>> ok. >> classified materials next to your corvette? what were you thinking? >> let me -- i'm going to get a chance to speak on all of this, god willing, soon, but as i said earlier this week, and by the way, my corvette is in a locked garage, ok. so it's not like they are sitting out on the street. >> on december 20th, president biden's personal counsel informed mr. losh additional documents bearing classification markings were identified in the garage of the president's

private residence. he advised me further investigation by a special counsel was warranted. >> sandra: big announcement last hour, a special counsel into the investigation of president biden's classified documents and his handling of them. >> john: all of this as we await the white house briefing where karine jean-pierre will get another stab at dodging questions on the markings. >> sandra: continuing coverage as we enter hour two of "america reports." it is another jam packed news day. i'm sandra smith in new york. hi, john. >> john: john roberts in washington. friday eve, what a friday eve it is. moments ago, statement from robert hur, i will conduct the investigation with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgment, without fear or favor and honor the trust placed in me to perform this service. lots of questions this hour as we lay out the timeline of the justice department's handling of

the classified documents. it begins with the unprecedented raid on former president trump's home at mar-a-lago over the summer. the fbi seizing records from the estate with some of them marked top secret. >> sandra: and a month later, president biden shamed his p pred -- predecessor. >> irresponsible. >> john: after documents were found a week before the midterm elections. >> sandra: we have just learned, u.s. attorney garland appointed a u.s. attorney to look into the documents on november 14th. that, of course, was just four days before he announced a special counsel in the trump investigation, and all of this bringing us where we are today. another batch of documents found in biden's delaware garage. >> john: where does all of this go from here.

senator john kennedy and andy mccarthy are standing by with their thoughts. >> sandra: peter doocy live at the white house and we await a briefing expected half past the hour. peter, what are you hearing? >> well, we are hearing something different from the justice department than what we have been hearing for the last couple days here at the white house. when they sent president biden out to the microphone to read a very carefully worded statement in mexico city, he was just talking about one box of documents that was located at the penn biden center. turns out his personal lawyers had located documents at a second location on december 20th. why is it that the white house didn't tell us that there were more? they were talking about an isolated incident, it was not isolated. during the commercial break coming into the show we heard from the lawyer, the special counsel at the white house, he is saying we are confident a thorough review will show these documents were inadvertently misplaced and the president and

his lawyers acted promptly upon discovering of the mistake. so, a special counsel, the justice department is obviously not satisfied with what white house officials have been saying which is they did everything right. we asked the president about this a little while ago. >> mr. president -- >> ok. >> classified materials next to your corvette, what were you thinking? >> let me -- i'm going to get a chance to speak on all of this god willing soon, but as i said earlier this week, and by the way, my corvette is in a locked garage, ok, it's not like they are sitting out on the street. >> in a locked garage. >> yes, as well as my corvette. but as i said earlier this week, people know i take classified documents and classified materials seriously. i also said we are cooperating fully and completely with the justice department review. as part of that process my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as

vice president were stored and they finished the review last night. they discovered a small number of documents of classified markings and storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library. this was done in the case of the biden penn -- done in the case of the biden penn center. department of justice was, as was done, department of justice was immediately notified and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the document. so you are going to see -- we are going to see all this unfold. >> so you can see he eventually started reading from a prepared statement, a statement that was prepared for him very careful with his words, a special counsel will determine if he was careful enough. back to you. >> sandra: peter doocy, we have that live shot up in the corner of the screen there, that is the white house press briefing room. that briefing is expected to begin shortly, we'll get in

there when it does. peter, thank you. john. >> john: the discovery, sandra, is raising questions about timing and transparency from the white house. mark meredith is live at the white house where we are expecting a briefing to begin a few minutes from now, and statement from richard sauber, the white house seems to be suggesting the documents were inadvertently misplaced. what more do we know about that, mark? >> the statement the white house is coming out with, the same thing from the podium at the briefing in the next 30 minutes or so, and most of the questions will be kicked aside, say they can't say much because of the ongoing investigation. as peter was talking about, there is still a lot of questions what the president knew and when. he had told reporters earlier in the week that he was surprised to find out the documents were kept at one of his d.c. offices. now of course the question is who knew what and when and how it unfolded. given the documents from the

white house and the attorney general, a bit of a timeline but still unclear every exact detail. we know it was in november of 2022 that the documents were found by lawyers at the penn biden center here in d.c., the think tank and the national archives was contacted. after that, somebody in the national archives contacted somebody at the justice department and from there the investigation got underway. but still specific questions about what was happening in between each of those dates. additional documents were discovered, the timeline here, back december 20th, the additional documents discovered in wilmington, the president's private residence and knew the u.s. attorney gave the attorney general an update back in january 5th, so after the holidays, and even recommended the special counsel appointed today then again you see the white house announcing the documents in the wilmington home. so the president hinted when he was talking with peter he has more to say in the coming days,

