Transcripts For CNNW The 20240704

The first one is Conspiracy To Defraud the United States. Second is the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. And then the conspiracy against rights. Thats, of course, the Voting Rights of u. S. Citizens around the country. Now, ill read you just a part where the Special Counsel describes what theormer president is accused of dog here. It says that the defendant spread lies, that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false. And the defendant knew that they were false. But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate. According to the prosecutors, wolf, the former president disregarded the advice of all of his appointed officials, people inside his own government, his experts, people from the Justice Department, people from the intelligence community, people from the Homeland Security department, all of whom were telling him that there was no such fraud. But, yet, he pursued it, again, according to prosecutors, because he wanted to remain in power. Essentially overturning the election results, over turning the government of the United States, wolf. These are major criminal, criminal charges, potentially carrying many, many years, potentially, of prison time as w well. Erin . Yes. The word that appears again and again and again is knowingly. And, of course, were waiting to hear from jack smith, the Special Counsel, any moment here will be approaching that podium. Kaitlyn is there outside the d. C. Federal courthouse. You have been breaking so much of this every step of the way. The indictment here again, these 45 pages up front, we see mention of six coconspirators. What more could you tell us about who these individuals are . Erin, these coconspirators are not named in this indictment, but some of these identities are already quite clear to us based on what we know happened after the 2020 election. People like Rudy Giuliani are clearly one of the coconspirators, Jeffrey Clark at the Justice Department. But these three people are people that are helping donald trump spread disinformation or helping him get the idea of disinformation and then helping him use the leverage that he has as the president and leverage the power they have as officials, as lawyers, to work with either Election Officials in states or to try to pressure mike pence or even to harness the Justice Department itself in a way that was not what Donald Trumps campaign wanted to do and could Carry Forward his will to spread disinformation and overturn the result of the election. So these coconspirators, they are central to the conspiracy count that the government is filing here, and they are listed at the very top in the explanation of the manner and means of these allegations. The manner and means of how this conspiracy happened, that donald trump is now criminally charged with. They are not charged i should be very explicit there. These people are not charged, but they are central to the allegations that donald trump faces at this time. And, erin, just one more point of something we just learned through the federal criminal record, right now there is a judge now assigned to this case. That judge is federal judge tania tutkins. She is a fitting judge on this District Court in washington, d. C. She is an obama appointee, and she is one of the toughest sentencer among all of the judges here who all have handled january 6th capitol rioter cases. She regularly sentences those defendants to prison, and she also is a judge that has previously rebuked some of the things donald trump has tried to do, specifically she was the judge that said that donald trump would have to have his records in the National Archives be turned over to house investigators, a really crucial moment in that House Investigation previously. And, so, donald trump now has a judge assigned to his case and potentially any other cases that could emanate from this case, if there are addition people charged. She has some experience with january 6th rioters and could be quite a harsh judge for Donald Trumps lawyers to make their case to as this case moves forward to a trial. All right. Crucial information, of course. More than a thousand people have been charged in january 6th. Hundreds of them sentenced to prison. And now, wolf, were looking at the person who the doj says led the conspiracy and hes now been charged, the former president. In this 45page indictment, the United States of america versus donald j. Trump, defendant, i want to bring in our legal and political experts for analysis right now and laura coats. The four indicted criminal indictments, the charges, the four counts, Conspiracy To Defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction to an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. I assume the rights means the rights of the American People to grow. To not have their votes nullified but suggest that they in turn do their job, would actually mean something. You hear the words conspiracy. Take a look at the ethic complaint, everyone, and see how many times lawyers are involved in this as well. Im pointing my attention on the word knowing and what the president knew. There is a lot of questions about how will they be able to get into the mind of donald trump to suggest they, in fact, were aware of what they knew and what they did not know to be the facts and they go through great pains to talk about. And only the people who were best positioned to know the facts, that he had often relied on these people for candid advice and ignored it. In this instance, just to name a few, the secretary of the state of georgia, the defendants acting Attorney General, the acting Attorney General, the Attorney General, the acting deputy, talking about the campaign manager, a secretary of state, more than one, the speaker of the house, other people, the Majority Leader of the senate, all these people who were in a position to know and negate these facts. How do you prove this in a court of law . How do you convince a jury that, listen, hes not going to necessarily state all these things in open court, for example, in testifying. But how do you have the clues . I remind people, back on january 6th, they talked about an ongoing threat. They talked about an ongoing threat. Many of the things that are actually outlined in this, in this very significant criminal indictment he continues to do. He continues to talk about that he believes hes won the election, in spite of the breadth