Transcripts For CNNW The 20240704

Yes, you too. All right, you guys, make way. So, elie honig, she is now bringing that document, which the judge has now looked at, to the clerk. Correct, anderson. And what we just saw was the judge reviewing that indictment. And to be clear, that is not a substantive review. That indictment appeared to be quite long. The judge does not read through it and have to sign off on it. Thats The Grand Jurys province. Thats already happened. The judge is just making sure that there is no procedural irregularities. Thats why you heard that quick questioning, did Everything Go as expected in the jury room. The individual said no problems. Its being sent to the Clerks Office where the next step is it will be docketed. It will become part of the official record. It will be available to all of us in the public and the media, assuming that its not under seal. All indications are that its not going to be under seal. If thats the case, we will have access to that document momentarily. And michael moore, this is how it always occurs in courts in georgia at this level . Yeah. That was a pretty standard return of an indictment in court. I mean, frankly, you usually see this about 4 00 in the afternoon and the prosecutor comes in and theres a stack of indictments and they range from carjackings to drug cases to sometimes child support. You never know what may be in there. And there is a stack returned to the court. In this case, the grand jurors had a targeted session, and they obviously considered the allegations. Well see how many defendants they indicted. By all accounts, were expecting a dozen or so, which now sets the stage for the battle. So, this is the beginning of the race from the prosecutors standpoint. Getting the indictment is fairly simple. You know that from seeing this grand jury meet today. So, now well be off and see a flurry of pretrial motions. After we see the former president or whoever is charged to come in and appear before the court. There will be a question of and how that works. And by all accounts there will be no real issue with that. It will just be a formality. And its off to the races for everybody from the prosecutor to the Defense Attorneys. And michael, in terms of The Grand Jury, how long has this particular grand jury i mean, fani willis has been doing this investigation for more than two years. How long has this grand jury been focused on it . And at what stage does she present the charges that she wants to The Grand Jury . Yeah. There have been a couple of grand juries meeting in the recent weeks. So, i dont know how long this particular one has actually had their hands on the indictment and been presented with the evidence. You can receive evidence from other grand juries. The former grand jury, the special purpose grand jury, which met for about eight months, remember, did not have the power to return the indictment. That grand jury just simply had the power to investigate, to issue subpoenas, to look at the evidence, to have, you know, the witnesses come before them. A grand jury in georgia, a regular criminal grand jury, does not have investigative power. Typically that grand jury has to be confronted and presented what we call laying the indictment on the table. And that is that the prosecutor comes in and says we intend to seek an indictment for charges a through z. And we want to present evidence about that. And then there will be an introduction of some prosecution witness. It can be done by summary witnesses. Sometimes done by investigators, some Law Enforcement official who comes in. The grand jury has a chance to ask questions about the indictment but is not investigating. So, the return of the decision by a grand jury to, you know, criminal process to give an indictment can be fairly quick. And i think here you can tell we had eight months of investigation and really a relatively short time of consideration for returning the indictment. And elie, do you have a sense of from now that its heading to the clerk, what is the process for it being released . So, the clerk really at this point just has to add it to the docket. Theyll open up a new docket entry, which is all online now. Itll be titled State Of Georgia Versus whoever the defendants are. And then presumably the indictment will be docketed. There wont be typically some sort of formal announcement by a clerk. Now, the d. A. , fani willis, may choose to come down and make an announcement at any moment. In fact, prosecutors tend to do things that way. As soon as the document hits the docket and becomes public, the d. A. Will want to come down to make a basic statement to inform us of whats in there. Theres not going to be a judge taking the bench again in the ordinary course to say that this indictment has come back. So, it does look like the documents that were reviewed quickly and properly by the judge and sent back to the clerk have been walked back into the clerks area. And that does look like the Clerks Office that were seeing right now. Now, its just a question of really the sort of formality of docketing it and making this document official and available to the public. And Kaitlan Collins, this is something the team around the former president has been expecting certainly on this night. Yeah. He has two different attorneys, and those people would probably recognize representing him specifically in georgia. There are so many different indictments that he has a different legal team for each of them. And were waiting to see what theyre hearing themselves. Were watching this process happen, as the paperwork is being delivered to the judge, those findings there. We dont have confirmation it was the indictment. We believe it was. But trumps team is waiting, just as we are. They kind of have an expectation of what to do once he is informed that he is indicted, if that is what happens here. And they certainly believe that he is going to be one of those names potentially indicted. But his legal team has obviously just been watching this as closely as anyone else has, as we are, to see when this actually happens, when they are notified of it. I will say one thing that i do believe is going to be different here, beyond the fact that we were able to watch that moment there which in and of itself we have not seen with the indictments. We do believe theres an expectation we would likely hear from the District Attorney here. Thats the same District Attorney that trump has been attacking and what i have heard from seeing these other indictments happen, where trump has been the first person to come out and present his side of it. It seems like that time span is t getting shorter and shorter with each