but don't know how much more he's going to say. one certainty, congress has plenty of questions and they are taking a huge interest in this development. >> i think there are tons of questions, and maybe the most important is why did they wait to tell us, you know, and frankly, what's happened since november 2nd until january 10th, january 11th when we learned this information. so i think there is just sons of questions we have that you know, the press was all over this when it was president trump so again, i think the double standard is obvious and the tons of questions every american has. >> already multiple lawmakers have sent letters to the white house, the national archives, demanding to be kept in the loop who knew what and when. when it comes to the investigation, we don't know how long it's going to last and will the white house see more compared to the statement you read off the top. >> john: who knew what and when, a question we have been asking

50 years now. >> sandra: a statement on the white house counsel saying they are confident a thorough review will show the documents were inadvertently misplaced. here it is exactly, from richard sauber, special counsel to the president, saying as the president said, he takes classified information and materials seriously and as we have said we have cooperated from the moment we informed the archives that a small number of documents were found. and we will continue to cooperate. we have cooperated closely with the justice department throughout its review and we will continue that cooperation with the special counsel. we are confident a thorough review will show these documents were inadvertently misplaced and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake. john, that would appear to be by definition mishandling of classified documents. >> john: yeah, i mean, in add ver -- inadvertently misplaced,

that might fall under the definition of mishandling. vice presidents are, actually, technically allowed to take classified documents home but key rules that go along with them, probably don't include keeping them next to the corvette in the garage. according to national security policy, having them in the garage is not different than having them on the street. the president seemed to mount a defense saying they were not on the street, the national security policy doesn't care. >> correct. the other thing national security policy does not care about, john, mention off the top, national security policy does not care if you mishandle documents inadvertently or on purpose. that matters in the eyes of criminal law here in the united states, national security policy does not care if you did it on purpose or by mistake.

any other staffer at the white house who was not the vice president would be fired, security clearance revoked, i've seen it happen many times. there are rules how they are supposed to handle the information, the president said in response to the question you mentioned, it's not like the documents were sitting out on the street but the reality is there's no real distinction in the eyes of national security policy, whether the president or vice president was storing classified documents next to his car, inside his car, out on the street at the bus stop in front of his house, it violates the rules when it comes to safely storing those classified docs. there are really, john, secure locations, secured by the federal government, and unsecure locations and interestingly we learned from the attorney general himself a few moments ago that both documents found on biden property at the think tank and his husband were in insecure locations. that tells us they are

violations of the national security policy. >> john: and gillian, you were at the national security council at the white house. >> i'm not making this up, i used to do it for a living. >> john: she knows what she speaks. usually you have to look at the documents in a skiff, a secure facility, i don't think the former vice president had installed in his garage, as he was backing the corvette in, did not look like typical i've seen before. was it legitimate for him to have classified documents in his possession as the outgoing vice president? >> possibly. in the sense that vice president and presidents are given this courtesy by the federal government when they leave office, allowed to keep security clearances and skiffs, secure facilities at their home. so, a lot of presidents will have secure facilities built in

their their homes, vacation homes, so they can safely read classified information, talk about it with cabinet officials and advisers. the federal government usually let's them keep those. if biden took classified material at home on his last day at 1600 pennsylvania avenue serving as vice president and brought them to the secured room in his house, permissible. if he left them in any other room inside his house, not permissible under national security law and again the attorney general said none of the locations where biden was storing the stuff were secured. >> john: and the other questions many people have, did he have the authority that trump claimed he had to declassify certain information as vice president. >> he does not have the same authority as president obama, the president he served under. vice presidents can declassify

classified documents they themselves classified in the first place. so the vice president does not have the same magical power that president trump speaks of all the time which is to declassify whatever they want, vice presidents do not have that. if vice president biden back in the day wrote a memo about iran and decided to classify it secret, he could take that same memo on his last day in office or at any other time and say now i'm going to declassify it. he could do that. but not take documents classified by other people. >> john: great to take advantage of your experience. >> sandra: and larry kudlow is standing by. louisiana republican senator john kennedy, senator, hello. you are joining us, sir, on a very busy news day as we learn special counsel has been named to investigate president biden's handling of these classified

documents. please weigh in, sir. >> well, i just find all of this surreal. it's almost like watching a quentin tarantino movie. i suppose my first thought is that all of this is yet one more example of why in washington, d.c., if it were not for double standards there won't be any standards at all. i'm not surprised that the attorney general has appointed a special counsel. i'm not sure he had a choice. the white house has tried and the white house does not have enough hazmat suits to clean up this mess. aside from the obvious that the justice department is investigating president trump for something that president biden himself may have done,

