During Tuesday's At This Hour on CNN, fill-in host Poppy Harlow brought on CNN legal analyst Paul Callan to break down the legal ramifications of Monday's raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Shockingly, at least during this brief moment, there was no celebrating or chest pounding over the former President's belongings being searched by the FBI. In fact, there were even some concerns over the move.
Initial reports were that the raid was conducted because of Trump's apparent taking of presidential documents from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act. Knowing this, Harlow turned to Callan to ask if "this becomes a Presidential Records Act violation, not more, do you think it is enough to warrant all this?"
Callan answered "it's not enough to warrant all of this. And this is a daring and dangerous move by the Department of Justice to serve a warrant on a former President and to raid his personal residence."
Since according to Callan, this would be a giant overreach by the Department of Justice and the FBI, he thought "the Department of Justice must have something more than an argument about what kind of records have to be saved for a presidential library or the Library of Congress at some future date. They must -- there's more to this than meets the eye, and I have to think that there's something a lot more serious that they think is being withheld from the presidential collection."
Even disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe agreed, adding "this is such a bold, such a disruptive, such an aggressive move. The idea they would do this simply because they weren't getting the sort of compliance they were looking for out of securing the room with the documents, things like that, seems really unimaginable to me. It seems like they must have. I hope they had more than just that."
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CNN’s At This Hour
August 9, 2022
11:09:32 a.m. EasternPOPPY HARLOW: We've heard a lot about the Presidential Records Act now and have for quite some time. If this becomes a Presidential Records Act violation, not more, do you think it is enough to warrant all this?
PAUL CALLAN: No, it's not enough to warrant all of this. And this is a daring and dangerous move by the Department of Justice to serve a warrant on a former President and to raid his personal residence. So I have to think that the Department of Justice must have something more than an argument about what kind of records have to be saved for a presidential library or the Library of Congress at some future date. They must -- there's more to this than meets the eye, and I have to think that there's something a lot more serious that they think is being withheld from the presidential collection.
HARLOW: You know, Andy given the unprecedented nature of this, the fact that Donald Trump himself is talking about the search openly, do you think that we will hear directly from the Justice Department?
ANDREW MCCABE: I think it's unlikely that we'll hear anything specific from the Justice Department until they make the decision to go public with something like an indictment or a charge, and we don't -- we are not there yet, to be very clear. We don't know that that will ever happen, they may not decide to take any action.
But this Justice Department is going to speak only through the public legal documents that might become known if this investigation goes in that direction. And if I could, just to tag onto what Paul said, I completely agree, like this is such a bold, such a disruptive, such an aggressive move.
The idea they would do this simply because they weren't getting the sort of compliance they were looking for out of securing the room with the documents, things like that, seems really unimaginable to me. It seems like they must have. I hope they had more than just that.
