comparemela.com

Now in a usual case, an indictment would be returned to a Magistrate Judge in a sealed hearing. It would remain under seal until arrest. But jake, again, we dont know if there is an indictment here. But if there is, its unclear if theyre going to follow the usual script, because this case is of course completely unprecedented. We got a little preview, though, in the maralago indictment. What happened there is the former president , youll probably remember, he broke the news On Truth Social, and then there was several days before we got the details of the case. The Special Counsel got a lot of feedback on handling it that way, allowing the former president to fill the void, not giving people information and the facts in an indictment, particularly in a case of this kind of historic significance. So it will be interesting to see today if, if there is an indictment, how they handle it. If it will be unsealed immediately when the former president will be notified. As you noted, it appears he too is just speculating right now. It does not appear that the former president s team has received any notification of an indictment. But they know that this is very likely coming soon. He has received a Target Letter informing him he is the target of an investigation. He has received an invitation to appear before this grand jury. He declined that invitation, and late last week, his lawyers met with jack smith and his team. Were told during that meeting, which usually comes again, right before an indictment, they didnt expect that they would be able to change the course of this investigation, but they were hoping to possibly delay. So jake we have our whole team fanned out talking to the trump team. I was just speaking with lawyers for other potential targets in this investigation at this point it is unclear if the former president has been indicted. So were watching and waiting. All right, paula reid, stand by. Appreciate it. Lets go to following the reaction inside trump world. She is in bridgewater, new jersey just down the road from trumps Bedminster Golf Club where were told the former president is. Take us inside the trump teams preparation for possible pending indictment. Right. Well, jake, i am told that the trump team spent all of yesterday and all of today really preparing for this scenario where an indictment is filed today. That is what they are expecting. Theyre expecting it will come imm imminently. Donald trump put out On Truth Social that his hearing could come at 5 00. Right before i came on the show with you, i got off the phone with one of trumps advisers and they have not been alerted that it is coming. But this is what they are hearing, they expect it to come at 5 00 p. M. Part of the preparations theyve been doing all of Yesterday And Today has been lining up surrogates, lining up influencers and allies and putting them in a position to defend him immediately after any potential charges drop. They also are leaning very heavily on the playbook that weve heard donald trump and his team use time and time again now when pushing back on some of the charges he has already faced in both manhattan and the classified documents case, which is to label these indictments as political interference, to directly criticize Special Counsel jack smith and argue the Justice Department is far more focused on donald trump than they are on president joe biden. So i think youre going to hear a very well prepared reaction if this indictment does end up dropping later today. And youll see a lot of his allies kind of fan the airwaves and ready to defend donald trump. And just in the last four minutes, alyna, you may not know because youve been talking to me and our viewers, but he wrote also this is donald trump On Truth Social also, why are they putting out another fake indictment the day after the Crooked Joe Biden scandal scandal in all caps one of the biggest in American History broke out in the halls of congress. Three question marks. A nation in decline, exclamation appointment. He seems to be suggesting an indictment is pending, though once again we dont know if thats speculation or he has actually been notified by his lawyers who would be presumably notified by the Special Counsel. Correct . Right. Thats correct. I just spoke. Unless within the last few minutes when ive been talking to you, jake, that they were alerted, the last i heard is they have not been told that this is coming that doesnt mean that it isnt. That doesnt mean that theyre not going to be given a headsup, or perhaps theyre not even going to get a headsup before this is filed. We dont know. As far as ive heard in the last few minutes, jake, his team has not been alerted of that. I think its interesting noting that last truth social post. You can already see what donald trump is trying to do. He is trying to get ahead of the narrative. He is trying to message these potential charges on his own terms. Its exactly what youve seen him do when he has been indicted in the past, jake. Okay, in bridgewater new jersey, thank you so much. Keep us posted. We have three new panelists joining us, dana bash, abby phillip, and andy mccabe. Andy mccabe, let me start with you this. Is a legal question. Trump could face charges related to any number of actions leading up to the election of 2020 and then afterwards, and obviously leading up to january 6th. Just to name a few, there is the Pressure Campaign on State Election officials, the fake state electors plot, potential charges for inciting the january 6th riot. You were once the Deputy Director of the fbi. Based on the public information, and obviously there is a whole bunch of information the Special Counsel has that we dont. Sure. But based on the public information, where do you see the strongest potential criminal charges . Well, i think we have to look first to the Target Letter, which referenced three separate criminal charges. The first is essentially fraud against the government. And that could take the form of the fake electors scheme, or the Pressure Campaigns, those sorts of things, or even just perpetrating this myth that the election was stolen from him when he knew in fact that it was not there. Is the charge of the deprivation of conspiracy to deprive folks of their constitutional rights, which is post civil war legislation that was designed to protect people from essentially being denied their right to vote. And other constitutional rights. So i think thats one we can look forward to. And also, there is, of course, the obstruction of official proceeding. Thats probably the most used charge so far in all the january 6th prosecutions. I think its likely that some of his activity will fall into that bucket. Beyond that there are charges involving insurrection. I think