of evidence thats available to him and from people who would be, again, in the position to know the truth. Well, and it was it was over and over and over and over again. And the big question i think which evan perez raised at the beginning was this notion that we have all been asking. Did he know, did he really know in his head that he had lost the election. And the answer is, according to this, of course he knew. Because it was told to him over and over and over again. And i just went back and looked at a conversation on December 27th that the former president had with two of his top Justice Department officials. And what the president said to them, and this is acting Attorney General rosen, who is one of them, the former president said, just say the election was corrupt. And leave the rest to me and the republican congressman. So what donald trump was saying was, just tell them what im telling you to say. And leave the lying and the rest of it up to me and my colleagues in congress and we will do the rest. And, of course, the response was, no, we are not we are not going to do that. And he, in the notes, the notes said he wanted us to say that it was corrupt, and we told him no. It specifically says, you suggested it, it says the defendant, referring to trump, spread lies that he had actually won the election. And then it says, these claims were false and the defendant knew they were false. The words knew they were false are significant. They are so significant. Just take a step back of what were talking about here. Were talking about the otherwise peaceful transition of power that is the hallmark of our democracy. But instead of accepting defeat, which you are supposed to do in a democracy thats fair and free, and there was proof that it was fair and free, instead there is a concocted scheme as alleged here to try to deprive what is the essence of democracy. It is not just in the voting. It is not counting of democracy. So when you go through and think about the core of what is at stake, it is why civil rights law has now been implicated, this idea of the conspiracy against rights and what was taking place. The fact there are cocon spore tors, though, that are not been charged, i have to tell you my ears are perking up and im wondering, hold on a second. Am i hoping to convert you to somebody who may be a cooperator. If i have this out here and i say, i just want you to know i mean business, heres what im prepared to do even against somebody who is the foreign president of the United States, the attorneys, i mention mention john eastman who is not mentioned in this complaint, he pled the fifth, did not want to testify in front of anything with jack smith or, of course, with january 6th. But, instead, when it came to his bar license, how he makes his money, he spoke a great deal about these issues. No one is named so no one is named, and that gives me pause. That gives you pause because you think they may be pressured in flipping and perhaps cooperating because they could not be indicted. But it doesnt say unindicted coconspirators. Momentarily we will hear from the Special Counsel jack smythe. We will, of course have live coverage. How consequential are these four additional criminal charges . Well, wolf, they are the same charges that we have been talking about. We know them from analysis. I wrote about them in a model prosecution memo. They were in the target letter. And theyre significant because they tell the story. The thing that jumps out in this indictment, jack smith is one of the most experienced prosecutors that we have. Hes telling even though its long, hes breaking it down and making it simple. We will talk about the judge hes got. Shes a tough judge. She moves cases fast. First, first pressured the states, the state officials. When that didnt work, he got fake electors. Then he turned to his own Justice Department. In desperation, then to the Vice President. Then he fanned the flames of the violence. Thats a simple story. You can tell it in one sense. And then these encapsulate that story because you are not allowed to take the truth of Joe Biden Winning and have these schemes to say, no, i won. It is an attempt to obstruct a proceeding in congress because they squeezed pence not to do the right thing and then the violence and then finally it is a conspiracy against civil rights. Thats the quicker. Why . 81 million biden voters whose rights would have been deprived. You can describe the whole case in one paragraph. That is a master stroke. I think were going to see this case move quickly and powerfully against donald trump. Very strong statement, indeed. You know, we are about to hear from jack smith, the Special Counsel. He doesnt speak often in public, but hes obviously very, very determined, and this 45page indictment makes that clear. I dont think his in public statements he will go anywhere outside the bounds of the indictment itself. Hes walking up right now. Lets listen in and we will have analysis as soon as hes done. Here he is, the Special Counsel, jack smith. Good evening. Today an indictment was Undseald Charging donald j. Trump with conspireing to defraud the United States, conspireing to disenfranchise voters and conspireing and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the district of columbia and sets forth the crimes in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. It is described in the indictment. It was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a Bedrock Function of the u. S. Government, the nations process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. The men and women of Law Enforcement who defended the u. S. Capitol on january 6th are heroes. They are patriots, and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principals that define the United States. Since the attack on our capitol, the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case has brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, i must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until Proven Guilty Beyond A Reasonable Doubt in a court of law. I would like to thank the members of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the many Career Prosecutors and Law Enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6th investigations. These women and men are Public Servants of the very highest order, and it is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you. Why didnt you charge any of the other folks. A short but