indictment. And instead we are hearing from the prosecutors earlier on. We certainly did with jack smith in the last indictment. There is certainly potential we would hear something from fani willis here. Someone who, i should note, in recent days had to email her staff and say, ignore the attacks, focus on the work, keep your head down because there have been these persistent and repeated attacks from trump. As for his team itself and how theyre preparing for this, i mean this isnt their first indictment. And they were expecting this. So, they do have surrogates and allies ready to go. But i do think it is notable that his legal troubles are certainly piling up. Im told its something that is very clear when youre around trump and his inner circle. You know hes been out in public recently at iowa, at the liv gov tournament at his course kaitlan, im sorry to interrupt. Ive got to go to sara murray. Sara, whats happening . Reporter so, we are learning that The Grand Jury has returned multiple indictments. Were learning there were ten indictments. Again, this is based on the piperwork that has been returned that has made its way into the Clerks Office. We are still waiting for the official release of these indictments. So, were still waiting, essentially for the names who are named here. We know obviously that Fulton County District Attorney fani willis went into this intending to seek charges against former President Donald Trump and a number of his allies. We dont yet know who was named in these indictments, what the details are of these indictment. What we do know from the paperwork, that The Grand Jury returned ten indictments, guys. And do you have a sense of when we will get more details . Will those come from fani willis, if she chooses to speak tonight, as may perhaps seem likely . Or will more become clear as that document is seen online . Reporter well, i think two things need to happen. I mean, first of all, these indictments need to be processed. They need to be stamped by the clerk. Potentially in order for fani willis to speak freely about what The Grand Jury has actually returned today. And oits a little unclear how long that will take. Were past 9 00 p. M. Were well past when most of the Clerks Office staff would be here to assist them in processing that. We dont know how long its going to take for these full indictments to be made public. And its possible that we could hear remarks from fani willis on this case. She spent two and a half years investigating. This this is clearly something that they felt like they could do in one day before The Grand Jury. And they obviously got some bang for their buck today because The Grand Jury approved ten indictments. And now were sort of waiting to see what the timing is going to be like for us to actually see the meat of what is in those. Senior legal analyst elie honig, what do you make . Ten indictments. What do you read into that . Thats an important piece of news there. Any time you have a case with multiple defendants like this one, theres a key strategic decision you have to make as a prosecutor, which is are we going to indict everyone all together on one indictment, or are we going to break it up into individual indictments or smaller groups . And the fact that we are now hearing that its ten different indictments tells me theyve gone for the latter approach. One of the Strategic Benefits of stripping out your defendants into individual or separate indictments is it does enable you to get any one of those indictments to try more quickly. If you have ten people together on one indictment, thats a huge undertaking. Thats going to take quite a while to get to trial. If you have one person charged individually, thats much quicker to get to trial. So, i think theres a streamlining consideration happening here. So, ten indictments. Does that mean ten individuals or could there be multiple indictments per individual . The way i understand that is there are ten separate charging instruments, ten separate documents. You could see one person in each indictment. You could see two, three, four people in each indictment. The way i understand saras reporting, if theres ten different indictments, that means you have a minimum of ten different people. You could have one. You could have one indictment with one person, another one with three. They might have chopped it up into substantive blocks here. Could you see the same person charged in more than one of those indictments . Yes, theoretically, but that would be a confusing way to charge this. Could you just repeat that please . Im told the paperwork indicates that The Grand Jury did not vote against any of the indictments presented to it on monday. So, thats as expected, anderson. In other words, The Grand Jury will either vote yes or no on each indictment by a majority vote. Thats all thats required in The Grand Jury, 12 out of 23. And to build off that reporting, that tells us that The Grand Jury voted yes on all of the indictments that were presented to it. Sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes a grand jury will vote what we call no true bill, meaning we are not indicting. But it sounds like the reporting that you just repeated is that The Grand Jury voted yes to indict everyone who was presented to it. Were joined now by jake tapper in washington. Lets go to him. Jake . Thanks, anderson, appreciate it. So, i am here with my panel, which includes abby phillip, gloria borger, jamie gangel, laura coates, and andy mccabe. And right now, lets start with the legal analyst we have on the panel. Right now we are waiting to hear who got indicted. Is it your assumption that these are ten indictments for ten different individuals . Or are you not going to say, you dont know . Well, its not entirely clear. If it was lets play both out. If it is ten different individuals, youre going to have ten separate potential trials, which of course means youre going to have issues with the efficiency. If the underlining factual predicate for everything means it could all be tried together, youre going to have delays that otherwise would not be there. If its altogether, you have the delay of every single duck trying to get in a row and every Defense Attorney trying to figure out who is getting advantage and who is not. Whats so significant here though is the way this has happened. People have expected this for quite some time. The fact that its taken place in a day might confuse some people. What happens is a presentation of a closing argument, if you will. As the prosecutor, you go in and say, heres all the evidence i have before you. You essentially say to them, here are the potential charges id like you to