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Joining us now is national security lawyer mark zaid and charlie savage, washington correspondent for the new york times. thank you both for joining me. mark, let me start with you. in terms of the legal implications of all of this, what does trump's awareness mean in terms of the eyes of the law, as far as his -- what he knew about the declassification process and what he was saying and doing? >> it's very significant, alex, because it goes to a state of mind, which is what criminal cases are generally about. this has never been a strict mishandling of national defense information, which is w...

Investigation into classified documents taken by donald trump to mar-a-lago may undercut some of his claims. at a cnn town hall last week the former u.s. president insisted that simply by removing the materials from the white house he had declassified them. >> why did you take those documents with you when you left the white house? >> i had every right to under the presidential records act. you have the presidential records act. i was there, and i took what i took and it gets declassified. >> a question for you, though, when it comes to documents, do you still have any classified documents in ...

Of the official process for up to the classified things, which totally makes sense because trump really like sharing classified information when he was in office. remember the time that president trump casually revealed havoc ossified information to the russian foreign minister during a white house meeting? or the time he tweeted out a highly classified image from a u.s. by satellite? or the time that he had sensitive discussions about north korea with the japanese prime minister in front of a crowd of onlookers at mar-a-lago, remember all the? in retrospect, it should not be all that surprisi...

Things, but as i understand, it does not have to be -- if you're the president of the u.s., you could be classified by saying it's the classified, even by thinking about it. >> that does not need to be a process, i can declassify it by when, when i think it's declassified, when i say it's the classified, is, proof. national security experts everywhere found this ridiculous, but trump stuck with the defense. this is what he said a town hall last week. >> i was there and took what i wanted to talk, and it gets the classified. let me tell you, i have the absolute right to do whatever i want with ...

Knows, if you're handed classified information the government tells you the dos and don'ts of that intelligence exactly what the declassification process is. and certainly doesn't allow you to declassify it in your mind. so trump was aware that. these documents will show that, and that's going to blow a hole in his, i can declassify my mind to defense. >> neal katyal, thank you very much for joining us tonight. when we come back, today supreme court justice clarence thomas was the subject of the senate judiciary committee but studied his pattern of submitting false financial disclosure forms. ...