidst all of this and we refer to this with frank about the risks to personal safety but what about the potential risks to national security in terms of these documents having been not under seal, lock, and key, in the basement or in a closet at mar-a-lago for upwards of a year? >> that's right, andrea. i had a top-secret clearance and i know a number of people on the panel have had the very same thing. when you have that kind of clearance you are constantly briefed on the significance and importance of the documents that may come into your possession and how they should never leave certain areas, certain protected areas. here is something else, andrea, that i think former president trump and his lawyers ought to be paying very careful attention to even though it is unlikely to be released in this affidavit. first, this is an ongoing investigation. in other words, it didn't stop at the moment that the documents, these sensitive and classified documents were retrieved. this investigation is ongoing. and the government has repeated often and in multiple pleadings that there are significant, investigative techniques, sensitive investigative techniques they do not wish to disclose. former president trump's lawyers ought to be asking themselves and the former president ought to be as well what are those ongoing and sensitive investigative techniques that the government doesn't wish to disclose? >> let me just share with our viewers what i am now looking at, because this is the justification for the redactions that have been made. and so this is not the affidavit, itself. i just read you the preliminary pages of this. so this is, and i'll show you what redactions look like because there are plenty here. this is what a typical page shows in this document, which is explaining why they are justified for national security reasons and for legal reasons. and while my legal colleagues there are going to look through this as i am, because i think they have access to the same document, it is basically saying basically the procedural background of how the case proceeded, how they got to this point. and then it is explaining the argument, the redacted materials must remain under seal as the court has found protecting the integrity and secrecy of an ongoing criminal investigation is a well recognized, compelling governmental interest. it goes through all the reasons. it says the government has carefully reviewed the affidavit and has identified five categories of information that must remain under seal in order to protect the safety of multiple civilian witnesses, whose information was scheduled throughout the affidavit and contributed to the finding of probable cause as well as the integrity of the ongoing investigation. so this is what the doj submitted to the court to justify the redactions. in the attached chart the government has identified each category that applies to information the government proposes to redact. and it goes through categories, like witness information. so, andrew weissman, when they go through these categories they are explaining why you would not identify witnesses in a potential criminal case while you're still bringing new witnesses in and going through the documents that were finally turned over during the mar-a-lago search. am i correct? >> yeah, absolutely. and so i think it is commendable that the department and the court has done something that we did in the special counsel investigation, which was really making sure they went through everything to unredact, even this, which is basically a legal brief, to make sure everything that could be revealed is being revealed. and to your point about witness intimidation and obstruction, i found interesting and quickly looking at this, that of course that is one of the reasons we knew it would be identified. we knew that the obstruction statute was charged 1519 as a basis to go in but the brief that was unredacted says these concerns are particularly compelling in this case and then says, unfortunately, as explained in the affidavit, and then it's blacked out on page 9. but it's clear that the affidavit from this gave compelling reasons for obstruction in this particular case, that it wasn't just an abstract concern. so that is just confirming in this brief and what we surmised from the statutory site in the search warrant that was previously disclosed on section 1519, of the federal criminal statutes, which as i mentioned is the obstruction statute. that is at least one hint. >> andrew, just picking up on this, on page 6 i've just noticed it says under witness intimidation, if witnesses' identities are exposed they could be subjected to harms including retaliation, intimidation, or harassment and even threats to their physical safety. as the court has already noted these concerns are not hypothetical in this case. and then to your point, it's all the rest of that is blacked out. they've clearly given examples of when that has happened with witness intimidation. they then go on to say that other categories are an investigation road map. this is the justice department. this is signed by as you know one antonio gonzales, the u.s. attorney on this case and j. bratt. they go through the investigation road map, through the safety of law enforcement personnel, and here they have a number of other redactions. it is a minor but important redactions are necessary to protect the safety of law enforcement personnel, and they say they are appropriate to protect the identity and personnel, the safety of an investigative agent, specifically information in the affidavit that would identify the affiants such as by name or through biographical information should remain under seal then that is redacted the next couple sentences. then privacy, premiere mature discloesh o