FBI Searches WaPo Reporter's Home Amid Classified Docs Probe

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0:36This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Welcome to The Beat. We begin with this escalation in President Trump's crackdown. The FBI has now executed a new search warrant at a Washington Post journalist's home in Virginia. The administration says this is part of an investigation into a government contractor that they accuse of illegally retaining classified materials.

1:16The Post reporting FBI agents have now seized this reporter's phone, two laptops, and a watch. One of the laptops was a personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop. Investigators tell the Post reporter that she's not the focus of this probe, that the target is a government contractor, and according to the criminal complaint, is alleged to have had secret documents in a lunchbox and his own basement, which could be a violation of the rules. Attorney General Bondi alleges the Post reporter also published illegally leaked information. Of course, that is, when you cover the government, what happens all the time.

1:53It is also worth noting the complaint, which may be partial, may only be the start of the story, but the complaint itself does not accuse that contractor of leaking classified information. Now, this is obviously drawing intense scrutiny because while the government does have wide latitude in legitimate national security cases, and there have been times in the past where we've seen, as a last resort, reporters basically dealt with and investigated or their materials investigated in security litigation. this comes amid a time where the Trump DOJ under Bondi has very little credibility, and the president has mused about going after all kinds of opponents and has done so.

2:35And he and his allies have viewed many in the press, as you know, as their sort of political opponents. Times reports that it's exceedingly rare to search reporters home, and it refers to a 1980 law that bans searching reporters unless they are the suspect committed, I should say, they are the suspect in a criminal probe. Obviously, for example, being a journalist doesn't mean that the authorities can never deal with you if they have something separate from your journalism that you did wrong. Washington Post's executive editor says this extraordinary aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the Constitution of protections for our work.

3:14Some of this was also telegraphed because the administration, in contrast to past administrations in both parties had recently diluted the rules that protect journalists. So we knew they were already going down this road because there was some level of intent. If this is a valid factual pursuit, if ultimately they overturn and find materials that supports the investigation, everyone will look at that and report that out. But it comes at a time when the administration is going after all kinds of public opponents. It's going after the Federal Reserve chair. It's using criminal probes to intimidate.

3:54And so there are obviously real questions about whether this pursuit, kind of breaking a line we haven't seen yet in the second term of a mainstream major journalist's home and their property and their materials, whether that itself is an exception that's lawful or part of a larger selective prosecution campaign. As for developments in that campaign, look at the targeting of lawmakers. Democratic Senator Lisa Slotkin now says she has federal prosecutors investigating her and their claim involves something that all lawmakers have very protected. It's literally in the Constitution. It's called the speech and debate clause.

4:33And they refer to things she said in a video that was about the military following the law. You can think about the obvious irony or Orwellian twist of a lawmaker, who of course has authority over writing the laws, reminding the military to follow them and not do unlawful orders or campaigns. And that itself is what this administration now says could be a crime. Slotkin is objecting to Trump's playbook, saying this is intimidation and physical intimidation meant to shut people up. Democratic Congressman Chrissy Houlihan says she was also contacted by the DOJ and is being investigated over the same video.

5:09And the Pentagon is using its powers, and this is different than criminal probes, but also suggests possible corruption, because it is using the powers it has for its brave men and women who serve, which of course is supposed to be always patriotic and nonpartisan. But there are questions about political corruption at Hexas Pentagon and whether they are abusing the rules and authority they have over a Democratic senator from that video, who happens to be a retired naval officer, Mark Kelly. Now, in normal times, people who go from military service, showing their public service, their valor, their bravery, into Congress, that's usually considered a plus But let's be clear Kelly is saying And his allies are objecting to the fact That it looks like the Trump administration Is treating it as a kind of a minus As a way to get leverage over him And now endangering his military rank And something that people who do public service rely on Is pension payments that come out of the past service Senator Kelly is fighting back Filing this lawsuit against Hegseth and the department Trying to block what he says are these retaliation efforts and these are the latest targets of a larger crackdown that we have been reporting on because remember even in magaland where they say many things admitting that they have an actual enemies list that they would break rules and law and go after their enemies at the doj that was too much for many in maga and so when questioned about this originally when they were taking in their jobs confirmation hearings at the beginning of this year they all resisted and said they don't have an enemies list, but you can look at it and you can see how they've weaponized investigations, subpoenas, probes.