very powerful statement from the Special Counsel, jack smith. Evan perez, you have been covering the story from the beginning. Let me get your analysis of what you just heard. Wolf, we expected that the Special Counsel was going to be a man of very few words. Thats, of course, what you heard there. One of the things that he did there is he connected what the former president was doing, what he perpetrated by spreading lies about alleged fraud when he knew, according to prosecutors, when he knew that there was no evidence to support his claims of fraud. What he has done in this indictment is tied the violence, as we saw, on january 6th, of course the very vivid pictures that we have seen of Police Officers defending the capitol, defending the lives of members of congress as they were trying to fulfill their ceremonial function of certifying the vote, tieing all of those acts there on january 6th with the former president s overall scheme to try to remain in power. They describe in this indictment, wolf, that during the time of the violence the former president was still trying to press members of congress to essentially try to somehow put off the vote, trying to make sure that even if Vice President pence was not agreeing to his scheme that members of congress, perhaps, could find a way to buy him more time and, again, find a way to buy him more power. Thats what you see in this 45page document that you heard there from the Special Counsel trying to make sure people understood that this was not just about politics. It is not about they acknowledge that the former president had the right to challenge the vote. He has a right to lie about fraud and everything. What he does not have a right to do, according to prosecutors, is to do is to carry out these three conspiracies as a way to try to remain in power. Thats what they say those are the crimes that the former president committed here. Yeah, very specific crimes and defailed information. We heard jack smith say this was an unprecedented assault on the u. S. Capitol on january 6th. It was fueled by lies, including lies by the defendant, referring to the former president of the United States. I think it is so critical, if you want to look at only one paragraph in this indictment, it is the first one. It says donald trump was the president of the United States. The defendant lost the 2020 president ial election. Heart of the indictment, heart of the issue to the American People, makes no bones about it. He lost, and these are the things he tried to do to cheat after losing. And thats really the heart of the whole issue here. And smith, obviously, not saying a whole lot of details, but the indictment speaks for itself. It is a very sweeping indictment in terms of how it marshalls all the facts. The earlier prosecution model has been followed to a tee. That memorandum, it takes care of the Justice Department efforts, trying to corrupt the Justice Department, how trump tried to Corrupt The State elections and how trump tried to capitolize on the violence in the capitol including the threats against pence. Notably, it doesnt make a lot of hay with his remarks at the capitol. The march on the capitol, it avoids that and centers, as evan was pointing out, on his attempts to overturn the legal results of the election. And it does tell the story, you know, as norm was saying in sort of very simple ways because he tried everything, tried to get his Justice Department, you know, to change its mind and tried to get someone else installed to run the Justice Department as a result of that. And then there is a paragraph here which says that then the Plan Capitolized on ideas presented in the memorandum, which evolved over time from a legal strategy to preserve the defendants rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping bidens electors votes from being counted. So it started out as one kind of plan where hes making phone calls, calling Brad Raffensperger saying you have the votes hidden somewhere. You have to do this. When that failed, the lastditch attempt, as he points out here, was to create this fake elector theory, which, of course, was fake and goes through it and goes the desperation, i think, of what was going on in his mind. Jake smith basically said the defendant was criminally responsible for what happened on january 6th. Very strong words indeed. Do you want to react . I want to say i dont think we should ignore when the indictment came down, the first source i got was the investigation is not over. The Special Counsel made that very clear. Again, there is a level of detail in this. When you go to page 7, it outlines all the people who told trump that he had lost the election. There are eight listed here from the Vice President to the Attorney General and the director of national intelligence, the department of Homeland Security. It just speaks to what we were told about this indictment, which was it was going to underscore over and over. There is one thing on page 33. It mentioned here, it is talking about mike pence, and it says the former Vice President on december 29th, as reflected in the Vice President s contemporaneous notes, the defendant, donald trump, told the Vice President that the Justice Department was finding major infractions. So the details of that are interesting. But all of a sudden, i dont think we have known before that pence had contemporaneous notes. So what else . We knew that pence was upset that the president had lied about what he had said. We knew that. But the notes, i agree with you, the fact that he had taken notes or dictated notes is something im sure that jack smith found very useful. Yeah. And, erin, jack smith basically said very, very very, very bluntly, our investigation continues. So they are continuing this investigation. We will be getting more information presumably relatively soon. Absolutely. Of course, we have 45 pages and you all are talking it lays out a story, and it sure does. How is the reaction inside the trump world right now . You are looking at this 45page indictment. You are looking at unindicted as of now coconspirators listed in here, very clear who they are. Kristin holmes is standing by near trumps new jersey home. What, if anything, now are you hearing from the trump team as theyre doing what were doing, reading through this trying to figure out up from down right now, i would imagine. Yeah. But you have to keep this in mind, erin, that even if there are some surprises