there are a lot of other intriguing questions for the inspector general, number one, was there a cover-up. the powers that be have known about all this since november 2nd. it's now the middle of january. was there a cover-up, who was involved. number 2, what's the role of the university of pennsylvania biden center in all of this. the penn biden center is not some normal ivy league think tank. we now know that it's in washington, d.c., it was a hangout, a clubhouse for president biden and his people before they were inaugurated, and allegedly it is funded with tens of millions of dollars from china. what's up with that? number 3, what's the role of the national archives in all of this. the national archives was

scathingly critical of president trump and his documents. they have known about all of this since november 2nd or three, they have been missing in action with respect to president biden and his documents. you could not have found them with a search party. we still have not heard from them. what's up with that? and i guess my fourth question is did any member of congress know about this. i didn't. and if some of my colleagues knew about it, why didn't i. >> john: and also the way joe biden responded to what happened at mar-a-lago and the infamous interview with "60 minutes." let's play back. >> how that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible. >> john: he took an flincing

knife to president trump, and matthew 7:3, and talking about specs and logs. >> life is full of contradictions, where i come from we call that hypocrisy. and again, i'm not suggesting that what actually happened is not serious, it is. but i am equally interested if there was a cover-up. it's been almost 90 days since this happened, and if the shoe were on the other foot, as it indeed once was, many of my democratic friends would be screaming like a banshee about this. but there's been 90 days almost of stone cold silence and not just by my democratic colleagues, by the national archives, by the penn center, by the justice department, and i

would like to know what's up with that. >> sandra: senator, kevin mccarthy spoke, i believe it was the 11:00 hour, a couple hours ago, on capitol hill, he took a microphone and he promised this, listen. >> i think congress has to investigate this. here is an individual that's been in office for more than 40 years, an individual that sat on "60 minutes" that was so concerned about president trump's documents locked in behind and now we find it just as the vice president keeping it for years out in the open in different locations. >> sandra: so made it very clear where he stands on this. we'll see what happens with a congressional investigation. meantime, we are awaiting the white house and the press briefing is expected in about ten minutes from now. knowing that karine jean-pierre, the press secretary will be somewhat limited what she can say, what she can answer there, senator, what would be your question to her? >> what did you know and when did you know it, and who else

has been involved in this, and you talk a lot about transparency, why didn't you tell the american people. the white house has known about this since right before the midterms. a cynical person could draw a parallel between this and the hunter biden laptop, which was squelched before that election, and now this comes out and they keep it quiet. all fair questions. i'm not accusing anyone of anything but my experience in washington, d.c., that there are not very many coincidences, it's a pretty political place. >> john: i remember joe lock hart told me a long, long time ago at the white house, never underestimate our ability to screw up. so -- maybe it's not a coincidence, maybe it's just a

screw-up, who knows. you talked about double standards and if there weren't double standards there would be no standards. and we look at what the coverage of the trump document issue was, and bret baier pointed this out, that the "new york times" did an elaborate three dimensional reconstruction of the bowels of mar-a-lago allowed you to walk through and see where the documents were housed and where the tunnels were and doors were and party goers proximity to the door where the back room where they were housed and maybe if you were past security you could have gone to the president's private office where other documents were housed. if you take a look at that political advertisement with the president and the corvette in the driveway of his home and the garage door is wide open and you see a stack of documents that seem to have documents in them, we don't know if they were the actual documents, but you can make a case, hey, how long was

the film crew there with the door open and did they have potential access to the documents housed in the garage. the difference in coverage between mar-a-lago and this is stunning. >> well, this may seem like a strange analogy, john. but i think this is not going away and the coverage of this in some respects will be like the coverage of the border crisis. your station started talking about the border crisis early and first. and it was ignored by many members of the media for the longest time. they cannot ignore anymore and they are not ignoring it. i think this situation is similar. i think you will have some left of center news organizations who will try to not report on this, but the united states of america is a pretty big rug, it's too

big to sweep this under that rug. i think the american people are going to want to know what happened. >> sandra: to be clear, it was broke in by other news outlets initially, cbs, the last document reporting done by nbc. so they are in there and we noticed it in the white house press briefing yesterday, right, john. reporters were staying on this and pressing, and in fact, one reporter in the room asked karine jean-pierre, are there more documents. only to find out last night that there were. >> john: yeah. >> and that's one of the questions they have to look at. >> john: it's a multi-layered onion, i think, and starting to peel it back. senator, thanks so much. appreciate having you on. let's bring back in jonathan turley, george washington university law professor and a fox news contributor and also andy mccarthy, fox news contributor and former assistant