another possible area we could look to is fraud charges based on the fraudulent solicitation of donations and funds that we know that the Special Counsel has looked at the language that the Trump Campaign used in their solicitation of allegedly funds that were supposed to support challenges Election Results, and most of which were poured into his Legal Defense issues. So there is a wide range, jake. But i think, were not going to know until we see the indictment. And dana, trump and his allies obviously, they engaged in Disinformation Campaign about the election for months and months and months. We saw it. We reported on it in realtime starting in the summer of 2020 when he started bashing mailin ballots. We were in the middle of a pandemic, of course. His own people wanted him to not bash, but promote the use of mailin ballots. But one of the most notorious pieces of evidence that we know of has to do with that phone call he made to the secretary of state of georgia, brad raffensperger. Joe biden had won the state very narrowly, and trump wanted him to do something. Lets play a little bit of that, and ill come back to you. Were going to walk down pennsylvania avenue. I love pennsylvania avenue. And were going to the capitol. And were going try and give the democrats are hopeless. Theyre never voting for anything. Not even one vote. But were going to try and give our republicans the weak ones, because the strong ones dont need any of our help, were going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So lets walk down pennsylvania avenue. All right. Thats a different bit of evidence. But lets talk about what we just saw, because that is donald trump telling the mob. And according to Cassidy Hutchinsons testimony, he knew that some of them had weapons, to go to capitol hill. There are first of all, it is ironic that you played a different one because there are lots of options to show. Right. There isnt one clip thats damning evidence clip. There are clips. And its just a reminder that he does so much of this when its not some super secret strategy that hes got Behind Closed Doors. And that really is one of the big questions. And that is intent. And what im really assuming that he gets indicted, what were all going to be looking for and reading in the indictment is a narrative that maybe goes beyond what we already know because so much of it happened in public about what went on behind the scenes. Right. What his intent was, not just there, but really, preelection day as you were mentioning when he was sowing the seeds of an election lie and warning that could be stolen in case he actually did lose, which he did. And so all of those moves that he made, how much of that and how farreaching was that . And was it criminal . What are you going to be looking for . I think it really continues on from what dana just said. Im interested in the deprivation of rights of this. Right. Which to me speaks to the long tail of this going from just before the election when they started to say well, youre just going say you won even if you lost, and going all the way through these fake elector plots, the efforts to use the department of justice to try to subvert the will of the American People. Im going to be looking to see how the Special Counsel is able to craft a narrative around what happens here and who was in charge of it, and whether trump was in fact the center of this conspiracy to undermine the votes of the American People in the election. I think thats where the hearings stopped short. They showed us all the different pieces of it, but they were never really able to tell us whether trump was really the one sort of leading this effort, whether there is evidence to prove that. And id be interested to see if that is where the Special Counsel is able to go now that they have access to more witnesses, including people like mark meadows who were in the white house at the center of this. The individuals he spoke to, the Special Counsel, the january 6th committee didnt get a chance to. Lets go to paula reid to give us the latest on what is going on at the courthouse. A microdevelopment. But thats all we have right now, jake. We have learned from our reporters at the courthouse how the jury foreperson is in the magistrates courtroom. What does that mean . The grand jury foreperson is the only member of The Grand Jury that is needed to return an indictment. Indictments are usually returned to a Magistrate Judge. Weve been watching the Magistrate Judges proceedings all day. And this is significant. Now we know we have the one person who is needed to return a possible indictment in the courtroom where it would happen. Now at this point again, we do not know if the former president has been indicted. He does not appear to have been informed either. It appears he is Posting Speculation On Truth Social. But this is significant because this would be the next step if The Grand Jury had indicted the former president or any of his associates, the foreperson would go to the Magistrate Judge to do the return of that indictment. So were standing by. Any moment we may know if the former president has been indicted. Now lets just remember how we got here, jake. What we know is that the former president has received a Target Letter informing him that he could be charged, would likely be charged in this investigation. He was offered an invitation to appear before this grand jury. He perhaps wisely declined that invitation. And we know late last week his lawyers met with jack smith and members of his team. Now, jake, thats the kind of meeting that usually happens when an indictment is imminent. Defense attorneys of course hope maybe they could change the minds of prosecutors. But sources tell cnn the Trump Defense team did not expect that they would be able to change the trajectory of this investigation, but they hope to maybe be able to delay it a little bit. But this grand jury usually meets on tuesdays and thursdays. We saw them this morning show up to work. They were in the courthouse for several hours, giving them the opportunity to hear additional evidence, or potentially to vote on an indictment. And it was significant, jake, when we saw most of The Grand Jury leaf the courthouse, but the foreperson remained behind that was a sign to us that this may not be business as usual. Because thats the only person you need to return an indictment. And we have a team of reporters in the courthouse. Theyve been watching the Magistrate Hearings very closely. Now another big question, jake, if there is an indictment, typically theyre filed under seal until arrest. Now it could be that the Special Counsel may seek to try to get this unsealed, right . To get the message out to the public sooner, not allow the former president