Clip: Report says Mar-a-Lago documents contained foreign nation’s nuclear secrets

Alcindor : This week, alarming new reporting from "The Washington Post" revealed the FBI recovered top-secret information about a foreign nations nuclear capabilities during its search of former president Trumps home.

According to the paper, some documents retrieved were so secret, only the president and a small number of senior level officials have access to them. And on Wednesday, former President Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr weighed in on the legal jeopardy Trump faces.

Bill Barr, Former Attorney General : There is no scenario legally under which the president gets to keep the government documents, whether it is classified or unclassified. If it deals with government stuff, and goes back to the government.

Alcindor : Meanwhile this week, a federal judge appointed by Trump granted his request to have a third party known as a special master review the documents seized from his home. But the DOJ has filed an appeal to overturn that ruling. The DOJ is also requesting that the judge pause her related order temporarily blocking the government from accessing the documents as part of its ongoing investigation.

Joining me to discuss this and more, Nia-Malika Henderson, senior political analyst for CNN. And here in studio, Devlin Barrett, national security and law enforcement reporter for "The Washington Post", the man who gave us all that reporting. And Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of "The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter".

I love to say your name twice, so that’s great. So thank you all for being here.

Devlin, you, of course, have the striking reporting this week of this nuclear documents retrieved of foreign national capabilities. What more can you tell us about what was retrieved and the scope of all of this.

Devlin Barrett, National Security and Law Enforcement Reporter, The Washington Post : So, obviously, there was a lot of classified information and a lot of levels but part of our reporting showed some of this stuff was incredibly sensitive. And so, one of the documents -- one of the sets of materials recovered involved a foreign governments military defenses, up to -- not just their conventional defenses but their nuclear capabilities as well. And, obviously, that’s a big concern. That’s not the kind of thing anyone wants roaming around in the wild.

The other piece of the reporting this week is that some of this stuff was so tightly held that only a small number of cabinet level officials or near cabinet level officials were authorized to even tell anyone about it. Meaning this stuff was so closely held, dozens of people in the government, some of it, that, you know, it’s among the most closely guarded secrets in the American government. And that’s part of why there was so much concerned with the intelligence community.

Alcindor : And it’s a window into what Bill Barr said, which is it is not just forgetting your library card and taking it with you. This is really big, incredibly important documents. There’s also, of course, this fight over the special master. Tell us a little bit about how this might impact the DOJ’s investigation, how it might stall it given the fact the judge is saying they should not have access to the documents at the time.

Barrett : Right. So, the judge has basically told the government you cannot use the classified information you took from Mar-a-Lago. And what we’ve just seen is the Justice Department has filed a response saying you have to undo that restriction because we can’t do the work we need to do to protect national security without restriction in place.

Their argument is, one, there could be more stuff out there we have not found, and if we can’t look at the stuff we have found, we might not be able to trace it back to other things that might be out there. That’s important because they have not made that suggestion before.

The other part of it is, there is a damage assessment happening right now. The government said in this newest filing, we cannot properly do the damage assessment without the FBI being able to look at what they found in the search. So, that issue is back before the judge and we don’t know yet how the judge is going to take this and how Trumps lawyers are going to take this.

Alcindor : And sticking with you, Devlin, and thinking about the other unknowns of this because there are so many questions to ask DOJ reporters such as yourself, Bill Barr, former attorney general, Bill Barr, this week he said he believes former President Trump should not be charged, but also said in the same breath that the DOJ is getting closer and closer to have enough evidence to be able to indict him.

What do you know about this big decision facing Attorney General Merrick Garland and how it squares with what Bill Barr is saying here?

Barrett : So, a couple of things. One, it’s still pretty early is the investigation. I know public attention tends to move faster than the Justice Department investigators moved.

Alcindor : It’s unfair.

Barrett : Yeah. Look, we are still fairly early.

The other issue is, keep in mind, the original priority of this search was to go get the material. It is -- the intelligence community looks at something like this being out there in a hotel or a club or a private residence and thinks that is dangerous, we have to get that back. So, they have sort of met that first problem by just taking the material they can find back. Then, they have to work through, ok, are there crimes here? Was there willful violation of the law here?

And that legal jeopardy is definitely not over for anyone, but it could take months to sort out.

Alcindor : It could take months to sort out. As its being sorted out, Nia, you have, of course, former Attorney General Bill Barr who has been very critical in saying former President Trump shouldn’t, frankly, have taken these documents. Then, you also have Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are full-throatedly giving their defenses of former President Trump. What do you think of the politics of all of this?

Nia-Malika Henderson, Senior Political Analyst, CNN : It is complicated for Republicans. When this first happened, you had an array of Republicans essentially saying this was good for Donald Trump. Maybe it would speed up his announcement of another run for the presidency. And it has brought people back into the fold of Trump world who may have turned against Trump.