in that indictment, they are going to stay on message. They have been planning for what their messaging is going to be around this for weeks, really spins trump got that target letter. So thats not going to change. Even if there is something revealing, even if there is a surprise, they are going to continue to hammer this is Election Interference. This week i spoke to a number of political advisers, but also a number of allies who felt so much more confident in that argument, particularly after that New York Times poll this week that showed trump leading by such a big margin. It looked like one thought in the poll particularly where it shows head to head combat with ron desantis. They believe this indicates that trump is likely to be the front runner. And because of that, they believe they have an argument that this is Election Interference. Now, of course, given what he is being charged with here, that is incredibly ironic, but they do believe this messaging is designating with voters and even allies who are somewhat hesitant about all of these legal issues do believe they are seeing voters resonate with some of them. It was very clear how prepared trumps team was for this message because almost immediately after this indictment came out, we started hearing from trump sources on the hill, from his allies, from senators, congressman, all things we should defund the fbi, the Special Counsel, all saying this was election interfeeshs. You can see that these republicans are still continuing to rally around him, even in his third indictment here, erin. Which is true. I want to point out by what you are saying, theyre telling you all that, that this is interference without having read it. Just put that out there for everyone to understand, right . They dont care what it said. The whole point is theyre going to say it anyway. Take us to thursday because we now understand thats when the former president will appear before the judge who was overhearing this that kaitlyn was telling us about judge tania chutkin. What is the thinking in his camp about that appearance, especially now that we know who will the judge will be . Right now all the options are on the table. There had been conversations about whether or not this was going to be a zoom or whether or not trump was going to show up. This is all about trump laying this out in the court of public opinion, no matter who the judge. He likes the image and his team likes the image of going to the department of justice, going to the courthouse and getting arraigned, as we have seen time and time again. But it is still being discussed as to how exactly this is going to work. But, again, they have made this a media spectacle. They have put cameras at every place trump has been, whether it is in maralago, new york, florida, they want to create their own narrative around this. And, again, they believe looking at those poll numbers that it is working. When i talk to voters, there are still a lot of republicans who strongly support the former president , despite, again, this third indictment now and all of these mounting legal issues. All right. Thank you very much, kristin. Joining me now ryan goodman, of course former Special Counsel of the Justice Department, elliot williams, longtime conservative attorney George Conway and scott jennings, the former Senior Adviser to mitch mcconnell. All right. George, lets start with you. Here we are. And we, like everyone, scrambling to read through this. You have been furiously taking notes, noting down your list of coconspirators. I just quickly went through. Finally we got a version of this we could search. Knowing or knowingly appears 37 times. They made clear he was told that the allegations he made were false. And then, after being told that, he went out and continued to lie. And thats what i mean, we have all been talking about these various statutes for over a year. Right. They were mentioned by the January 6th Committee and in the litigation about eastmans papers in california, section 371, which is count one, which is Conspiracy To Defraud the United States, and fraud is about lying, detecting to deceive. One of the things here is they summarized basically everything we have heard over the last two or three years about all the people who told him, political consultants, members of the senior officials in the Justice Department, National Security officials, that he lost and there was no basis for that. Now we even have for the first time mike pences notes in here where mike pence was saying, where is the evidence for this . What is the theory that you have . And, you know, thats why pence was hesitant, and thats why The Next Day Trump lied anyway. So he just any time anyone told him the truth, he just went out the next morning and lied. And thats what we saw during the january 6th series, and thats what we saw now. We see it laid out in excruciating detail, i would say, ryan. They go through six false claims, right . They say there were 205 more votes than voters in pennsylvania. 10,000 dead voters in michigan. Tens of thousands of fraudulent votes in nevada. Illegal immigrants voting in arizona. Each of those. And devote pages to how many times he was told it was untrue and then he subsequently went out and lied about it. One time, page 30, one time they show trump admitting it. And on page 30, he has a meeting, the defendant, january 3rd. So at this point, this is well after he lost the election with the chairman of the joint staff, other National Security advisers. They talk about annish you, and they say it is too late to do anything about it. And the defendant stated, yeah, youre right. It is too late for us. We will give that to the next guy. Immediately thereafter, he goes out and puts out the lies. Right there he admits, we lost. Thats joe bidens issue. Yes. Im at page 30 as well. I picked it, too. Also on page 30 now im exceedingly proud, by the way. I picked something you picked. So not only has he been told and he acknowledges that hes lost, but also on page 30, his Deputy Counsel is saying to him this is amazing because he havent heard this before there is no world, there is no option in which you do not need the white house on january 20th. I assume he means there is no legal option. He knows hes lost and his Deputy White House counsel tells him there is no legal option for you to remain here as president after january 20th. And you have all these alleged criminal schemes. So, elliot, let me get