While the country suffers through a -- a flurry of legal developments has dialed up the temperature on the former president.

Special -- Jack Smith -- to prevent a likely second -- to Trump's alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

The former president is also facing new charges in the classified documents case.

Late Thursday, the special counsel's office revised its -- that Trump sought to delete surveillance video from inside Mar-a-Lago to obstruct the Justice Department's probe.

And for President Biden, his son's legal issues aren't going away as hoped.

On, Wednesday, Hunter Biden's plea - - tax and gun charges was put on hold after a judge questioned the agreement's constitutionality.

This all but guaranteed the judge's scrutiny.

This all but guarantees that the questions -- thus all of this and more, Peter Baker, he is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.

And here with me in the studio, Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department for The Washington Post, Leigh Ann Caldwell is the anchor of Washington Post -- Newsletter - - Anita Kumar is managing -- senior managing editor at Politico.

Welcome to you all.

Thank you so much for being here.

Devlin, to you first.

We saw these new charges against the former president, just not in the case that we were expecting this week, but allegations that Trump tried to destroy surveillance video and a few other charges.

Tell us what we learned.

DEVLIN BARRETT, Reporter, The Washington Post: So, what we learned is that the prosecution case for obstruction and essentially a cover up in this case is bigger than we previously knew, and it involves another Trump employee who allegedly set out at Trump's direction to try to destroy security camera footage, according to -- and that's a big deal because it -- on the metal, great work doors of the Mar-a-Lago.

They were reporting about this, this weekend.

And what happened to Carlos De Oliveira is the FBI and the prosecutors and the special counsel spent a period of months trying to make him a witness in their case.

And what they increasingly came up against was, in their minds, a lot of bad memory, a lot of bad answers.

And that all culminated -- these increasingly testy exchanges and questions all culminated in an April session, we report, in which he essentially had a queen for a day interview, which means you get a chance to make your final pitch for why you might be considered a witness, and we're told he did not pass that test.

And so now he has gone from essentially a failed witness to a defendant.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Anita, this -- I mean, separate from the alleged crime here, everything that Devlin is talking about really strengthens this sense that this was a cover up.

I can't remember what the old adage is about the crime being or the cover-up is worse than the crime, whatever that is.

That seems to be very strengthened here.

ANITA KUMAR, Senior Managing Editor, Politico: It does.

The question is, really, did Trump supporters care?

And what we've seen after every single indictment and -- against him is that his supporters -- more.

So, if you look at the polls, Republicans are supporting him.

PETER BAKER, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: -- if he has one.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Leigh Ann, to that point Peter is describing, yes, this is a truly extraordinary indictment, if it were to come for the alleged crimes here, let's say it does drop, what do you think the president does?

Does it change his defense at all if this indictment does come, as we expect?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, Anchor, Washington Post Live: Donald Trump's defense?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yes.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: I don't think so.

I think that what is happening with Donald Trump is his political campaign is very closely intertwined with his legal effort as well.

His people flat out tell you it is one and the same.

The legal strategy and the political strategy are the same.

And so I don't think a lot changes.

What I do think is unknown is if this January 6th indictment does hit a little bit differently with the American public, it might not hit differently.

It probably won't hit differently with his base.

But beyond that 35 percent of Americans who have diehard support for Donald Trump, where does this go?

And then meanwhile you have in the House of Representatives for the first time, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opening the door to a potential impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

And so this is also a very political tactic to muddy the waters and to ensure that both, perhaps, frontrunners for the presidential election are involved in these investigations.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Devlin, on this question of Trump's defense, I think contrary to the advice of every single defense attorney in America, the president, the former president, keeps talking publicly about this case.

We just saw him again saying these two guys named in the in the Mar-a-Lago case, they're great employees.

I love them.

They're wonderful.

I think they've been pressured to lie.

Is there a greater potential that as the president keeps talking, the former president, that this puts him in more legal jeopardy?

DEVLIN BARRETT: We're already seeing that play out in real time.

So, remember I mentioned that new account in the new indictment about the Iranian document, President Trump weeks ago said no such document exists.

He came out and he just said that.

And then, bam, not too long later, the government says not only it doesn't exist, it's a new charge in your case.

So, he continues to talk in ways that would be for any defendant, incredibly risky.

And it's hard to expect that pattern to change just because, you know, he is his own chief legal counsel, for better or worse.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Peter Baker, I wonder if - - as Leigh Ann and Anita have touched on, do you think it's possible that these indictments could be a double-edged sword in the sense that the indictments might strengthen the former president's standing with his core base while at the same time making him increasingly politically radioactive to the independence that he might need to beat Joe Biden if he were to become the nominee?

