Cheddar Politics breaks down the latest in the legal saga surrounding an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Criminal defense attorney Aaron Parnas joins to help with the legal aspects of this case. 

Cheddar Politics

Trump Seeks Release of Affidavit in FBI Raid

last week, the FBI served a search warrant on former President Donald trump's residence in Palm Beach florida for documents taken from the White House, which violated federal record keeping laws. As the week went on, we learned more about the specifics of the search, including what the FBI found. 11 different sets of classified documents were listed on FBI's were c of the items that they took, including one set of documents in that one of the high highest categories of top secret classified information. Joining us now to give us insight on how this courtroom drama is playing out on the legal side of things is Aaron Parness, a democratic strategist and criminal defense attorney in florida. Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron, I want to jump right in and start out with where we are now that current legal controversy is over whether or not the Department of Justice should release the affidavit in this case. Okay, so you have journalists and the former President on one side pushing for the release of this document that contains details from the federal government's investigation into trump's mishandling of records. But on the other side, you have the doj saying this could harm their investigation and prevent further witness cooperation with all of that. How rare is it to have an affidavit released at this stage in the investigation extremely rare. I mean, the Department of Justice has said that the investigation remains ongoing and the primary reason why a judge, a federal judge wouldn't release an affidavit at this stage in this investigation is because you don't want to release the names of potential sources, potential informants that may have given you evidence, given the Department of Justice evidence to conduct the search warrant. That's number one and number two is if you were to release the search warrant affidavit right now, you may essentially give a road map of the investigation to potential targets of the investigation, whether it be former President Donald trump or other people in his orbit who were at MAr A Lago or who were in the White House. And if you were to release it, these potential targets could essentially cooperate with one another, get their story straight um and impede the investigation. Um as the Department of Justice is conducting it. So it's highly rare, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in this case. Um Obviously there are reasons why journalists would want a public why Donald trump would want a public but the investigation is still ongoing. Um I can't see the federal judge releasing it at this point. And just last friday, the doj really got a federal court to unseal the warrant and surrounding documents for the search of mar a Lago. How unusual or unprecedented is that? That's also pretty unusual. I mean when a search warrant is conducted, the person rather the place that it is searched the place that it searched. Whoever's there receives a copy of the warrant, received a copy of um supporting documents and including um documents that suggest or that show what was taken from the property. Um But it's rare that the Department of Justice actually goes ahead and unsealed the warrant from the docket. Because you often don't have these highly political or highly public prosecutions or investigations in this case. I think the Department of Justice made this rare and unusual move solely because it's the former President of the United States. And obviously there's a lot of public spectacle surrounding this. There are a lot of people watching it carefully. And this isn't just an investigation. Now this is also, it implicates political. Um it's politics. It implicates the way the current government is run. I mean it has a wide ranging implications. So although it was rare, it's not surprising. And at what stage I mean in this process would the arrayed, I guess from the FBI become warranted? Only if the investigation is in its final stages. I mean to go this far to raid a home and not just any home. The home of a former President of the United States is so unprecedented. It's never happened before. Right. Not even during Nixon was his home rate rated during the Watergate investigation here Merrick Garland and Department of Justice had to have sufficient probable cause that mar a Lago contained evidence of a crime and in this case the evidence of the crime was taking classified information from the White House and unlawfully storing it at mar a Lago. Now we saw in reporting suggests that a grand jury actually issued a subpoena to donald trump and his attorneys early on earlier on this summer or even early spring. And Donald trump's attorneys essentially said we've already handed over all of the classified information. Apparently Department of Justice was not did not believe or was he did not believe that that trump's attorneys were forthright and that's why they took this extraordinary step. Um I think this was a step of last resort. I don't think the Department of Justice ever wanted to do this, but it had to be done because it's clear now that there were at least 11 sets of classified classified documents at mar A Lago. And I also want to ask you about the espionage act. The warrant listed that as one of the laws, this investigation is targeting former President trump under uh you know, is it significant that they're really looking into trump for the espionage act violations rather than just going after him over federal record keeping laws? Yes, of course it is. I mean, I think it's kind of ironic actually, because during Donald trump's presidency, he his Department of Justice initiated more prosecutions under the espionage espionage act than most presidents prior. So be ironic if a prosecution was now initiated against Donald trump for that same action. But the subsection of the s espionage, that act that they're investigating. Donald trump for is essentially mishandling these classified documents potentially in a nefarious way. Um we now have confirmation that one set of classified documents was labeled top secret S. C. I. Which is the highest level of classified material that you can have. And the the federal government list this information as information that could potentially be extremely dangerous or grave to the functions of the United States government. Um So it'll be really interesting to see whether what the next steps are in this investigation. Whether the F. B. I. Just really needed these documents back which if they were top secret S. C. I. Obviously they would um or whether they're looking at whether Donald trump took additional or was intending on taking nefarious actions regarding these documents and therefore maybe a further prosecution is warranted. I mean we'll see. And one last question with you Donald trump is you know the king of making lemonade out of lemons. And it really seems that he's fund raised a ton of money off of this investigation. Do you think that democrats are worried about what he can make out of this? I mean I think that there's always a constant worry when Donald trumps out there in terms of fundraising money. But he was fundraising millions of dollars before this investigation was ever made public. And honestly from a democratic perspective this shouldn't be about politics right. This should be about um establishing holding everyone accountable for their actions. And if you truly believe that nobody is above the law then you shouldn't be worried that a former president is being investigating is being investigated for potentially violating the law here. Donald trump is going to continue um creating this investigation or putting this investigation out in public. Whereas the Department of Justice will likely keep it under wraps, will likely keep its actions behind the scenes because it doesn't prosecute people in the court of public opinion. It prosecutes people in the courtroom. And while the Donald trump will continue to play politics with this, um, he's facing significant legal jeopardy and he should be extremely worried. Big thanks to Democratic strategist and criminal Defense attorney uh Aaron vargas, thank you so much for joining us.