Rachel Maddow

Don't go anywhere.

When he wrapped up his work last year, special counsel Jack Smith filed a report on each of the two big cases he had brought against Donald Trump.

Volume one was the election case about the allegations that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.

That report, volume one, it's 174 pages.

If you include the introductory letter, it's terrific reading, very well written.

I recommend it.

Then there's volume two, which I cannot show you.

Volume two isn't the election case.

It's the other case that Smith investigated.

It's the one that covers Trump hoarding classified material in Mar-a-Lago, classified material he should not have taken with him when he left office.

I can't show you volume two because volume two has not been released to the public.

It remains under seal by court order.

There was, in fact, some speculation that one of the reasons Republicans might have agreed to this hearing today is because they hope to draw Jack Smith into some trouble by maybe provoking him to violate that court order, to talk about that case and that report, or maybe they just wanted to muddy Jack Smith up so that the country and the public thinks poorly of him before, I think inevitably,

The court rules that that report must be released, and we get to see a whole new trench of evidence against Donald Trump.

Anyway, it ended up being quite interesting today when it wasn't necessarily Republicans who really harped on the issue of volume two in that other case.

Democrats brought it up instead, including in this moment with, once again, Congresswoman Becca Ballant of Vermont.

If the justification for not making that report public is there's still pending cases against Trump's co-defendants, well, now there's no pending cases against Trump's co-defendants, so why not release that report?

Joining us now is former FBI general counsel and MSNOW legal analyst Andrew Weissman.

Andrew, it's nice to see you.

Thanks for being with us.