back to something george said, which is simple and yet i feel profound, george. We have been talking about this for a year. We have. There are contemporaneous notes. There are things in here we didnt know. But the basis thing, Tens Of Thousands of dead voters in georgia. We knew he was told again and again it was false and he kept saying it. We know these things, so when he goes out with this political Talking Point saying this is Election Interference in 2024, why is this happening now . Why did this not happen months ago . I dont know why it didnt happen months ago. But to be clear, as a prosecutor, it takes a long time to work cases up. And i think we get lost and wrapped up in this notion that things need to happen on the 24hour cycle. It can take years to bring a federal investigation, particularly one involving a lot of Sensitive Information and witnesses and so on. So im not shocked of a sprawling national investigation. We know how many times the word knowingly appears in here. I dont know how many different states were mentioned in here, but there is nevada and georgia. All right. I want to interrupt you for a moment. Merrick garland, the Attorney General, is speaking. Lets listen. For smith and his team, experienced principaled Career Agents and prosecutors have followed the facts and the law wherever they lead. Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by the filings made in the courtroom. Indicting a former president of the country. Obviously, surrounded by a w swarm there, george, of people asking questions. This is significant because he had to make the decision. Merrick garland had to say okay. Yeah. And i think they went into im guessing here, speculating. I think they went into office, the biden administration, people in the Justice Department not wanting to do this, not wanting to go here hoping that this would just go away and not feel the pressure to do this. Right. But liz cheney and chairman thompson and the January 6th Committee laid 90 of this out. Right. And pushed the legal theories that are actually fairly obvious. You know, if you defraud the government and steal 1 billion from the treasury, you go to jail. Thats a really important point to make, and it is the use of the word defraud and what exactly were talking about here. You can talk about lying or making election claims, and thats all protected. But the crime of conspiracy lying to government officials. To impede a government proceeding. To get something and actually using deceit, fraud, trickery or chick cainry used in the Supreme Court for defrauding the United States. So i think there is this rush on the part of the president and his supporters to say, well, this is just about lying and the free spech that any candidate would engage in. But you have to hit a far higher burden than that. Scott, page 2, the defendant has a right, had a right, im sorry, like every american to speak publicly about the election, even to claim falsely that there had been out i dont mean determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. Right there at the beginning they acknowledged the free speech. The issue is you went ahead with the conspiracy. But this point of he could say what he wants to say, they give him that. Yeah. But then they also go on to say he puts all these other wheels in motion. Thats right. So theyre saying this is about free speech. This is about what he then did. If he just lied on television, thats one thing. We have indicted politicians for lying on tv. Thats right. But all the wheels put in motion, this is a wellknown story. We all watched it play out on tv and our twitter feeds. We all watched the congressional hearings. There is a new nuggets in here, i think. But it is a wellknown story. The only questions to me are do you believe the story . And obviously a lot of republicans dont. I saw statements from ron desantis. Desantis says hes going to end the weaponization of government. Swami calls the fbi the corrupt federal police. And, so, obviously they believe that republicans are simply not going to believe it no matter how detailed or what he saw. Ebut, to me, this is a people have already decided whether they think trump was responsible for this. They didnt need to see charges. But to me it is a stress test for institutions because if you believe in juries and you believe in the criminal Justice System as it is in this country, i think the American People and i dont you guys tell me. I think the American People need to see the outcome of this before they vote in the next election. How can it not be a fundamental piece of knowledge for an american voter. Yeah. More than the documents case. It is a crucial point, but is there any point to his point, is there any chance that happens . I think it is unlikely because it takes a long time for things to go to trial. For instance, in here, in getting to this point required piercing attorneyclient privilege with respect to the president s attorneys, thats the kind of issue the president and his attorneys can appeal to slow the case down. To your point, and this is an important one, should the American People have a right. As a voter, sure, i think thats absolutely true. Thats not the job of the legal system. But to be manipulating its deadlines to accommodate what voters want and need. So we have this unprecedented thing that happened. We have a guy who at least a 50 50 bet to be the next president of the United States. We have an entire Political Party that believes the Justice Department and all these people are conspireing to keep him out of the white house, and we have these indictments, which are, you know, in the pantheon of political strategy something you dont want to have in your Political Campaign and we dont want to see the result of it. You have to forgive the average republican for saying, how can we have indictments but we cant see the result of this. All of this could have been avoided back in 2021, which is when the president was impeached for a lot of the conduct that appears in this indictment. The senate, and im not going to senate republicans, the United States senate as a body chose not to remove President Trump from office and chose not to bar him from running for office in the future. All these questions about the American People and voters deciding could have been resolved. They taunted it through the criminal Justice System. That was the effect of the speech. Right. It is exactly what he said. So let me ask