6:56On the left and the green, you see some of these have already been dismissed because they are so weak, although they take time, money, and energy even when they end quickly. And on the right, you have cases that are going forward. Congresswoman indicted, former Trump official Bolden indicted, and new this week, lower right corner, Jerome Powell facing a criminal probe because he says he's resisted Trump's unlawful efforts to kneecap the Fed to get a sugar-high economic plan to try to help Trump politically. Now, here's what Trump is saying about all this. It's limited by my morality, and I have a very high grade of morality, so therefore it's limited.

7:36Not the Constitution, not the courts? That's what I thought you were going to say. Well, the Constitution and courts, that goes without saying, but you're asking me, what really can South... we'll never get to the courts, we'll never get to the Constitution, because I want to see what's good for our country. And you know what? The courts want to see that, too. Donald Trump doing an interview there with CBS, which has been under scrutiny for how its editorial choices after trying to cozy up to Trump, after settling lawsuits, now having new leadership, is trying to basically be a friendlier media outlet.

8:10What you'll also notice, if you keep track of this kind of thing, is that Donald Trump thought the Venezuela effort would be a big win for him. I mean, clearly from the way they promoted it and touted it and did all their press. And yet, two-thirds of the country doesn't understand why we'd even be trying to run Venezuela and is basically not for that operation. And then Trump started doing more and more press. He did a long New York Times interview. I just showed you the CBS interview. There is clearly a view at the White House from trying to change the Fed policy for the economy, to trying to do a lot more press, to trying to sort of distract from the Epstein failures and a lot of other things that have been going on, where this president can see there are problems.

8:54He's just trying to shout them down, paper them over, and intimidate anyone who points them out, rather than maybe address the underlying problems that are dogging his actual presidency and leadership of the United States. And given how many of these cases revolve around whether there's a valid investigation or not, from the new Washington Post probe to, of course, the Fed and the other cases I mentioned, I want to bring in someone who's really an expert at this and has done this for years. Andrew Weissman, of course, is a prosecutor. He was on the Mueller probe and also remind people, as FBI general counsel, he would literally look at and enforce the rules for the people doing the enforcement of the law for the rest of us.

9:38Welcome, Andrew. I wanted to stay first big picture. Anyone who's followed any story or any case knows it takes time to get all the facts. And so the Washington Post action is definitely severe. We can report that it is severe and unusual, but whether it's ultimately part of a lawful probe that judges would bless from the beginning the end. We don't really know. But the big picture I mentioned is that you have multiple lawmakers who are literally being threatened over their First Amendment rights, what they said about policy on a video, the Fed for its job. Big picture. What do you think of the legality of these crackdowns?

10:22So big picture. So first, I do think with respect to the leak investigation, if you turn your attention away from the alleged leaker who has been charged and the complaint looks like a sort of, you know, the plain vanilla charge that you would see in a case like this, of course, is the irony that, you know, of course, we have a president who was facing the exact same charges but was alleged to have done far worse. Let's leave that aside. To me, the thing that we do know from the Washington Post is that the normal processes that would have been followed in other administrations were not followed here.

11:04It really seems like they just jumped to a search warrant. And that is a real attack on the so-called fourth estate. Did they try and get the documents just voluntarily? Did they issue a subpoena? Was there negotiation? What we're being told by The Washington Post is no. So I think big picture, we do know that, that this is a very different stance that the administration has with respect to people who are supposed to, as you do, Ari, cover the news and call out sort of, you know, bogus statements by the government. And when it's right, we're supposed to say it's right. And when it's wrong, we're supposed to call it out.

11:50So this is an attack on that. And I think what you're saying with respect to Senator Kelly, with respect to Senator Slotkin, what you saw with Letitia James, with James Comey, I think is a variation on that. You're seeing the sort of true weaponization of enemies, but at the same side, you're seeing a lack of investigation of Pete Hegseth when he uses Signal to talk about war plans, a lack of investigation of Tom Homan when he is alleged to have taken$50 ,000 of cash in a kava bag, a lack of investigation of the ICE agent who we know shot and killed an unarmed woman in Minnesota. But we are seeing, by the way, an investigation that's now been reported of her background and that of her widow.

12:49So you really are seeing the sort of true weaponization of the department by this administration. yeah and and the president reportedly just is unhappy that while the actions matter and the harassment matters uh the cases so far have been thin enough that a year in i would remind everyone no one on that chart we showed has been convicted of anything and uh journal reports uh trump says they're not moving fast enough at doj to prosecute his targets which that reporting would suggest a confession. At what point, other than getting these cases dismissed, Kelly seems to be going more on offense. At what point would there be more of a reckoning for people at the DOJ who knowingly abuse those powers without meeting the required legal standard for these cases?