u.s. attorney. how deep does this onion go, jonathan? >> well, that's what is the most challenging question here, particularly when the president says that he has been told not to even ask about the identity of the document. because what seems clear is that these documents had to have been moved repeatedly, presumably they were removed when the president left office in 2017, unless he was given classified documents in an unsecure location, does not seem likely. so if that's the case, the office of the penn biden office only opened, i believe, after 2018, he moved in at some point during that year. so they had to have gone to some location. it seems likely, therefore, that various people would have had access to this. obviously anyone who was in the garage from a mechanic to hunter biden to his grandchildren would have had access to those

documents. so, the fbi had the maddening task of reverse engineering here and trying to figure out who had access to this. and it's not going to be made that much easier unless the president actually is told what the documents were and might be able to shed some light on that. >> sandra: andy, you've had a chance to think about this, and digest what we hear from merrick garland last hour. we are about five minutes away, potentially from the white house press briefing. >> i think we have enough for a guilty plea, attorney general come out indictment style and say he had these documents in two locations that were unauthorized, and then we had the president's representatives come out and say they were inadvertently misplaced which is not a defense under the espionage act. facts are unfolding, lots of things we don't know but we know

enough on the basis of what they put on the record to say there is significant criminal potential vulnerability here, so that's one thing which is astonishing. the other thing i would be very interested in is i would like to see the four corners of the appointment that garland makes of mr. hur, the special counsel. what puzzles me is this seems to be very narrow. when they did the special counsel appointment of trump, it was obviously much broader, it took in the january 6th stuff as well as the documents and who knows what else. as jonathan mentioned before, the special counsel on biden is two years overdue because he -- the president is implicated in what they like to call the hunter biden investigation which i think they call that to obscure the fact the president

is implicated it. and given the tie of the penn biden center, which all the reporting indicates is significantly financed by chinese sources, new york post reported about $54.6 million, and given the factual context where that all happens after these business establish -- businesses -- relationships are established between the biden family and the bohi trust in china and cefc, turns out to be a chinese intelligence operation, seems to me as an investigator that china would be a fertile angle that i would want a prosecutor to look into, especially if hunter biden, we know, is already under investigation for it. >> john: jonathan, let me come back to something that andy pointed out a moment ago, that's

a statement from richard sauber, white house counsel to the president. said we are confident a thorough review will show these documents were inadvertently misplaced. as gillian turner pointed out and andy was pointing out, when it comes to national security policy and the handling of classified and top secret documents, you may say oh, it was an accident, but the law doesn't care if it was an accident you mishandled the documents. >> well, that's why i like being teamed up with andy because andy has spent his life as a prosecutor, my life as a criminal defense attorney. what andy's reaction was as a former prosecutor saying why are you telling me this? i mean, i could see him in sort of an office looking at the lawyer saying why would you tell me this, this is not good for you, and the answer is it's not good. i mean, it violates a host of protocols, but also here the

attorney general made the decision that there was a basis for a criminal investigation. that's what the statute refers to. and it was also in the interest of the public to proceed. he had this u.s. attorney look at this to see if those standards were met. quickly came back apparently and said well, yeah, and they went ahead and made the appointment. it's a bit cavalier to say we inadvertently placed this. an interesting difference with the trump team. trump said yeah, i took them, i was entitled to, and everything i announced was unclassified. biden here is going to be apparently arguing i know nothing to sort of, you know, the sergeant schultz approach. >> john: the oops defense. >> sandra: if it's that obvious to all of us seemingly a blatant admission of mishandling of classified documents, andy, what's the strategy there? i mean, this is a person who should know that. >> it sounds to me, sandra, like it's the second aspect that we

were discussing before where, you know, every time you decide to charge someone, there is the -- there is the sufficiency of the case, one consideration, you don't bring the case unless you believe you have enough evidence that a rational jury could convict beyond a reasonable doubt and the second part, is it an appropriate exercise of discretion given what the public interest is and they will try to say yeah, look, he may have technically violated the law, but no one really got hurt, and in the meantime if you prosecute a president of the united states in an election cycle over something like this, it will be explosive for the public. so i think they are going to lean on the idea that this would be an inappropriate exercise of prosecution discretion. as jonathan suggested, as my point of view as a prosecutor if you tell me you did it, i'm 90%

of the way home, which obviously bears on the decision about whether it's appropriate to charge. >> john: does seem to be admission that they were inadvertently misplaced. under national security policy does not matter. what i'm curious about, they were in his possession for the last five years, why did they suddenly go looking for them now, i don't know. jonathan turley, andy mccarthy, we are at the time when the briefing was supposed to happen, they rarely occur when they are scheduled to and i would expect they are probably going to be a little later, they have some ducks to get in a row, we'll see. >> sandra: appreciate you standing by with us, we are going to check in with larry kudlow now, john, awaiting the white house press briefing, it's delayed at this moment. but larry, you've been sitting here on set, you clearly have a lot to say about what you are hearing because obviously you have a lot of experience inside the white house and handling classified documents. >> legal advice from turley and

