Clip: Exploring Trump's legal vulnerability after the FBI raid

Alcindor : We learned more about former President Trump's legal challenges the Justice Department's investigation. On Tuesday, the DOJ revealed this photo showing classified documents found at Trump’s home during the FBI search last month. It shows five yellow folders marked top secret and another red folder labeled secret.

The photo was part of a filing by the Justice Department, the DOJ also said it believes top secret documents have likely been, quote, concealed and removed from the storage room to obstruct the government's investigation.

On Friday, the DOJ released a detailed list of what was ceased from Trump's home. A judge is also considering Trump’s request for the employment of a special master to review the file seized.

So, Evan, clearly, I’m coming to you for this, there are so many developments. Tell us what's most important and what happened -- what's most significant about this week?

Perez : Well, look, I think you guys, you know, have been talking about the troubles for Republicans. And this is exactly the kind of thing where Donald Trump is not helping Republicans because, you know, the former president or himself, by the way, the former president decided to make these legal -- this legal move to -- you know, after nearly three weeks to ask for a special master.

So what that did is that prompted the Justice Department to release a lot of information that otherwise they would never have because Merrick Garland doesn't believe in telling us very much unless he speaks through court documents. Some of the things you just listed -- there was a deluge of information about, you know, for example, just today, we saw comingled with magazines and other personal -- like clothing, you know, there were dozens -- I’m sorry, there was 11,000 -- more than 11,000 government document that were found as part of the search.

There were four dozen empty folders that were labeled as classified. What was in them? We don't know.

We also know there are about seven boxes of document that were taken from the former president's office. Keep in mind, back in June, the FBI and the Justice Department told the Trump team that they were to secure everything that was classified information in a storage room. And yet, when they showed up in August, they found all of these documents including classified top secret stuff in his office, which really means that, you know, brings it closer to him.

So, look, the bomb line here is that there's real legal jeopardy for the former president. There's real legal jeopardy for people around him who were handling some of this stuff who swore they turned over everything. And the worst part for Republicans is all of this is coming out, and it's going to keep coming out because of the former president's legal maneuvers in this Florida court which means we're going to keep getting remind about this between now and the midterms most likely.

Alcindor : And you’re talking about people close to president Trump having legal jeopardy. Legal specialists say two lawyers for former President Trump they might become targets or witnesses of this investigation. What's your reporting on that?

Perez : No, that's right. Exactly. We saw one of those lawyers actually show up in court. A lot of us were astonished because at some point you become a fact witness and potentially someone who could get hauled before the grand jury. And most lawyers know, once you get to that stage, then you need to pull away from the -- from the legal case of your client. So, we'll see whether that happens.

The former president has brought in some real legal help. You know, Chris Kise is a former solicitor general of Florida. He’s now representing the former president. And so, now, you know, we now believe that, you know, certainly the president who -- one of the lawyer who is signed the declaration, Christina Bobb, Evan Corcoran, these are people who are potential witnesses in this criminal investigation that the justice department says it's really just at the beginning.

Alcindor : And, J-Mart, we have Attorney General Bill Barr today saying that it was unprecedented for the president to take these classified documents and put them in a country club. You have that -- juxtapose that with Lindsey graham saying there's going to be riots in the street if he's prosecuted. Tell me about the Republican responses and what’s going on here.

Martin : Yeah, look, I think when the feds raided Mar-a-Lago, I think there was an additional circling of the wagons. This is unprecedented. This is a really extreme step. We need more facts. Well, I think in the weeks since then, we have gotten more facts. And we've gotten it mostly through these court filings.

So it precipitated by the Trump legal team which has effectively invited these filings that have shed more light on the allegation that is the former president did, in fact, bring top secret material including some human intelligence, you know, spy craft with him to his residence in south Florida, which is pretty easily accessible if you're a member or a guest there.

And I think you've seen, Yamiche, the Republicans, that's the most prudent ones grow more quiet, at least about the facts because they don't want to get too far out there not knowing precisely what Trump had in those documents. So I think you've seen a shift.

Look, I think some of those who are close to Trump are never going to abandon him. But there's a broader faction of the party that is not going to want to be linked to him if he's found -- if he is indicted, and certainly, if he’s found guilty of violating the Espionage Act or other allegations.

Alcindor : All these are really, really sort of very, very serious allegations.

Evan, I want to come to you. We have a couple of minutes and I want to try to get to these ladies at the table. But I have to ask you one other thing, which is what's the significance of this special master and the judge considering it?

Perez : Well, the judge, her name is Aileen Connor, she's a Trump appointee in West Palm Beach. And you know, it's quite surprising that just based on the filing from the former president, she decided to rule last Saturday that she was inclined to appoint a special master, like a third party lawyer, typically a former judge maybe that would basically come in and look at all of the documents and decide whether there was any attorney general-client their needed to be put aside.

Now, the issue for the Trump team and for all of this, is that the FBI has been doing this for like nearly three weeks, as something Bill Barr pointed out. So the significance here is that this could delay this investigation, which we know is part of the strategy from Donald Trump, you know, that goes back years.

So, we'll see whether she grants it. We're waiting at this hour to see if she grants it.

Alcindor : We'll definitely be watching. And now come to Laura, you've been covering former President Trump. What do you make of this sort of the PR of this and the argument that he's making against it?

Barron-Lopez : Well, one thing I’m struck with is we don't know the full breach, right? We don't know that the director is conducting damage assessment. How many people went through there? The fact that classified information was comingled with non-classified. You talk to an intel official and that's a no-no right off the bat, because that means that someone who’s reaching for non-classified information automatically touches something that's classified and that's now compromised.

Alcindor : Ten seconds. Yasmeen, you know very deeply how President Trump function. What you do make of the way that he's handling this?

Abutaleb : I think it's pretty typical in trying to blame everyone else, going back to saying he should be reinstated as president. I think it’s all kind of predictable. But it does -- his reaction does seem like he is seriously concerned about what kind of trouble he might end up.

Alcindor : This is all stuff that we're going to have to continue watch as former President Trump is saying that is smash and grab and the Justice Department is saying this is a very serious and fair way that they want about doing this.

So, thank you all of you for -- Jonathan, Evan, Yasmeen and Laura -- for joining us and for sharing your reporting on this holiday weekend.