National security experts weigh in on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents

Read the Full Transcript

• Geoff Bennett:

  And for legal analysis of the charges Mr. Trump faces, we turn to two experts in national security and handling classified documents.

  Oona Hathaway is professor at Yale Law School and former special counsel at the Pentagon, and Jamil Jaffer is a law professor at George Mason University. He previously served in the National Security Division at the Justice Department and as associate counsel to President George W. Bush.

  Thank you both for being here.

  And I want to start by reading from the indictment. And we invite our viewers to go online, where they can find it and read it for themselves.

  And I want to start, Jamil, with page two, because we learned precisely what Donald Trump had in his possession. The classified documents Trump's stored in the boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and foreign countries, U.S. nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the U.S. and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

  Given the breadth and scope of the allegations spelled out in this indictment, what strikes you?

• Jamil Jaffer, Former Senior Counsel, House Intelligence Committee:

  You know, 102 documents that were found at that at the Trump Mar-a-Lago residence after he had turned over the documents to the FBI, saying that he had returned all the documents into the government.

  Beyond that, in the indictment itself, 31 documents listed and the 31 counts of willful retention of documents. Of that, 10 were sensitive compartmented information, another eight Special Access Programs. These are the most sensitive documents the government has, highly classified programs that very few people in government have access to.

  Donald Trump has them sitting around Mar-a-Lago, withholds them even after being asked for them by the government. That's a problem.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Oona, on that point page eight of the indictment shows the departments and agencies from which the documents originated, the CIA, the Defense Department, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office. The list goes on.

  What are the national security implications here, given the way that they were stored and to whom Mr. Trump allegedly showed them?

• Oona Hathaway, Yale Law School:

  It's really extraordinary.

  I mean, as Jamil rightly said, the kinds of secrets that are in these documents are among the most closely held secrets the U.S. government has. They are information relevant to ongoing preparations for military operations. There are documents in here that will to the military capabilities of our foreign allies and adversaries, the U.S. nuclear program.

  I mean, it's really the most tightly held secrets U.S. government has and information that really could do extremely serious harm to U.S. national security. And the range of agencies that are mentioned in this document just gives you a sense of how extensive this information really is.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jamil, I want to ask you about a couple of other developments in this case today.

  One, we heard Lisa report that two of Mr. Trump's attorneys in this case resigned today. They didn't give much detail as to why they were stepping down. And we also learned that the case will be overseen, at least initially, by Judge Aileen Cannon. If she sounds familiar to folks, it's because she's the judge who made a number of controversial rulings in the early stages of this investigation and had to be overruled by the 11th Circuit for overstepping.

  What do you see as the significance there?

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Well, look, it obviously says something, something not good for President Trump, that two of have his attorneys felt the need to resign and step aside.

  Jim Trusty just yesterday was on CNN defending the president. And so the fact that he decided today to step aside, we don't know what it means, but it means something.

  Now, Judge Cannon, look, I think we can expect the judge to be fair, even-handed. She's been on this court for a while, right? She has a reputation for being fair. That being said, she did enter some rulings that were controversial, as you correctly point out, and ultimately was reversed by the 11th Circuit, and I think probably understands now that the court is watching this case closely and will keep an eye on it.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Oona, Mr. Trump has been saying for months that he was within his rights to take these documents. He even suggested in a conversation last year that he effectively declassified them with his mind. Take a look.

  Donald Trump, Former President of the United States: If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, I'm — it's declassified, even by thinking about it, because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you're sending it.

  And there doesn't have to be a process. There can be a process, but it doesn't have to be. You're the president. You make that decision.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Fast-forward to what CNN reported today. They obtained a transcript of a July 2021 meeting where Mr. Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran.

  And this transcript is also included in the indictment. And he's saying of this document, he says: "I just found this. Isn't it amazing? Except it's, like, highly confidential, secret. This is secret information. As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can't."

  How damaging is that potentially?

• Oona Hathaway:

  This is extraordinarily damaging for the president.

  It really shows that, even if he claims that he declassified these documents somehow by thinking it and not actually notifying anyone, which doesn't actually constitute actual declassification — but let's just imagine we wound with his argument, which I think no legal expert would buy. He here is admitting outright that he knows that he didn't declassify these documents and that there are documents in his possession that remain classified, and that he can't show to someone because they remain secret, and they remain classified.