or anyone else who is potentially charged to fill the void. But that is ultimately up to the judge. We saw in the maralago case that the former president posted On Truth Social, and then he had several days to fill the void. So were all watching and waiting to see what the Special Counsel does here. Thank you so much. We do have Breaking News right now. From tierney snead, two of our reporters covering this. The grand jury investigating the 2020 Election Interference has in fact handed up an indictment. The Federal Grand Jury Hearing Evidence in Special Counsel jack smiths investigations into efforts to overturn the 2020 election did hand up an indictment in tuesday in the Federal Courthouse in washington, d. C. The foreperson of The Grand Jury, along with a Justice Department prosecutor were present in the courtroom when the indictment was returned that is what we have right now. Lets go to Katind Katelyn Polah what we have. It was quite clear today that one of the most senior prosecutors working in the Special Counsels office was there to make this indictment returned to get into it the court system along with the foreperson from The Grand Jury that has been reviewing this evidence related to january 6th, donald trump and the 2020 election for months and months and months. I was just in the courtroom. We had been waiting for hours. The grand injuries left around 2 00 p. M. And nine minutes, ten minutes after 5 00, that is when this prosecutor from the Special Counsels office, molly gaston came into the courtroom with a minder full of documents. She came in along with several other people apparently from the Justice Department and the courtroom. It was a full courtroom. There were in witnesses. Molly gaston went up to the judge, said they did have an indictment to make. The judge was reviewing paperwork, and she was saying that she had looked at this paperwork. It was sufficient number of people for a aququorum, and it sufficient number of people that could make this grand jury return. And then what we have is we have this indictment now in the system, and the judge is saying that she is putting this case under seal because the Justice Department is requesting that, and that she is going to be issuing a summons. No one in this hearing spoke any name of any defendant. They did not mention any initials of any defendant. But it was quite clear that what we witnessed today was the Special Counsels investigation around january 6th making this indictment return from The Grand Jury after months of Criminal Investigation here in the Federal Courthouse in washington. And katelyn, have we seen this grand jury, this particular grand jury hand up an indictment before . We have never, jake. This grand jury has been at work hearing from witnesses for many, many months, and it is just not very typical to see them even outside of the hallway that they go into assemble as grand juries where theyre Behind Closed Doors or the go to lunch in the building. Theyre just not milling about the courthouse, and we certainly have never seen them make a return in the case. But today we did. The foreperson, who is going to remain nameless, the grand jurors, her identities are all secret, extremely confidential, and that person was in the courtroom along with this prosecutor from the Special Counsels Office Making this unprecedented return. All right, very interesting. Paula, usually when a grand jury indictment is returned, there is a Grand Jury Number or at least initials of the defendant. But in this case right now, we do not know the name or the initials of the defendant, and that has been sealed. Is that right . Thats exactly right. Based on our reporters and the information theyre getting in the court. And that is likely by design, jake. Usually an indictment, when it is returned, it remains under seal until arrest. And the details are not revealed until that defendant makes their initial appearance. Of course we know the Special Counsel has tried in many different ways to treat this case like every other case. And we learned from our sources in the court, jake, that it was the Justice Department. So the government that asked for this to be sealed. So if this is an indictment of the former president or any of his associates, its a sign that even though this is a case of enormous national significance, and theyre under a lot of pressure to release the details as soon as possible, the government has opted to seal this. Now there is a tension here, jake, between the governments desire to treat this like any other case and the desire for information. Because as we saw in the maralago case, the former president broke the news he had been indicted, and he had several days to fill the void and tell his version of the story of exactly what was going on. And many reporters, many other people in the public questioned whether that was the right strategy given whats at stake here. But it does appear based on what were hearing in the courtroom that whatever indictment was returned today by The Grand Jury investigating january 6th was put under seal at the request of the Justice Department. The maralago indictment, we did hear from the Special Counsel shortly thereafter. He gave brief remarks. But we had to wait a little longer to actually see the details in the indictment. And thats what were really waiting for, jake. We want to know who was indicted here, and what were the charges. The public is keenly interested in this information, though it appears we may have to wait a day or two before knowing more. And its sealed. We might not find out who the defendant somebody has been indicted by this grand jury investigating 202010 election, the efforts to overturn the election and the january 6th insurrection. Someone, some defendant has been indicted. But we might not know who that person is until tomorrow or the next day. Is that right . Its possible. There are a lot of different ways that we can potentially try to figure that out. We have the best Reporting Team in the business. Theyre looking at all the Different Court records, everything like that. It is also possible that the Special Counsel could come out and give us some Additional Details, though it does not appear based on the fact that the government asked us to be sealed that we will get the full indictment to tell us the entire story of what exactly happened here. Were now relying on the Special Counsel to possibly share some Additional Details over the next 24, 48 hours. All right, paula. Well come back to you in a second. Kaitlan collins, i know you have sources in the trump team. What you hearing . Were waiting to hear that they have actually been notified, if this indeed the indictment as katelyn noted. They did not read any officials or names. The trump team has