That whole idea, I think, is a little out the window now. You certainly have Republicans who are true Trumpists. Lindsey Graham, someone like Marco Rubio who was in the ballot, so he needs to hold Donald Trump close and not incur his wrath. So, that’s why you see him so very much out there, pointing the finger at the DOJ saying this was politicized.

But you don’t necessarily hear a lot of Republicans at this point offering a full throated defense of Donald Trump. At some point, someone in the house -- maybe he needed these documents because he’s writing his memoirs, right? I mean, which is a laughable excuse. It makes no sense based on what we know about Donald Trump and not supposed to have classified documents. That kind of line from run-of-the-mill Republicans who are in Congress, on the House and Senate side, that is not really happening as much anymore.

Mitch McConnell was asked about this a few days ago and he essentially said, he’s following along and learning about this as everyone else is, but he did note there is wall-to-wall coverage of this. Hint, hint, this is likely not so great for Republicans or the Republican brand to have Donald Trump back in the news.

But it is a real tight rope, I think particularly for Republicans who are on the ballot, who want to hold that Trump base close, but also want to be seen as law and order Republicans who aren’t going after the FBI.

Alcindor : Amy, talking about walking that tightrope, I want to come to you and get your thoughts on the fact the GOP does not seem to be on the same page here as Nia just laid out. They’re all trying to figure out what to say about this at this point.

Amy Walter, Publisher & Editor-In-Chief, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter : Yeah, especially if you are a swing state candidate or swing congressional district candidate, you would like Donald Trump not to be in the news. That would be the best for you.

Many of these Republicans, their game plan had been set months ago and it was pretty simple. We’re going to talk about Joe Biden who was unpopular in our state or district. We’re going to talk about the rising cost of living. Were going to talk about how Democrats are responsible for that.

It was going to be a pretty easy 1-2-3. It was working like that until -- well, I think two things. It was not just the Mar-a-Lago situation, but the fact that the January 6 hearings were, I think they broke through more than many people had expected. It’s not that people changed their opinions about Donald Trump. You can still see this as a political situation. I still don’t think voters were necessarily tuning in and paying attention to every little detail.

But it was out there kind of floating out in the ether, right? It was a reminder to many independent voters, voters who might have shown up in 2018 or 2022, not to vote necessarily for Democrats but the vote against Donald Trump, to vote for, they want to return to normal, we want the end of the chaos, that this chaos is still there.

And it was in front of them day in and day out. It was out there constantly. That is not where Republicans want the last two months of this election to be focused on.

Alcindor : Well, thinking about where we are going next, Devlin, talk a bit about where this investigation is going. We have some deadlines coming up. We also have a DOJ filing. Some people are reading it, saying there might be more classified documents out there. What’s your reporting telling you?

Barrett : So, I think -- I think a couple things. One, we are still in this holding pattern waiting to see how much is the judges special masters mindset going to slow down the criminal investigation. We could know more about that in a matter of hours, days or weeks. It’s not really clear yet. So, that will be one big sticking point in this process potentially.

The other issue is, you know, as the government and the investigators go through this material, they are going to have to make decisions on whether they think there is criminal exposure here. And so, that could be obviously -- that could have political consequences, legal consequences.

It is still very high stakes for everyone involved, because there is still a lot we don’t know. Obviously, we are reporting every day but there’s still a lot we don’t know. There are serious potential consequences for a lot of the players in this as it goes forward.

Alcindor : To think about the consequences, there is a question that the team here at "Washington Week" is thinking about -- a month into this investigation, but especially as we learn more from your reporting about these popular -- possible nuclear documents, why did it take so long for the government to go in and reach this point given the fact we are learning more and more about these documents?

Barrett : So, I think you have to understand the timeline because this is sort of a slow-building crisis through -- that starts with the National Archives of all places. Like one of the amazing things about the Trump era is that the crisis is coming from these unexpected places like the National Archives asking for a weather map and other things that were part of the presidential record and they wanted essentially for history.

And Trump and his advisers kind of fighting them or at least slow-walking those requests. But what really happens is in January, Trumps team turns over some stuff. Those boxes turn out to be full of classified papers. And that raises the level of alarm considerably.

Then, what happens in the spring is you’ve got demands for -- okay, they get a subpoena. Give us all the classified information back. That is bad enough but in the face of that subpoena, the government believes that Trump and his lawyers and advisers did not in fact give it all back. They were withholding it and they seem to be intentionally withholding it if you believe some of the things in these court filings.

And so, it’s really in June this becomes a full-fledged, oh geez, what is this? And so, I understand the frustration of why does this take so long, but it is really a two-month difficulty. It becomes very serious very quickly in June.

Alcindor : Thank you for breaking that down. Our team and people at home watching, that will definitely help them understand why we are now living through this investigation.

So, thank you so much, Devlin, for joining us and for sharing your reporting.