13:44Well, one of the things I would note is that the administration seems to be taking a step to avoid the Department of Justice altogether. They announced just a few days ago that they're going to have an alleged fraud prosecutor, but that assistant attorney general is not going to be within the Department of Justice. They're going to be housed and reporting directly to the White House and not reporting to Pam Bondi and Todd Blanch. So that is, you know, complete eradication of a separation between the White House and the Department of Justice. And what can happen to people at the Department of Justice, at the leadership, if they're engaged in wrongdoing sort of intentionally or in bad faith.

14:29You know, the answer is right now, not a whole lot, although down the road, if it can be shown, there are consequences from losing their bar ticket or having bar complaints and sanctioning to things that are more serious. You know, but but the more serious is unlikely to happen because you do have to show intentionality if they were intentionally to commit a crime. And also at the federal level, the president can pardon people on his way out the door, assuming he leaves and goes out that door. Right. Right. Which goes to the whole problem of of of what the DOJ is like in these in this moment. Andrew, stay with me.

15:16We're going to continue this. I just have a quick 90-second break.

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16:51We're back with Andrew Weissman, and we're following several of the moves by the Trump administration. People can feel from the horrific shooting by the ICE agent in Minnesota to these other measures that things are heating up. The Washington Post reports on what we were discussing with the search of this Washington Post reporter's journalist home, that any search target journalist warrants intense scrutiny because these kinds of searches, according to First Amendment expert Jamil Jaffer, can deter and impede reporting. And when you look at what Bondi rescinded that I mentioned in April, this was what was telegraphed, Bondi basically canceled what had been a Biden policy preventing officials from searching reporters' records when trying to ID government personnel.

17:35Bondi said in a memo that the media shouldn't get those protections. And what you described was an interest in a show of force, that rather than saying, well, we want to get this material, so there's ways we can get it and subpoena it, and that's our priority. Here, there seems to be a willingness or even an interest in starting with what was the last resort, Show up at the home, make it a big deal. Some of these cases we're learning about because the targets like Powell and lawmakers are sharing the information. with your experience of the judiciary at what point do judges who are not supposed to read the temperature that's what they tell us can't look at one of these cases in isolation and be you know totally blind like lady justice when you got you got 15 20 people being harassed by the government and they all have one thing in common and it's not what their skin color and it's not their party it's just whether they have independently exercised their rights in a way Trump doesn't like.

18:40So, you know, there there is there is good news, although I'm just going to briefly at the end just talk about when it comes to a search of a journalist, the limited authority that a court has. But what you're talking about is something that we've seen the courts push back. There were pending motions by Letitia James and James Comey for vindictive and selective prosecutions. Those never needed to be decided because the cases were dismissed on other grounds. But if those cases were to come back, those motions will be made again. But we have seen places where the court has reached that issue. Mr.

19:22Abrego Garcia, the individual who was illegally extracted from this country and sent to El Salvador, where he sort of rotted in a prison there, His judge in the criminal case has said that he is entitled to discovery on his claim for selective and vindictive prosecution. There's going to be a hearing on that at the end of January. In addition, Just Security, the legal forum, has recounted scores, scores of judges who no longer are giving the government the presumption of regularity because they have seen the government make statements that are simply not true. They have questioned whether their orders have been followed.

20:07And they've just recounted over and over again things that were unheard of in Republican and Democratic administrations. And I just want to be clear, I've served in Republican and Democratic administrations. It is unheard of that as a government lawyer, you would disobey and as well as not be completely candid with the court about what you knew. But when it comes to the journalists, let me just quickly say there's limited authority for what the courts can do there. This really is a question of Department of Justice policy. It is true that Pam Bondi sort of loosened the reins a bit from Merrick Garland and Eric Holder.

20:53But even she has said that this is supposed to be a last resort. And it's not clear how so far how this is a last resort, given The Washington Post reporting as to what was not done beforehand. Yeah. Andrew Weissman, thank you. I want to tell folks later tonight we'll hear from Jacob Soboroff, who's covered ICE and deportation for a long time as we see these protests, these videos showing all kinds of conduct. So he will be an expert for us tonight. Also, revelations about Lindsey Graham calling out Donald Trump for lying when he could testify in secret. That's a new story. Meanwhile, we have a president losing at home, but clearly trying to use war powers abroad to sound or look tough.

21:41We have a special guest on that next.

21:51Donald Trump has faced many setbacks at home. His first year put him as the most unpopular president at this point in the second term. And that may explain why he has turned abroad using war powers that are harder to review in real time. Today, officials in Greenland and Denmark were at the White House going from those countries to visit with the Trump administration. They spoke to Rubio in advance while Trump publicly vows to take Greenland. On Greenland, sir, the premier of Greenland said today, we prefer to stay with Denmark. Do you see that as the final word? The premier of Greenland. Well, that's their problem.