  So, he's undercutting one of the key arguments that he's been trying to make all along, and I think really cutting — undercutting his lawyers, who are going to be trying to make arguments that he didn't violate the Espionage Act. But, effectively, what he's doing here is offering an admission on tape.

  So I think it really makes the case very hard for the defense.

• Geoff Bennett:

  I see you shaking your head in agreement.

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Yes.

  No, I think Oona exactly right. I mean, the idea that you can declassify something just by thinking about it, that's just — that's completely wrong. You have to take some sort of action. Now, the president does have broad declassification authority. We saw President Trump actually do that. He took a picture with his iPhone of a highly classified image, tweeted it out.

  He — the president has the ability to do that. Once you leave office, you don't have the authority. This tape has him admitting it and admitting a document in his own hands at that time remains classified. He knew it. He still showed it to those folks at that meeting. He did something that's noted in the indictment elsewhere.

  But he also showed a document and said: Well, don't get too close. I can show you this map. It's classified.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jamil, some of Mr. Trump's defenders have been drawing comparisons to Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server for official public communications, for the documents handling case involving former Vice President Mike Pence and now President Joe Biden.

  What makes this Trump case different?

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Well, there's a few things.

  One, look, Hillary Clinton obviously did the wrong thing by having that e-mail server, by having classified material on there. That's a huge problem, right? President Biden shouldn't have those documents at his — at his at his facilities. Neither should have Vice President Pence.

  In the case of Biden and Pence, both owned up to it, turned them over, and that was that. In the case of President Trump and potentially in the case of Secretary of State Clinton, there was some effort to — the server was wiped. In the case of President Trump, these documents were withheld.

  They even had an attorney sign a document saying, we have turned over everything. And then we found another 102 documents, right? Boxes were moved. They weren't in the room the attorneys searched. That evinces a decision to withhold documents. It evinces obstruction of justice.

  That's why these charges are there. It's not because the special prosecutor is making them up. It's the facts about what happened laid out the indictment. If these facts are proven, it's going to be very hard for a jury not to convict.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Oona, we expect Mr. Trump to appear on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern in a South Florida federal courtroom.

  Help us understand why the special counsel in this case chose to bring these charges in Florida. And what will you be watching for on Tuesday?

• Oona Hathaway:

  Well, the reason that these were brought in Florida is almost certainly because the charges all center around the retention of the documents and the decision to obstruct justice and to misrepresent the information that Trump held.

  And all of these are things that happened in Florida. So what's interesting is that the charges do not include the removal of these documents from the White House. They don't have anything to do with the transport of the documents to Florida. They really focus on the holding of those documents in Florida and then what the president did after the federal government continually asked for those documents.

  The National Archives asked for the documents. There was a subpoena for these documents. There was repeated requests for these documents. And the president in Florida continually refused to hand those over. So, all of the actions covered in this indictment are actions that took place in Florida. And that's why this case is being brought in Florida, even though it's important to note that they certainly knew that this was going to lead to a less favorable jury, almost certainly.

  It's a more heavily Republican area than they would have had if they brought these charges in Washington, D.C. But it's really what they had to do, because the conduct that's being covered in these charges is conduct that took place in Florida, so it has to be charged in Florida.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And what's your assessment of the choice of venue here in this case?

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Yes, I think it's exactly about venue.

  What they don't want to run into is the president challenging venue, delaying, spending time litigating where should the case be heard and the like. By having it in Florida — I think Oona is exactly right — they may trade something off, but, at the end of the day, they get the case to move forward as quickly as possible.

  And you saw Jack Smith say it: I want this case to move forward expeditiously. The defendant in this case, the former president, has a right to a speedy trial. So we will move this thing forward.

  Now. I have no doubt that President Trump's legal team will try to delay this thing, try to get it put off beyond the election. And, frankly, that may not be crazy, if you think about it. You have a sitting president whose Justice Department is prosecuting the leading candidate on the other side. This is a politically fraught investigation and prosecution. It's a real challenge.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jamil Jaffer and Oona Hathaway, we thank you both.