put out a lengthy statement. They know it is imminent. It is a difference when he is actually notified. Thats when we could see the Justice Department move to unseal this. I believe they have to notify the defendant first. Just the reference the statement first, theyre criticizing it, questioning the timeline, which we talked about earlier. But theyre also comparing the prosecution. Theyre saying its persecution and that it is reminiscent of nazi germany in the 1930s in the former soviet union. Just giving you a window into the kind of argument theyre going to be making tying this all back to the campaign. When you look at that and hear that from trumps attorneys and his spokespeople, remember last fall when we were told by sources in part because he knew a lot of these investigations into him were heating up. And that is in part why he announced as early as he did. Thats what led to the appointment of jack smith and of course the Special Counsel overseeing this. Obviously comparing this to nazi germany is Beyond The Pale in terms of offensiveness and ignorance. Id like know what the person said. Who is the one . This is coming from a trump spokesperson. Its a lengthy statement. Read us the nazi part. The lawlessness of these persian constitutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of nazi germany in the 1930s. The President Trump has always held the law and constitution with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys. That part is also interesting because you notice if you look at his statements lately, he has been talking about the advice that he is getting from attorneys. Ive talked to people that could be an argument that theyre making, that he was simply getting advice. Youve heard mike pence say that. Getting bad advice is not criminal from attorneys because there were all of these attorneys inside the oval office, the John Eastmaneastman could be a defense. Its interesting you say that. Some of the other people that possibly could be indicted include attorneys. They do. Such as Rudy Giuliani, such as john eastman, who came up with this baffling theory that mike pence singlehandedly had the ability to overturn the election or send the electors back to the state, and sidney powell. The best well, all the best people. If that is the argument he is making, and again, were waiting to see what the indictment says. And as you mentioned, who exactly the indictment is for. But just in this statement alone, lets go become to we sat here for many, many hours during the january 6th hearing, and we heard under Oath Testimony from bill bar, his Attorney General. He we heard testimony from his white house counsel, others who were at the top of his own administration. Right. Saying the opposite. Saying the opposite. And knaus germany thing is like break glass when youre in the biggest political trouble you can be. Also considering that donald trump had dinner with a couple Holocaust Deniers a couple of months ago. All of those points you mentioned, all republicans. Many of them his inner circle. Lets just go back to the reference before. If you look back unfortunately at truth social over the last couple of weeks and months, unfortunately its not the only reference. Donald trump has been going after jack smith, calling him names. One of the references was thugs and also calling the Justice Department gestapo. There is only one place that the gestapo, you know, reference goes to. But just big picture. This is undermining our system of justice. This is undermining the rule of law. Trumps attacks on those . Absolutely. Here the oddity. And im not even going to give more oxygen to the lunacy to the comparison of the holocaust. But i will say the notion that you would extend that tenfoot pole to includes your attorneys sets you up for legal peril. If you want to say no, no, it wasnt that i was leading my attorneys, they were leading me, now you have the prospects of that veil, that attorneyclient privilege now coming into question. Because you now have set up an acrimonious an tag mystic relationship between the people who by design could have been quiet. Cant just say everything that you actually talked about. Now a fact inquiry has to be made whether or not he in fact was led or who he actually directed otherwise. You already know with at least one attorney, the veil being pierced under the Attorney Client crime fraud exception. The second point, this idea, we dont know who has been indicted at all yet. Were still waiting to figure out who that will be. But its not a viable defense to suggest that i was led by counsel, assuming he was. If you passed every sound legal advice messenger just to go into crazy town and said ahha, i think i have a place here, and thats who im going to listen to, the court is going look at the reasonableness of ones decision to follow certain advice. Obviously the jury can come into play in that. You cannot say sir, an attorney told me this in a vacuum, and thats enough to bypass everything else. So let me add something coming from our news desk, that they, the prosecutors were careful in open court to not say whether it was one person or multiple people. So we dont know that its one defendant. It could be several defendants. And then andy mccabe, former Deputy Director of the fbi, one of the things thats interesting is that might actually make this process take longer because they have to note fight if it is more than one defendant, multiple people whose names. And that i believe is highly likely. Thats been for me the biggest Question Rolling Into today. Who else is going to be included as a codefendant in this indictment. All of the charges carry as a requirement 371 or conspiracy. Whats 371 . Fraud against the government. The deprivation of rights a 18 usc 241. These are all conspiracy statutes. Deprivation of rights is basically trying to take away the legal ability to vote by overturning an election. Exactly. And thus disenfranchising those people. Exactly. These are all conspiracy statutes. They required that the person charged entered into an agreement with another person and executed at least one act in furtherance of that agreement. You have to have a coconspirator. It is legally possible to have an unindicted coconspirator, but that would be insane in this case. It could be really not a very strong indictment. It would be one that people would roundly criticize and overwhelmingly likely that there will be a coconspirator or possibly multiple coconspirators identified in the diet. A majority of House Republicans voted to disenfranchise the voters of pennsylvania and disenfranchise the voters of arizona, based on these election lies. This did not pass the house. But that is twothirds of House Republicans in 2021 who voted that way. Why is that