mccarthy is fabulous. they are both brilliant guys, appreciate that, i enjoy listening. i mean, i don't know why former vice president biden had these documents when he left the white house. i don't understand that. he's not authorized to have that. i would like to explore and investigate john roberts was talking earlier about who is allowed and who is not allowed, so i was a full assistant to the president. i could not leave my office at night with classified documents whether it was top secret or what. it had to go into a safe. and i'm almost certain that everybody in the building, now i don't know about the vice president, ok, i would like to find that out, i certainly know the vice president is not authorized to take any classified documents, top secret or otherwise. no matter how relevant they are, and i'm -- i want to talk about

that. >> sandra: you have mike pence on tonight. >> mike pence will be on the show, lots of questions for him. i don't know if the vice president could take a classified document home. my guess is maybe if there's a skiff at his home, ok. i don't know that, but i would like to find that out. it's a very important legal question here. but what i do know is mike pence would not presumably or joe biden after having served as vice president take this stuff home with him, whether it's in a garage, or a beach house, or wherever it is, or some office building in downtown washington, d.c. i don't believe you can do that. i think that's a huge problem. one other point. >> sandra: you go. >> there are, in my humble opinion, for way too many classified so-called secret documents, all right. i lived through this for three years as economic policy guy, and also as national security counsel guy. too many, i'm sorry.

pat moynihan, former senator moynihan, an idol of mine, used to work for him, he wrote many, many decades ago the government was full of secrets that never should have been secret. one of the casualties of this entire political story is we should be cleaning up all the ba baloney, what is the role of the national archives working with former presidents and maybe vice presidents as well. these are unanswered questions, and you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. mr. biden made a gigantic think of this, they actually invaded mar-a-lago, the most extraordinary thing for an ex-president and the whole thing is backfiring and it's going to take months and months and months and months and months, i don't know whether biden can survive this. certainly in terms of his running for president, i don't think he can survive this. but he shouldn't have done it in

the first place. they should have worked it out with trump and the national archives, you follow me, and biden should have worked it out with the national archives, and we shouldn't have to go through this. >> sandra: i've got you. >> now that we have been through it, however, all hell to pay. >> sandra: you know who is bringing up the question of the national archives, andy mccarthy, he penned it in his piece, politics or by the book, investigating biden's classified documents, says he's raising the matter what other documents were found in the searches, matter of nonclassified documents because government records from the obama presidency are supposed to have been logged with the national archives as required by the presidential records act. >> yes. that's my point. and i mean, there is so much malfeasance here with the national archives. look, i watched it from afar when they came after trump at mar-a-lago, i still think was the most incredible, horrible thing i've ever seen and purely political and vindictive, but whatever. i kept asking that question.

look, when i left my office in the white house west wing in january 19th, ok, 2021, my assistance, i called them my ladies, made great care that any files we took, nothing was classified, top secret, skiff, any of that stuff, we went back and looked at the safe -- you cannot imagine all the documents you acquire in the three years in the crazy files not even on computer stuff. we took enormous care. you are not allowed to leave the building with that stuff. now, i want to know if they think the vice president is allowed to leave the building with that stuff, i don't think so. but maybe andy mccarthy or jonathan turley or somebody can enlighten us about that. it's too much, it's just too much. you know, we get o'brien on or ratcliffe on. they stamp it classified, secret, top secret and pull the

folder back, huh, really, is this that important, the answer is no. can i look at it later when i get home and my ladies would scream at me, you can't do that. i don't think biden could do that. trump could do it. the president is the only one, i don't mean trump, per se, obama, bush. >> sandra: can we get andy to answer the question. you are listening, jump in here. >> this is on the issue of -- >> sandra: the vice president and the vice president's ability to leave office with the documents. >> andy, i am very unclear. i couldn't leave the building with any classified documents, i couldn't, assistant to the president, couldn't do that. wondering two things. number one, could a vice president, a sitting vice president leave the building with classified top secret documents, that's question number one. and question number two, after

leaving office, can a vice -- a former vice president walk away with classified or some sort of top secret documents. i think the answer to number two is no, but i don't know about the answer to number one, i may be wrong on both counts, i frequently am. >> larry, even the president is only supposed to review classified information in places that the government has authorized for the review of classified information. now, the president has the power to declassify anything. i think gillian turner explained before, the vice president only has originating classification authority, meaning he can declassify only that which he is the one who classified in the first place. but even with respect to that, he is supposed to review classified information only in places where you are authorized to review classified information. >> and the skiff, and the skiff.