PETER BAKER: Yes, that's exactly the worry most Republicans, many Republican strategists have right now, right, is that, in fact, he may be unbeatable for the nomination, certainly at the moment he's far, far away the frontrunner, but he is turning off Democrats and independents he might need to win over, particularly in key battleground states in the Midwest and elsewhere, to win the general election.

And it's -- we don't know.

Obviously, it has been remarkable to see a former president indicted not once, but twice on serious charges and only increase in the polls within his own party.

That's something we've never seen before.

And so we're trying to make judgments based on a lack of any kind of historical precedent here.

But so far, yes, it has not been politically a problem for him.

Now, his defense is a political defense.

They're out to get me.

It's persecution.

It's a witch hunt, blah, blah, blah.

What you notice if you look at his statements and what he says on T.V.

is he doesn't deny the facts.

He doesn't actually deny doing the things that they're charging him with doing.

He's simply saying that they're either not illegal, nothing wrong with it, or that it's all politically motivated.

He doesn't deny that he tried to delete those tapes.

He simply said that they didn't get deleted.

He doesn't deny that he, in fact, tried to keep these documents long after the authorities came and asked him.

He simply said he had the right to do it, or he didn't do it, or he makes some other version of the reality here.

And so his ability to change the narrative has been rather successful among Republican voters.

We'll see where that leads if it gets to a general election.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Anita, you were touching on this before.

You do believe that even if a January 6th indictment comes full guns blazing from the DOJ that it really doesn't dent him with that core base, that this only, as Peter was saying, strengthens his hold on the potential nomination?

ANITA KUMAR: I think -- I mean, as Peter said, it's really hard to tell because we've never been here.

But I do think that we've seen four years of his presidency.

We've seen years after, and we just haven't seen a dent, really.

All these times -- and, you know, Peter and I covered the Trump White House together, all these times that we said, oh, this is really going to affect it -- WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Surely, this will be it.

ANITA KUMAR: -- it never did, not one time.

And so, you know, I just have that to go on.

Obviously, this is very different than some of those other things we saw during the presidency.

These are charges.

This is serious.

But it just doesn't seem to look that way.

So, we don't know.

I think there's a couple of things that could impact it.

One, first of all, January 6th, serious charges, fundamental to our democracy.

The other thing is the timing of this.

Are we going to actually see trials before the 2024 election?

And if so, we're going to hear all sorts of things.

We're going to see all sorts of people come forward and talk.

That may change something.

It will, for a lot of Americans possibly.

I don't know about that core base, though.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I want to pivot to Hunter Biden and what happened with him this week.

And, Devlin, I'm going to turn to you again as our resident legal expert here.

Hunter Biden and his legal team thought they were going to have a very boring hearing this week, and it did not turn out to be that way.

What happened there?

DEVLIN BARRETT: So, what happened is something that in fact happens a fair bit in the federal court system, which is prosecutors and defense lawyers cut deals.

And sometimes there's parts of those deals that are tricky and they really don't want to spell out too clearly.

And a good judge will kick the tires and good lawyers will have good answers to the judge's questions.

What you saw this week was the lawyers did not have good answers to the judge's questions.

And the problem is there are too many vague parts of this deal.

And the judge said, basically, look, you guys got to go back and work on this some more because I don't even understand what I'm approving right here.

That's not a great look for the Justice Department, for Hunter Biden, but, again, most of these issues get resolved along the way.

This is just taking like everything to do with the Hunter Biden case.

This is just taking even more time than it normally should.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Leigh Ann, we know that certainly this is not going to tamp down any of the House GOP's investigations into Hunter Biden, the allegations that this is a two-tier justice system.

With regard to Hunter Biden, though, we did also see another revelation that just happened today.

Tell us a little bit about that.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yes.

So tonight, for the first time, President Biden acknowledged that he has a seventh grandchild.

That seventh grandchild is the illegitimate child of -- illegitimate, I should say, with -- of Hunter Biden's.

And the reason this became an issue, there was a paternity case, there was a big legal case that just finished up and Hunter Biden had originally denied this grandchild or this child.

It turns out, of course, it is his.

But the reason it became an issue as well is because President Biden, after this case finished just a couple of weeks ago, said he loves all of his six grandchildren and he left out this seventh, this child of Hunter Biden's.

And, you know, Joe Biden got a lot of criticism for that, including in the columns of The New York Times where Maureen Dowd wrote, this might be the one Hunter Biden scandal that people care about.

And now, we have seen Hunter Biden or Joe Biden for the very first time acknowledge that he does have this seventh grandchild.

They broke it to People Magazine.

And so you can absolutely see where their audience is.

His audience is people who Maureen Dowd was talking about, the mothers, the families, people who they can emotionally connect with.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Okay.

We are going to leave that section for here.

I know.

Devlin, we have to say goodbye to you.

Thank you so much for your insight and for joining us tonight.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Thanks for having me.