not, if were talking about the deprivation of rights, why is that not an act to deprive americans of the right to vote . You can certainly make the argument it is. But as a matter of proof, to prosecute a case along those grounds, youd basically be relying solely on by your description what those legislators did in the law making process. Youd have all kinds of problems with speech and debate cause issues and actually trying to enter evidence of those votes into court. I think that would be problematic. Im not saying it is unrealistic, but that is an argument that Donald Trumps defense team could win. It is. Which is why i think if you see a legislator indicted in this case, which im not sure that we will, but if you do, its going to be someone who went beyond just their vote in congress. Its going to be someone who advised the president or consulted with him on this strategy, or maybe provided impetus for, connected him with other people who helped him deploy the strategy. And there are certainly a few names that could fall into those categories. Well have to see. Abby . There are so many avenues this can good. This is so broad in scope. There are so many instances of conduct that raise serious legal questions. And one thing that we havent really talked about is the Fundraising Element of all of this. The question is why would trump or his associates want to do this. And if part of the answer just involves simply trying to fleece americans out of money by perpetrating a lie and building a conspiracy around a lie to try to undermine the confidence in an election, that could be part of this too. And there is a lot of evidence out there to suggest that that is at least part of what was happening. Im particularly interested, as i always am, in what we will find out that we do not already know there was so much out in the public. But the Special Counsel has the ability to go behind the veil here and to potentially give us a little bit more information about some of these conversations that were happening inside of trumps inner circle that can help explain what that conspiracy really looked like beyond what we saw playing out for the world to see over the course of several weeks. Can i say one small thing. We have been told that trump has been informed that he has indicted in this investigation. Thats a big thing. Its not a small thing. I just wanted to let dana make their point. You the floor, my friend. They did not say his name or initials in that room. But i am being told by a source he has been informed. Donald trump has been indicted. That is a big point of news, a big moment of clarification here. Donald trump, the former president of the United States has been indicted. Cnn can report. He has been indicted by Special Counsel jack smith in his investigation into the efforts to overturn illegally the 2020 Election Results. Lets go to paula reid right now for the latest on everything thats going on. So donald trump has been indicted. Thats right, jake. A somber day for the country. Former President Trump has been indicted connected to efforts to interfere with the democratic process and overturn the results of the 2020 election. This is historic. This is the third time the former president has faced criminal charges this year alone. Right now we do not have the exact count or charges in front of us. Were waiting for a judge to unseal possibly this indictment. There is also information that our team is able to gather from inside the Federal Court records. I can sort of hear them over my shoulder. I think theyre trying to put together exactly what we can learn about the specific charges. But yes we have learned that the former president has been indicted in the Special Counsels investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This was very much expected. He received a Target Letter in recent weeks informing thame he could very likely be charged in this investigation. He declined to appear before The Grand Jury. And his lawyers met with jack smith and his team late last week. While they did not expect they could stop an indictment, they hoped to delay it. It appears they were unsuccessful. Jake . So we have the indictment here. There are four counts. Count one, Conspiracy To Defraud the United States. Count two, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Count three, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. And count four, conspiracy against rights. Evan perez perez tell us about this indictment of the former president of the United States donald j. Trump. These match up with the ones we had seen reported were in his Target Letter. It appears that thats what the Special Counsel has decided to bring the indictment on. So this is now out in public. That the former president has been indicted. And the Special Counsel announced it now. Were still trying to go through this. But obviously, the Conspiracy To Defraud the United States is one of the larges that used to be very rarely brought. And we saw it used more recent ly since the Mueller Investigation by the Justice Department. It can cover a broad number of alleged crimes. And so what the Special Counsel is doing here is looking at the conduct of the former president in those days between the election day as he tried to overturn the Election Results up to and including the events of january 6th. I think the conspiracy against rights charge which is a Civil Rights Era sort of a civil rights law is one that is going to good afternoon area lot of attention again. This is having to do with the former president s effort to deprive the rights of citizens by trying to overturn their elections, trying to push the former Vice President mike pence to discard the Election Results in a number of key states as a way for him to remain in power, despite the fact that he has lost election again. Were still going through this. Its a fairly lengthy document. It just popped up on the pacer system just now. And so were now going to go to go through and read and see what the allegations, what this investigation more than two years old long found as a result of this, jake. All right. Turn to your computer while i talk to paula reid about some of the items as we go through this. Paula, one of the things thats interesting here on page 3 of the indictment, it mentions donald trump has six coconspirators. These are other individuals presumably who have been alerted or are being alerted. But their names are not in here. There is coconspirator 1 through 6. Coconspirator 1, ill run through this with you, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendants 2020 Reelection Attorneys would not. Any number of vehicles could be Rudy Giuliani, john eastman, sidney powell. Coconspirator 2, devised a strategy to leverage the role to obstruct