>> right, and the skiff. and they don't have any general authority after they are out of office to review classified information. they get to keep their security clearance. and keep the security clearances but they have to -- they can only review documents in a place where it's authorized to review them. >> can the vice president still has the security clearance, does that mean he or she can walk out of the building -- in other words, the term is over, i don't think they can. i've never heard that before. >> even, yeah, even the president is not supposed to do that. as a practical matter, the president can do that, if they called him on it he can say it's declassified, a responsible president would not do that. only review stuff in a place it's authorized. >> the question is my friend, and nobody better than andy mccarthy, i've known minimum of three decades, the question is, what was this stuff doing, wherever it was, in wilmington,

in garages with corvettes, i don't care about that. what was it doing? he was out of office. >> larry, i think he was writing a memoir, you remember the first report we got was that there was a box that contained both classified information about foreign policy with respect to a few particular countries and also information about beau biden's tragic death and other family materials. we know in 2017 he wrote a memoir that was mainly, the main theme was about beau biden, but in it was a lot of information about foreign policy and his portfolio in the obama administration. i suspect he had the documents because he wanted to make sure he had his facts as straight as he could have them as he was writing the memoir, which you know, that may be a rational reason to have them but that does not give you any authority to review classified

information. >> i don't begrudge his memoirs, but do question whether he had the authority to take that stuff home. >> sandra: so hopefully some of the questions that are going to be put to the press secretary in just a moment at the white house. >> i'm going to ask mike pence, we are going to spend time with mike pence, seriously. just so happens the luck of the draw. >> sandra: larry, thank you very much for joining us. we are awaiting this briefing. >> thank you andy mccarthy, and john, do. >> john: he may or may not have had the authority but did not have the authority in the garage or the closet. peter doocy, no surprise, the briefing is delayed. peter, i'd be surprised if she even comes out today. >> well, it's going to be interesting balance because we know that the statements the president has read and the press secretary are not being written by the communications

department, but written by the counsel's office and the eeob across the driveway. it's unclear how much additional information the press team has or wants to have plausible denyability. but statements made at the white house do not line up with things the attorney general was just talking about, including whatever they sent the president out with on tuesday night in mexico city, he was talking about how at the penn biden center, a mile and a half from here, closer to where you are in the bureau at 101 constitution, he was talking about one box of documents that was found. did whoever wrote that statement for him to read know that there was actually a second batch of documents that was located in wilmington last month? we hope to find out today, john. >> sandra: are you getting any sense we are close to the briefing beginning, peter? >> no, no surprise, there's a lot of people in here waiting

for it to start, but no indication it's coming any time soon except they have not delayed it past 2:30, the two-minute warning could come any time. >> john: my johnny carson carknack here and saying a special counsel is appointed to look into this and all we are going to say. >> pretty close, yeah. >> john: but overall, what's the posture there at the white house. i was at the white house the day that jeff sessions appointed a special counsel to look into what eventually turned out to be a big bowl of nothing on russia, and there was literal panic throughout the halls of that place. what's it like there today? >> you know what the posture is, they say they did everything right. and that the biden lawyers, personal lawyers located some stuff in a place that it shouldn't have been and that as soon as they did, they followed the law to the letter of the law, and that they notified the archives, the archives notified the doj.

but it just does not seem like again, if that is what exactly happened, i don't know why this white house has been laying out that's what happened. somebody -- somebody saying they are a personal attorney for the president knew about some documents on december 20th, that is last month, actually january, last year since it's january. and insisted one box of stuff, stopped looking at the information as soon as we new it was classified so don't know what's in the documents. and another batch in the garage in wilmington, and as somebody who spent a lot of time in wilmington during the covid lockdowns, that's where the president was. staff would go to him at the house for safety purposes, we don't know who all was going in, what clearances they had, we know he liked to show off the car a lot. was there other stuff from his days as v.p. in a box that he

was showing off, too, don't know. maybe we can ask. >> sandra: fascinating look back there at that political ad 2020 and zeroing in on the boxes of documents right behind him as he backs in. so peter, we are going to get back to you at the white house as soon as the briefing is underway. thank you, peter. and quickly check in with aishah hasnie on capitol hill. what are you hearing and seeing there today? we obviously saw a lot of kevin mccarthy earlier reacting to all this. >> absolutely. good to see you both. yes, speaker mccarthy made it clear to reporters and his first press briefing as speaker, he said congress is absolutely going to investigate these biden documents. he could see this being taken up by the new intelligence subcommittee on the weaponization of government agencies like the fbi, or even possibly other committees, the intelligence committee that as

well. so, multiple committees, guys, could be looking into these documents related to the president. bottom line, though, he said this. i think congress has to investigate this and we knew that the gop was going to launch a bunch of different investigations. it sounds like this might be now moved up to the priority for the gop. this might be one of the first things that they take on as they get underway here with the new congress. i want to read off a couple quotes mccarthy gave to reporters during this press conference. he said this, here is an individual, talking about the president here, here is an individual, he says, that's been in office for more than 40 years. here is an individual that sat on "60 minutes" that was so concerned about president trump's documents, by the way, the gop is really, really upset about the interview, he goes on to say, i do not think any american believes justice should not be equal to all. so, that was the case that he was making, there is no