22:33That's their problem. I disagree with him. I don't know who he is. Don't know anything about him. But that's going to be a big problem for him. we've heard that the discussions were described with vance and rubio as frank by the danish diplomat u.s control greenland we're told is not necessary that's putting it lightly trump posted that anything less than greenland in the hands of the u.s is unacceptable this is one of the many threats that trump is driving and it's not the kind of thing that other countries are ignoring or the markets are ignoring. When the sitting president hijacks or takes or extracts a foreign leader out of Venezuela with no warning or process and then talks about other war powers, people have to deal with this.

23:22Even if Trump has a range of motivations, Politico says so many wars, so little time. And it's all different than everything Trump claimed last year when he was Another belligerent Republican getting us into endless wars. I want to bring in David Rothkopf, foreign policy expert who worked in the Clinton administration and hosts Deep State Radio, the podcast. As you know, David, there's always the balance between he had a bad end of the year. He has an Epstein debacle. He's very unpopular. People forget that. He's facing one of the largest ongoing protest movements we've seen. And he wants to change the topic.

24:05But if you're over in Western Europe or you're a NATO member, that analysis doesn't buy you much, does it? They've got to deal with this, and they're coming and dealing with it. So what do you see as happening, even if some are concerned that it's a wag the dog? Well, there is a wag the dog element to it. There's also an element to it that's associated with, let's say, idiosyncrasies of the president's personality. You know, he said that he feels in this New York Times interview he did a couple of days ago that the reason to go into Greenland is because he likes to own things. You know, that's not a rationale for attacking an ally or attacking our alliance.

24:49You know, we've had a treaty for decades that allows the United States to do effectively whatever we want to in Greenland. We have a base in Greenland. Greenland is part of NATO. There is no Russian or Chinese threat, as he says. There is no national security interest to do this. So it has to either address this idiosyncrasy in his personality, or there is a possible other motive. And the other motive is that this would blow up NATO. And Trump has been negative on NATO for a long, long time. And if he goes in, if he attacks a NATO ally, particularly one where they're going to be holding exercises in Greenland that will involve other NATO allies, this could end the alliance.

25:41That would be bad for the United States. It would be real good for Vladimir Putin. And it's something we need to watch real closely. Yeah, as you remind everyone, NATO has this collective security agreement to deal with what was the Soviet threat and Putin today. It rallied across the alliance for the United States in the wake of 9-11. is such a good thing in long-term geopolitics that no other president's ever gotten to this point. I mean, you can debate the dues, you can debate sharing the burden, but nobody's ever said, you know what we need is we need to be weaker against Putin and we need to have fewer friends when we're attacked as we were after 9-11.

26:29It was good to have a treaty with friends. I want to play what the foreign minister from Denmark Mark was saying after the meeting today, take a listen. We had what I will describe as a frank, but also constructive discussion. The discussions focused on how to ensure the long-term security in Greenland. And here, our perspectives continue to differ, I must say. The president has made his view clear, and we have a different position. We therefore still have a fundamental disagreement, but we also agree to disagree. And therefore we will, however, continue to talk He could be describing diplomacy or marriage David, sometimes you just say We're still in disagreement, we're going to keep going But when you look at Putin in the background of the shadow How does he view all this?

27:26Even if it doesn't go to a worst case scenario Is he already getting something for nothing? Sure, because, you know, the United States has pulled back from funding, for example, Ukraine, and has said we want to have NATO carry the weight within Ukraine. Well, if the United States is at loggerheads with NATO over Greenland, if U.S. relations with NATO are deteriorating over Greenland, then the United States and NATO are less likely to be able to cooperate on Ukraine, and that's going to create more openings for Putin there. NATO is the single greatest factor containing Putin's expansionist impulses across Europe, which we've already seen not just in Ukraine, but in Georgia.

28:15We've seen him talk about Moldova. He's talked about the politics. And the Europeans realized this is a real threat. Well, without the United States involved or with NATO in this kind of a conflict, this opens an opportunity for Putin, just as American expansionism like this sends a message to countries like China that if they want to go in their own neighborhood and do something in Taiwan, the United States is going to have a hard time objecting because look at what we're doing in Venezuela. Look at what we want to do in Greenland. So this weakens the U.S. It weakens the international structure that we've relied on for the past 80 years, and it creates real opportunities for our rivals around the world.