you, ryan. This issue of the coconspirators. It is very clear when you read this who they are, at least who five of them are. Theyre mentioned in here. Theyre very clear. Theyve got everything on them, but they dont indict them. Can you talk to me what the strategy of that is, and does that strategy have implications for how quickly this could move through the judicial system if possibly those People Choose to cooperate instead of getting charged. I think there are features that does agree with the premise. And one of those is its streamlined. You have one defendant. You could have multiple. Second, some of them indeed have flipped. Or they will cooperate after they see themselves and they see on tv the reaction to this and how much this is a strong case against them. So in the d. C. Court of appeals, they have already decided, essentially, that attorneyclient privilege isnt going to work and Executive Privilege isnt going to work. Thats not going to slow it down. If anything, thats stronger. Beforehand, it was just an investigation. But you had said this this could go much more quickly than, for example, the maralago case, which is still scheduled to go may 24th. Although, we dont know if that will change. Because, for example, you dont have classified Review Approvals that need to happen in this case, it could move much more quickly. What is much more quickly theoretically . This could easily happen in the winter spring of next year. Winter being january 2024. And alvin brag has recently signalled he would be potentially willing to move his March Trial Start date. Why would he start that . Hes also thinking maybe they want the space in this particular time to bring this case. So do you think that could, to scotts point that you may get an answer . Its quite possible. I think there is an imperative to do that. Its part of the considerations, i think, in the Justice Department for whether to indict someone in public life, a politician, is whether theyre running for office again. It is one of the deals that you can make, you know, with a politician who is a corrupt politician, who is indicted, is not running for office, not Holding Office again. They can agree to do that as part of the plea bargain. I think thats an important function. The Prosecutorial Function is to keep bad people who commit crimes and lie to the public and use the mechanisms of government to commit fraud, to keep those people out of government. Thats a legitimate Public Interest. And i think there is a legitimate Public Interest to have the voters know by november. There has always been another door on the impeachment. It was, well, hes out of office, so well get the criminal Justice System handle it. Well, hes innocent until Proven Guilty. You cannot have resolution on this thing until you have a verdict. This thing, whats the this thing . These indictments for trying to overthrow the government. There will be a cohort of republicans who will vote for him until he is a convicted fe felon. They will always find a way back. But im just saying, this one more than every other case, how could you not have resolution . And if there isnt resolution, how could you not consider it to be political if you were an average republican . All right. Well, obviously, as you say, george, wolf, a lot of this had been, almost all of this laid out, of course, including the recommended charges right by the January 6th Committee that did pain staking research and made it basically impossible maybe to not get to the day that were at right now. Good point. I want to get some reaction right now from a democrat congresswoman who sits on the house judiciary committee. She is also a former member of the january 6th select committee. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us. After all your work investigating the january 6th attack on the u. S. Capitol, how powerful is it now to see the Special Counsel, jack smith, unveil this new indictment, criminal indictment, of the former president of the United States . Well, wolf, i just had a chance to skim the indictment. I want to read it in detail. But it sure looks like the facts that were cited follow what the January 6th Committee was able to unveil to the public. As you know, we thought those actions were criminal in nature, and, apparently, upon our referral, the department of justice did as well. Attempting to overthrow the government is pretty serious stuff. And its worth noting that, you know, it is a continuing threat. I mean, in december on true social, mr. Trump announced he intended to terminate the constitution if he was reelected. So this misconduct, this criminal behavior, needs to be addressed by a jury. We, as a committee, felt that we had evidence warranting prosecution. And, you know, i dont feel joyful today. This is a sad day that an expresident would have committed such terrible things that the department of justice had to bring an indictment. On the other hand, the good news is were a country of laws, and no one is above the law. It is not just the foot soldiers being held to account, but the people who made the plot to overturn the constitution and the election. Yeah. So congresswoman, when you look at the four new charges, criminal charges trump faces in is new indictment, how does that line up, bott line, with your committee, the select committees recommended charges . Well, other than the indictment that we sent over, it tracks closely. It is the facts that are almost identical to what the committee found. We tried to match the facts to the law if the Special Counsel sees criminal statutes he feels that are even a more pertinent find. But most of them, the obstruction, the conspiracy to obstruct, the false statements, it is pretty much the same. The criminal indictment released as President Trump made claims that they were false and he, quote, knew they were false. How significant is that. Well, i think it was pretty obvious they were false. He was told repeatedly they were false in great detail by his staff. He did reveal to general milly, for one, that we knew he had lost. Obviously he knew that hed lost the election. He tried to keep hold of the power to overturn the election an anyhow. Thats pretty serious. Very serious, indeed. The grand jury heard testimony from mike pence and mark meadows. How far does that go, potentially, to proving these charges . Well, well see. Mark meadows, i dont think hes one of the coconspirators from whats described. So i assume