difference between what happened with the former president and the documents that were discovered at his mar-a-lago estate. he doesn't see a difference, reporters asked him well, the former president admitted that he had the documents and perhaps was not willing to hand those documents over to the doj so there is a difference, mccarthy pushed back on that and said there is no difference, he doesn't see a difference between those documents and these documents being discovered, and he also said that they want to look also into whether the doj perhaps withheld this information before the election, before the midterm elections, they want to take it a step further, he added this, did biden utilize the justice to raid president trump. so, a couple different angles they are looking at as questions continue to come out as we learn more information about what happened here with the president, the gop coming together to really take this

head on in the new congress but kevin mccarthy making it very clear they are absolutely going to investigate this. >> john: you know, we talked to congressman mike turner of ohio, the incoming chair of the intelligence committee and he suggested that unlike his predecessor adam schiff who held hearings and took depositions behind closed doors and then came out to broadcast to the world a lot of what he just found, that turner would conduct hearings on this particular issue in private, in classified session. but i'm sure that there are other committees there on capitol hill, perhaps oversight among them, maybe judiciary, would like to hold very public hearings on this. >> absolutely. i think like i said, i think this is now going to climb the battle of priorities in terms of investigations the gop wants to launch, but also add to your point, adam schiff is not going to be on any of these committees. as you know, kevin mccarthy has said he is now banning blocking three different democrats, including adam schiff from serving on any committee, he

says that adam schiff lied to the american people about the former president and what he knew, did not know, relating to the election. so adam schiff won't be a part of it. but you are absolutely right. kevin mccarthy saying there are a number of committees that this could be looked into from. >> sandra: all right, aishah hasnie is live for us on capitol hill. that's the split screen because we are obviously getting reaction from capitol hill and we are awaiting reaction now from the white house to the latest out of the justice department, and merrick garland announcing a special counsel to look into the potential mishandling of president biden and these classified documents. so this is quite delayed at this point now, andy mccarthy is still with us. andy, this was originally set for 1:30, pushed back an hour, and now 20 minutes past the pushback time, you have so assume some serious discussions happening behind closed doors

before they have karine jean-pierre come out and answer questions from the media. >> sandra, i would be inclined to agree with you and john and peter that we would get virtually nothing out of the press secretary today except i'm still reeling from the fact that the white house counsel made the admission that, you know, these were classified documents and they were inadvertently misplaced. if they're willing to say that, i'm sort of holding my breath to see what else they would say. by every rational thought you would think that they would just come out and say this is now in the hands of the special counsel and we can't comment on it and figure that people would buy that, even though by the way they say that, it's not true. they are allowed to comment, they just don't want to because it could hurt them in the investigation. but given what they have already said, you know, i guess we just have to wait to see if it's going to be more. >> john: so andy, why do you suppose richard sauber

intentionally wrote these documents were inadvertently misplaced. he's a good attorney, the white house counsel, he's basically said this -- it's an admission of guilt. why would you do that? do you think it's because this is for public consumption and he's banking that the doj's not going to go anywhere with the criminal investigation? >> i think that's part of it, john. i also think you say he's a good attorney, and that certainly is reputation. and in my experience with dealing with good defense lawyers, what they know particularly in front of an injury, you don't try to defend the indefensible and try to deny that which you know the evidence will overwhelmingly show can't be denied. so, yes, technically speaking sounds like what he said is in the nature of a guilty plea. it's virtually the same as

saying he was grossly negligent. on the other hand, you know, they know that there's precedent here, they know, for example, that hillary clinton was not prosecuted. they know that a lot of people in the country who would right now be under scoring that biden should be prosecuted will also not have a big problem if biden is not prosecuted as long as trump isn't prosecuted, if the cases are handled consistently. it's not like he doesn't have cards to play and maybe they have just decided they would shoot their credibility out of existence if they tried to deny something that was not deniable. it does look like he inadvertently misplaced the documents. >> sandra: andy, a timeline on the screen as we await the white house here to sort of take our viewers through what we know when it happened, the mar-a-lago raid, obviously, back on august 8th, which then led into president biden slamming former

president donald trump for his handling of classified documents, and then it was november 2nd that we are now learning that these biden classified documents were found, and of course that happened without the public knowing before the election, and then november 14th we are learning garland appointed this u.s. attorney to look into these biden classified documents, and then full knowing that that existed, garland goes to a point of special counsel for former president trump and his document case november 18th, and brings us finally to today, january 12th, where the special counsel was just appointed by the attorney general in this biden document case. i mean -- i don't know how you look at that and don't have a lot of questions, andy. >> yeah, sandra, could i add two other things in the timeline? around thanksgiving, president trump's representatives self-reported that they had found additional classified