the certification of the president ial election. Thats almost certainly john eastman. Coconspirator 3, attorney of unfounded claims of Election Fraud. The defendant private privately acknowledged to overs sounded crazy. Thats got to be sidney powell. Could coconspirator four, a Justice Department who worked on civil matters and attempted with the defendant to use the department to open sham Election Investigations with knowingly false claims of Election Fraud. Who do you suspect that is . I would expect, but it certainly sounds like Jeffrey Clark. Exactly. That was the guy who was in charge of environmental rules brought up from the depths of the Justice Department because donald trump and his allies thought he would be able to push the states to illegally overturn the elections, only in battleground states, of course. Coconspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of president ial electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. So that is somebody working with Jeffrey Clark presumably. Yeah, these last two are more general terms. Theyre not as exact ly as the first four. Im not comfortable guesting. What is interesting is we have been wondering if the former president would be the only one to be charged. I was quite surprised when i spoke to Rudy Giulianis lawyer multiple times over the past month since he has been interviewed and he insisted that Rudy Giuliani would not be charged. Jake, that was very hard to understand based on his role in this alleged scheme. But it appears based on this indictment he is mentioned as a coconspirator, but he has not been formally charged. So it appears instead of at this point, instead of indicting seven different people, they have charged the former president and listed the six coconspirators, several of whom the prominent folks we just named. And there were other people it wasnt clear if their names would be mentioned in the case. Rudy giuliani, john eastman is someone we did expect would be charged. Jeffrey clark, sidney powell. They are listed or described very similarly to coco coconspirators. Coconspirator 1 our guess would be Rudy Giuliani. I think thats a safe guess. These kids individuals have not been charged with anything, evan perez . At least in this document theyre not being charged with the former president , jake. It is possible that we may yet see indictments that they are being charged simply. Thats something that is certainly in our reporting, we were prepared to see when this finally came to pass. We are expecting to hear in the next hour from the Justice Department from the Special Counsel jack smith. The Justice Department is going to have him issue a public statement. That is something we dont expect he is going to answer any questions. But at least again puts the face of someone from the Justice Department who is going to speak to the American Public and explain why theyve taken this extraordinary action, which is to indict the former president for things related to his effort to overturn the election. Ill draw your attention to just a part of where the indictment looks at the former president s state of mind, jake. Thats one of the things that obviously for all of us weve been wondering the Justice Department for them to bring a case against donald trump, they would have to say that knew what he was doing was wrong, that he knew what was he was doing was false. And what they say here is the defendant and his coconspirators and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the 2020 president ial election. And they say that these prolific lies about Election Fraud, including dozens of specific claims that there had been substantial fraud in specific states. And they go on to describe all of the different ways that they were trying to pressure the former Vice President , mike pence. They talk about the effort obviously to get those fake electors. This is all in support of the key charge, which is to defraud the United States. Again, using the powers of the Justice Department, this is where Jeffrey Clark comes into play. They were trying to pressure the Justice Department to say that there was enough fraud to cause legislators, State Legislators to discard their Voting Results and to try to seat their fake elects or the. All of this is being wrapped up in one narrative. That the Special Counsel says explained why donald trump is being charged with the Conspiracy To Defraud the United States, jake. Right. And we should note just because we were talking about it earlier, the coconspirators 1 through 6, who have not been publicly identified, although there is certainly speculation about who they are, coconspirator 6 who we did not mention is a political consultant who helped him plan a plan to submit fraudulent slates of electors to obstruct the election proceeding. Paula, i want to read one section about three criminal conspiracy that Special Counsel jack smith and The Grand Jury are alleging donald trump purposed. Those three conspiracies are this is on page 2 of the indictment, Conspiracy To Defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat the lawful Government Function by which the results of thpresident ial action are collected and cound and certified by the federal vernment. Thats in violation of 18 usc 371 which andy mccabe med earlier. B, a conspiracy to obstruct and impede the congressional proceeding which the results are counted and certified. Thats obviously on january 6th, the proceeding that mike pence was presiding over. And c, a conspiracy against the right to vote and have ones vote counted in violation of 18 usc 24 1. We should also note donald trump were expecting to appear in court for his arrest and arraignment on thursday. Paula, those three criminal conspiracies that are being aemged, tell us more about them. These match what the former president said was in his Target Letter. Now several of these were very much expected, right . The Conspiracy To Defraud the u. S. By using dishonesty, fraud or deceit. And there theyre specifically talking about the fake elector pod. These were efforts to put forth fake slates of electors that were won by current president biden. But instead, put down then President Trump as the winner. And at first, this was seen as maybe some sort of eccentric plot by overzealous reporters. But as were now 2 1 2 years out from the events, they realize this was just part of a larger plan. Also in this alleged conspiracy was the pressure that was applied on the Vice President. He had a role to certify the results of this election, and there was a hope by some of the people around then President Trump that pence would accept these fake slates of elector, overturn the true results of the election in trumps favor. As this has been investigated on the hill