hes made all of his information known to the department of justice, and he knows a lot. I was struck by the Vice President s statement that trump told him, youre too honest. You know, every elected official should be honest. And to tell the Vice President youre being too hon nest is an admission in and of itself that he knew what he was doing was wrong and illegal. Before you go, congresswoman, i want to get your reaction to part of this statement that the Trump Campaign released after this criminal indictment of trump. Among other things t statement from the tmpampaign says this, the lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of nazi, germany in the 1940s, the former soviet union and other regimes. President trump has always followed the law and the constitution with advice from highly claimed attorneys. Give me your reaction when he makes a comparison of the u. S. Justice system with nazi, germany. It is obviously absurd. They must really be afraid of the evidence here. But, you know, its sad that the expresident would throw these words around when he must know it is not the case. And, in fact, nobody is doing anything to his supporters. You know, his supporters didnt incite a mob to riot. His supporters didnt solicit the electors. His supporters didnt try to overturn the election in a variety of states. It was he who did that. His supporters just believed in him and voted for him. So it is not about them. It is about his criminal conduct. Yeah, good point. Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. Erin, the fact that the Trump Campaign would make this comparison to nazi, germany is sick and disgusting. It goes to trying to grab the emotional core. Evan, as you are going through this indictment on the back of trumps comment here, i know that you wanted to point something significant out. I think it is important here to try to get everybody to what are these key new details. There is something on page 14. I believe paragraph number 28 that you found that could be notable. Thats right. I mean, look, i think we just heard from congresswoman laughgren the kind of information that he provided in, you know, talking to the Special Counsel, to the investigation. And this paragraph on page 14 really lays out about what we know, at least what the Special Counsel says apparently came from mark meadow it describes on December 23rd we ow that mark meadows went down georgia, went to look at the Cob County Vote count. And the purpose of that was to try to reassure the former president that everything was being done to find his claims, to find proof of his claims of fraud. And he com back, and he tell it is former president he notified the former president that state Election Officials were Conducting Themlves in an exemplary fashion. Thats a vote that appears to come from mark meado to the former president. Again, that they would find fraud if it existed. The defendant, according to Special Counsejack Smith says he tweeted that the georgia officials who were doing this, he says that thewere terrible people. So mark meadows comes back from being in cob county, georgia and says everything is doing what they can to find fraud and they are exemplary people. Trump takes that and still attacks the officials and calls them terrible people. It gives you an impression here, erin, it is not very obviously, they dont name mark meadows, but we know that he did testify, he did provide testimony to the investigators, and we know that he is probably one of the most important witnesses, alongside mike pence, of course. Evan, thank you very much. And important that evan highlights mark meadows, this reference to the Chief Of Staff because there had been so many questions as to whether he would be involved in this indictment, whether he is cooperating. Obviously, this doesnt answer that, but significant to find David Axlerod joins us now. Olivia troy who worked in the Trump Administration as Homeland Security adviser to Vice President mike pence. So let me just start, david, with you first on what evan was just reporting here. Looking on page 14, this reference to the Chief Of Staff, mark meadows. Obviously potentially significant. Doesnt give us a lot of insight into what role he may be playing here, but an extremely significant individual. I think this has been a matter of speculation for some time. Mark meadows had basically gone underground. No one had heard from him. There was quite a bit of speculation about what role he was playing as a cooperator with the investigation and this suggests that may be the case. Erin, i want to make another point because these charges are appalling but they shouldnt be surprising. As was said, we heard in painstaking powerful detail from witness after witness during the january 6th hearings, Committee Hearings in the last year this story unfolding much the way jack smith is telling it here and yet and yet as we sit here today, 2 3 of republicans still say that biden was illegitimately elected. They believe what jack smith called a lie today. And 86 of them said they didnt think trump should be criminally charged in relation to january 6th. The result of that is you see a cavalcade of statements from republican politicians tonight not expressing concern about the contents of the indictment but indicting the prosecutors, indicting the Justice Department, essentially amplifying trumps story. So he has grave potential, political, legal challenges here, but his no one should assume that this is going to knock him from his perch. Yes. Clearly he is a master at dominating the narrative and hell do it right now. Hell do everything he can that 100 million of this pac went to his legal fees. Well see how much he raises on the back of this as he has successfully on the back of other indictments. Olivia, can i ask you about the new details that we see in here about the former Vice President mike pence because you advised him and you know him well. It says in here that he was keeping contemporaneous notes and then in that context as it lays it out, it becomes clear that some of the things mike pence is saying are happening is from those notes. Is this something you knew him to do and in a level of painstaking detail . Yes, actually. You know, its interesting that you point that out because actually that line really stood out to me. I was having this vision of mike pence sitting there with a black sharpy and his note card writing down the conversation that was happening. Again, this