information, that happened around the third or fourth week of november. the reaction of the biden justice department under attorney general garland was not to say thank you very much. they marched into federal court on, i think it was december 8th or december 9th to seek to have president, or former president trump held in contempt of the grand jury subpoena. so it's very interesting to me they would do that under circumstances they knew, even though we didn't know, they had a growing problem with respect to president biden. >> john: so andy, just to get to the overall perception of this, talking about the idea that maybe the statement from the white house counsel is more for public consumption than anything. james comer suggested that there's a real double standard at play here between president trump and president biden. listen to what he said. >> we saw the outrage by the democrats, saw the urgency by the department of justice, we saw the fbi have a sense to raid

mar-a-lago and go through every room, getting the security cameras. now what we know is supposedly lawyers for joe biden who we don't even know who the lawyers are much less who their clients are, found some documents and just turned them in and you know, everything is hunky dory. >> john: the hyperbole arounds mar-a-lago reached a fever pitch. and one tweeted rosenbergs were convicted and executed in june 1953, giving secrets to moscow, and another said i tend to agree with you. they were implying that president trump should be, former president trump should be executed for having some nuclear document that we don't really know the contents of, at his home in mar-a-lago frments we are not getting people strategically leaking on the biden documents to the agree they were on the trump documents, but we understand there were documents related to ukraine, iran, the u.k., that

were in the trove of documents taken from the penn biden center. but i mean -- the level of rhetoric, i don't want to say irresponsible rhetoric, i shouldn't make that judgment, but surrounding trump compared to biden, it stands in stark contrast. >> yeah, i think we have a long history, john, of every time something like this comes up and we saw it a lot in connection with the hillary clinton emails investigation, you know, people seem to retreat two their partisan corners and for one set of people it's like the crime of the century, and for the other set it's like nothing to see here, move along. and you know, those sides just switch depending on whose ox is poured at the moment. but i agree with you about the rhetoric of trump was very irresponsible. that said, when i heard comer say what he said yesterday, i think he was conveniently

leaving out that, you know, former president trump fought with the national archives for about a year before he finally, you know, they didn't run to the public or blast him or anything, they just tried to get him to turn over documents. he finally did, and it was only when he gave them the first 15 boxes and they found some classified documents in it that they then referred it to the justice department. so you know, i think on both sides there's a little bit of liberty being taken with the facts. >> sandra: andy, a final question here as we are working our way into the final couple minutes of this hour with this briefing still not beginning at the white house, it could happen any moment now, we are told. but in the end of your peace in the national review today, you state this, obviously you say biden should have disclosed all of this earlier, but if he was going to delay for this long, why not wait until a thorough search of all potential locations had been done and then make a single disclosure about

all classified documents. what do you believe is the answer to pico i don't know. you here sell these things that are surprising, sandra, you just get the impression, they are kind of flying by the seat of their pants here as if they weren't dealing with something that is a very serious issue that could actually have some criminal liability. and it sounds to me like they need somebody to sort of grab this bull by the horns and impose some order on what's going on because it looks like they are not thinking through the things they are saying. they are not thinking through the disclosures. i mean, the biggest political hit they were obviously going to take given the time when you just laid out was the delay in turning all of this over. if you're going to take that hit, why not make sure you have everything battened down so when you take it you only have to do this once? rather than continue to dribble out new information?

it's baffling. >> john: all right, andy, thank you so much for joining us with your learned perspective on all of this. and we want to bring you a fox weather alert, severe tornado outbreak in the southeast. this is the area around selma, alabama, and you can see a very large tornado has come through that area and left it in ruin. there is a big outbreak near biota junction near prattville so look out because the weather is bad, bad bad this afternoon. >> the mayor there just put out a statement spoke saying this is significant damage in selma. this tornado cause some severe damage, john. starting to get a look here. these severe storms are just raking through the southeast. >> john: big problem is there is a lot of warm, moist air from the golf and a cold front from the northwest which has created

some unstable air and that's fertile ground for tornadoes like this but that looks like a big one that went there selma. >> sandra: absolutely, our best to all of the folks that are there dealing with this, john, another jam packed show come a lot the breaking news. we are still awaiting the white house, thank you for joining everyone i am sandra smith. >> john: and i'm john roberts we pick up with martha stewart in the chair for story. >> martha: i think it's martha maccallum, i've never been known martha stewart. wanting to take over with snoop dogg we will bring him in, thanks, you guys. not too many more of those in the world. thank you, good afternoon everyone we have a break in coverage throughout the next hour this is a very fast-moving story we are waiting for a reaction from the white house to a attorney general merrick garden done mike garland who a few moments ago appointed special counsel to investigate president biden an