and by the Justice Department, these fake slates of elects or the have been come to seen b seen as something much more nefarious and part of a large wideranging effort to undermine the results of the election. Now this other civil rights crime, this is interesting. A lot of people were surprised by this when it showed up not the argue letter because it is a little used statute about a conspiracy to undermine peoples constitutional right to vote. Some people were surprised that the Justice Department opted to pursue this as it is not often used. But ill have to read further how exactly they support that specific charge. It is actually a civil rights statute that theyre relying on here. Notable their choices. And a word we see very often in the cases involving the former president , obstruction. He has of course been charged with obstruction of a criminal proceeding down in florida. And then charged with trying to obstruct his own on instruction in florida. That word came up in the Mueller Investigation. It tends to be a theme in investigations into former President Trump. All right. Joining us now tim particle to recall, a former Trump Attorney who played a key role in the maralago classified documents investigation and testified before that grand jury. He left Donald Trumps legal team in may. Tim, i know that you probably have not had an opportunity to read all 45 pages of this indictment. But give us your reaction to the news that donald trump has been indicted in Special Counsel, jack smiths 2020 Election Interference probe with six coconspirators alluded to as well. The interesting thing to me is both the timing as well as the fact that all of the coconspirate unindicted. This is something that i know that jack smiths team is still investigating. Theyre still interviewing witnesses that just from my brief have information thats directly relevant to these things. Its surprising he would hand down the indictment today instead of a couple of weeks from now after they finish doing all of those witness interviews. And its also curious to me that he has chosen only to indict one person and to leave these other six coconspirators unindicted. So that may be an indication that this is just the initial indictment. He is going to try and put pressure on the other six to move over to become cooperating witnesses, or else there is going to be a superseding indictment that will name them all as codefendants. One of the arguments that we know doubt will hear if this does in fact go to a legal proceeding, which we anticipate it will which is if donald trump believed something to be a fact, even if it was not true, that that is not necessarily fraud. The document, the indictment goes into great detail to tell the American People all the times that donald trump was told that something was not true, and the people who were telling it to him, such as im not going read it to you, but just to give you an idea, it talks about Vice President pence, the Senior Leaders of the Justice Department, the director of national intelligence, the department of Homeland Security Cyber Security and infrastructure security agency, or sisa. Senior white house attorneys, senior staffers on the Reelection Campaign for donald trump, State Legislators and officials, many of whom were the defendants political allies had voted for him and wanted to vote for him. It goes into conspiracy theories, 10,000 dead voters in georgia, 2,500 in pennsylvania, and on and on. Not only saying they were wrong, these conspiracy theories, but noting the individuals trump supporter, people who wanted trump to be reelected who were telling him no, no, thats not accurate. And then trump would repeat the information regardless to the public. Does that suggest that trump knew that he was lying or will his defense team still be able to successfully argue he still believed even if his own Attorney General and his own Vice President were telling him otherwise . I think it does leave open that possibility of the argument to where he is going to be able to present evidence that he received information, conflicting information from multiple people, and he believed one over the other. Its not nearly as damning as if they were able to get some witness or somebody to say that he admitted that he knew that this was wrong. So ultimately, if it comes down to he was told by multiple different advisers multiple different things, and which ones should he have believed, thats going to be a question thats going to come down really to a jury to assess credibility. Well, conspirator one, there is a section on page 14 of the indictment, which its very clearly identifying quotes that Rudy Giuliani has made as attributed to coconspirator one or alleged defamation, i should say, of those two women who were Election Workers in georgia because it quite obviously passed around ports as if they were viles of heroin or cocaine. Thats a quote. Thats a quote that Rudy Giuliani made. Do you think that the reason why these six coconspirators were not indicted is because, as you noted, one speculation you made, because this is basically the Special Counsel saying, get onboard the train and cooperate with us because we have the goods on you . It could be that. It could be because they dont have, you know, every element required to put each one of those people into, you know, the full substantive crime. It also could be that they were rushing this. Again, i go back to the question of why the timing. Why is it this week instead of a couple of weeks from now. Was he trying to rush this in before fanny willis issues an indictment . Maybe they put a partial indictment in for one person and they have to go back and fill in the gaps for the others. I dont know. Im guessing on that. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. Lets go to new york and anderson cooper. Thank you so much. You have been looking at what we just got. What do you see . First of all, big picture, this is momentous. This indictment goes right to the core of our democracy. And i think it is helpful there is a section in the indictment where they break this scheme down into five distinct parts. First of all, they say this all started with false claims of Election Fraud. It is really important to note donald trump knew that he lost. He made knowingly false claims. Second, they launched this sevenstate strategy to pressure state and local officials to overturn the results. Third, they used weaponized, to coin a frads, the Justice Department to try to lend its heft to these claims and to try to pressure states. Four, they pressured the Vice President , mike pence, to do something they knew was unconstitutional and illegal. And fourth, they tie in the january 6th violence. Donald trump and his