is happening when hes doing that and it talks about the notes, this is after he had already been repeatedly sort of bullied by trump and sort of cornered by all of these individuals being told that you will do this, you have the power to overturn this election. You can drk you know, fake electors, let them in, certify all of this. Well lean on the j us Tis Department i read in there. Maybe they can do something. Each time mike pence has the same response of like, no, i cannot do this, and he counters it. I think the other thing that stood out was christmas day, so typical of my former boss calling the president up and saying, merry christmas, mr. President , and trump of course responds with, lets talk about the election, right . I think that was just so telling because thats just so typical of the dynamic there between the two of them. As a Homeland Security person who watched the chaos around the country and the threats, i just wanted to follow up on davids point because when i think about this indictment today and i think about a big step towards accountability with what happened here these past couple of years that the country has lived through, i think about the Election Workers that have faced the threats because of this lie, a lie that is now being very clearly laid out in the judicial process, in the indictment about what really happened here and how donald trump knew what he was doing. So i think about those people and the threats that have happened and that ongoing dynamic that exists in our country today. All right. Thank you both very much. Wolf . Thanks, erin. I want to get to jamie gangel who has a new statement from judge michael ludig. Obviously he was a critical witness and be he was also the person who put out there very impressively on twitter that mike pence could not stop the vote and he has said, im just going to read part of it, this is an historic, tragic, and regrettable day for america. The former president now stands indicted and will be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 president ial election and for the attack on the United States capitol on january 6th. These are as grave of offenses against the United States as a president could commit save possibly treason. The former president is neither a victim nor a martyr today. America is Donald Trumps victim and donald trump has martyred america for his own selfish, personal ambitions. In a word donald trump has put his own self above his country. These are all felonies. Ive been communicating with donald trump and thinks what may be happening here and you attorneys know much more about this than i do, but he thinks that some of the people who may be indicted as future Co Defendants because trump can no longer say, im blaming my lawyers for this because this lays out chapter and verse that he acted knowingly that this election was not his to win. He did not win it. And this attorney thinks that none of these cocon spiritors are going to escape. Jack smith says the investigation is continuing. We shall see. Lets discuss and get more reaction now from New Hampshires republican governor chris sununu. Thank you so much for rejoining us. I want to get some reaction to this truly historic and solemn moment in u. S. History. The former president of the United States, trump, now officially criminally charged for his efforts to try to overturn the 2020 president ial election. Well, for most of us obviously its a shock, right . I mean, i think a lot of us knew that this indictment was probably coming, but when you look at the grand scheme of what it means to have a former president of these serious charges, its beyond unprecedented. On the political side it reaffirms theres no way this guy can win in november of 24. The first thing, out campaigning with various candidates. Theres no independent out there going, i might go with trump. Ive changed my mind. No. Not going to happen. Never going to happen. And the trump supporters, if you will, that have kind of been drinking the koolaid lately, the best part about this is the fact trump knew he didnt win. He didnt buy any of what he was spinning out publicly. He was lying to his supporters. He knows he didnt win. Thats going to be laid out. Again, its just shocking to know that weve come this far. Its even more shocking to know this probably isnt the last indictment. This one is extremely severe. I honestly think trump is more nervous about this one, i know he is. Weve already talked to people on his team today, hes more nervous about this one than any of the others because so many other folks involved. Not just mark meadows. So many other folks involved in that conversation and many of those folks are no longer part of his inner circle. He no longer controls that narrative with these people. Hes scared. I think the discussion of when it comes to bear, when the trial actually comes, but he knows this one could really stick. Yeah. These criminal charges raise very serious questions, governor, about trumps fitness to err is of again and yet yet hes leading your partys 2024 field with 54 of the vote according to the most recent polls. How do you explain that . Well, the National Polls, youve got to not look at the National Polls. The National Polls are based on the national message. The Mainstream Media talks about biden, they talk about trump. That drives the message. When you look at the polls in iowa and New Hampshire, its different. In New Hampshire under 42 , in iowa, under 42 . Thats where the narrative is happening. Thats where the candidates are laying their groundwork and having a lot of success. Considering thats happening and we havent had a debate yet, hes going to be in real trouble as this progresses along. I think as was brought up, hes raised a lot of money off the first couple of dooindictments i think its trickling down. The well is going to be dry. The fact that hes bill being his own supporters. Hes only a billionaire. You cant expect more than that to ask everyone to pay your own way. No, i think it really is wearing thin here in New Hampshire and iowa. I think the more and more folks look at where those discussions are hemmiappening, i think ther hope there. Trump is not the nominee of this party. Governor sununu, thanks very much for joining us. You bet. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. And good evening and welcome to a Special Edition of out front. Im erin burnett and wolf blitzer. The third historic criminal