coconspirators, quote, exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of Election Fraud. So thats sort of a fivechapter assessment of how doj sets up these conspiracies that they charged here. The importance of the government saying donald trump knew they were false, that is big. That goes right to the intend we talked about. They are alleging donald trump absolutely knew these claims of Election Fraud were false or at an absolute minimum any reasonable person should have known. Based on my first quick reading of this, they make part a showing of this. Based on who they were calling in to speak to investigators was do they have people that can say who was going on, that they had evidence that he knew. Right. I include myself in that, having shared that he shared with me having lost the election. I want to share one thing. This is the indictment for the former president. So that and of itself makes it a historic moment. What i think he is going to hate in rating this is that, frankly, his best Legal Defense was i was too foolish to know i lost the election. I didnt understand to noel enough these schemes do not work, they dont have the right to engage in what my lawyers are presenting. Hes going to hate that. One thing that i think is kind of remarkable about this moment, the third indictment, hes got Muscle Memory now. Im just looking at the first statement coming out, his allies are sitting around him. Senators are defending him. They are coordinated. They decided what the line is. This is about hunter biden, it is the weaponization of the doj. He was ready for this. Thats a scary moment for our country. I feel kind of sick. I feel all day i had this giddy feeling that, hes not going to be indicted. When it actually happened, i remember sitting here with january 6th and watching the violence, watching what was going on and being shocked and appalled. If you had told me it would take two and a half years before we as a country said thats not good, President Trump, thats not good, i mean, if you ask a Fifth Grade Class can you cheat to get your way . A Fifth Grade Class can say you cant. Well, the federal government just told donald trump you cant do that. Its just that simple. You are a fraud, sir, and you cant do that. You lied. You cant do that. You tried to cheat. You cant do that. I think normal americans can understand this and will understand the gravity of what just happened. Tim duncan . Donald trumps situation just went from a friendly claim of checkers to cut throat 3dc chess. They dont care to be in the Cool Kids Club anymore. The situation gets more complicated because with one indictment it maybe feels like you can explain political pentup Energy Behind it. Hes also caught between a rock and a hard place. Hes in some instances saying he didnt do something. In some instances he is trying to use the guise that he was the president and hes protecting. Hes just bouncing back and forth and it will continue to weigh on him. This is different from the indictments we have seen before. It is very different from the hush money case. It is also different from the classified documents case. When you read this indictments in there about the way our constitution works, the way we cast our ballots. This strikes at the heart of our democracy. Exactly. Another important point made during this indictment, they say there are legal ways you can contest and election. They make a point of saying that. On the second page, the Election Results. What the most striking. Theyre only historic because this doesnt usually happen. The president stole some documents, maybe he did something bad with it. Hes lying about it. Hes impeding justice in the porn star case. But these are kind of technical things. There is actual harm to our country if this type of thing becomes normal. I mean, this is essentially a coup. Look at this in any other country and say this was a coup. If you look at this indictment, this is describing a coup attempt in our country. And, so, this is the 100 years from now that everybody is going to know about and look at. And if he gets away with it in our court system, shame on us. But this is the biggest, to your point, its probably the biggest prosecution in the history of the country. We all saw the footage on january 6th. How you felt. And it is hard to argue with it. But to underscore what you said, i think of our adversaries abroad. I think of our allies abroad. It is not something you can necessarily expect were going to have if half the country is backing his allies. Can you imagine being 78 years old after being president of the United States and waking up just a few short years later dealing with these indictments and coming to reckon with what that feels like . The average american doesnt see that as a goal in life, to be 78 and be in multiple indictments across state and federal levels and to continue to grow. By the way, we expect to see a Fulton County indictment coming in the future, too. Wolf blitzer and Erin Ber Knacky pick up our coverage right now. This is cnn Breaking News. This is cnns live Breaking News of dramatic and historic moments unfolding right now. A statement from the Special Counsel, jack smith. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer in washington, Along Wither Erin Burnett in ne york. The former president of the United States now formally counts with efforts to overturn the 2020 president ial Election Results. A historic moment for the country. And all of this, his actions, leading up to the january 6th attack on the capitol, wolf. Very dramatic moments, indeed. Our correspondents are bigging for new information right now as we await. The Special Counsel will, of course, have coverage of the statement coming up. This is a climatic moment certainly in this investigation. Lets begin with cnns senior justice correspondent evan perez. Evan, what more are we learning right now about this indictment of former President Trump. Wolf, one of the key things that the Special Counsel gets into in this 45page document here, this indictment, is describing the former president and his state of mind, that he knew he had lost the election and still continued to peddle these lies and then entered into a number of conspiracies to defraud the United States, to obstruct and impede the january 6th congressional proceeding, which, of course, is the ceremonial proceeding, by which the official votes are counted in this country. And then a conspiracy against the right to vote and have ones vote counted. Those are the three conspiracies that the Special Counsel is alleging the former president led, along with some coconspirators. As you pointed out, we have four counts that are listed here in this indictmen

© 2025 Vimarsana

comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.