consider. Youre going to line up the facts, the data, the testimony, and youre going to align it next to each individual element of a particular crime. And youre going to say to them, id like you to vote on these charges. And you do it in such a concise and methodical way as to leave no room for error that they could have a finding of probable cause. Thats all this is. It is not beyond a reasonable doubt. But it is very difficult to have the breadth of information over multi years, to have a grand jury whos been meeting for months and months if not longer to try to cope their own individual notebooks of everything. Youre going to present it to the jury and youre going to say, here is what im asking for you to do. The fact that there was not a single indictment that was voted against leads me to believe that there was substantial evidence to support the probable cause finding. It was done in a clear and compelling way. They had the proverbial horses mouth actually testify to different things. And this, of course, is not in a vacuum, is it . Georgia and the Magnifying Glass over georgia has been there for quite a long time. And a lot of it has played out in front of the press. What i would imagine, jamie gangel, is one of the main exhibits is the complete audiotape of trump calling the Secretary Of State and telling him to find, i think its 11,780 votes. I think thats the number. That is correct. Thank you. And most important, only one more than was needed. One more than needed. Thats something that we learned because somebody in raffenspergers office, presumably, gave the recording to the washington post. And we learned that almost two years ago. And every time we hear that recording, its as if its the first time again. Yeah, shocking. It is stunning. Look, to lauras point about we expected this, i think it was about a week or ten days ago that fani willis said, were ready to go. Clearly she was ready to go. We dont know all the names of the people who were indicted. But certainly donald trump and people around him think he is one of the people. In addition to that recording, i just think its worth knowing that reminding people that georgia there were donald trump and his allies put pressure on a lot of states. But nowhere the way he did in georgia. And when you look at the evidence were told the recordings, texts, emails, documents, and there are the false electors. What dont we know yet . We dont know who cooperated. Yeah. We dont know whether mark meadows or others cooperated. Lets go to the Fulton County courthouse right now if we can to check in with our reporter on the ground, sara murray. Sara, do we have any idea when were actually going to see these indictments . Reporter well, jake, were waiting to see and were told from our colleagues who are in the Clerks Office right now that, again, the clerk has confirmed that The Grand Jury returned ten indictments, would not say who was indicted. And when asked about the timeline for getting copies of this indictment said, worst Case Scenario, three hours. So, were hoping that truly is the worst Case Scenario, that were not waiting here for three hours to see the guts of what is in this indictment. And they can move a little speedily than that. I think my sense is the District Attorneys office would certainly like to move quicker than this being made public in the next three hours. But, again, it takes a little bit for them to actually be able to process this document, to stamp it. Its clear they do want to be able to make it widely public. But its not clear at this point lounge how long thats going to take. Right. Although they are working through the night, right . That was one of the things that was interesting about this evening. Normally The Grand Jury at 5 00, like the whistle at the beginning of the flintstones, they run off thats an old david reference. I apologize for the younger viewers. The idea the work day is done at 5 00 and you go home. Today they did not do that and that is unusual, right . Oh. That was absolutely unusual. Weve been at the courthouse, i cant tell you how many times, and its in a month no mans land when you get past 5 00. Not only the judge has left for the day, but the clerk and the clerk staff has left for the day. This is a clearly concerted effort to keep staff around in order to be able to do this this evening. Judge robert mcbernie, whos the Presiding Judge this week, gave reporters who spent all day in his courtroom a number of updates saying, im still sticking around. The courthouse closes at 5 00. Im still going to be here. It was clear while a number of people were leaving today that there was some staff staying behind in anticipation of The Grand Jury handing up these indictments. So, this is a very different feel and certainly a different time line from what were used to seeing out of this courthouse. Sara murray, you let us know when to come back to you. I want to go to andy mccabe, if i can, because youre somebody who is more familiar with The Grand Jury process than all of us, except laura coates, of course. What are you thinking right now . Do you think these are ten indictments of ten different people or ten indictments of one person or youre not going to guess . Its tough to make a guess. Okay. I think its i wouldnt rule out seeing some indictments with multiple folks on them. So, if, for instance, a particular activity, lets say the Fake Electors is condensed into one indictment and you have multiple Fake Electors so, it might be ten indictments the number is the crimes . You could organize them by content. You could organize them by individual. If you have three individuals who are involved in the exact same conduct, it would make sense to put them together on, for instance, one indictment. So, i dont think we can automatically assume its exactly ten people at this point. Weve been told that nearly 20 people were informed that they could face some kind of charges. So, thats 20 there. And we also know, for example, there was a meeting of these protrump republicans, 16 of them, who had this discussion about casting the fake electoral votes for him. So, thats 16 people there. So, false statements made by the former president s lawyers, of which there are many. So, again, its kind of har to give how this was organized. Its like writing a story. Which is the best way to organize the story . We know the lead, but which is the best way to make it clearer to people that there are multiple charges, perhaps multiple people, participated in. And this is with all of these indictments, the most important part for the public, which is what kind of story, to your point, do they actually tell . In georgia, as jamie was saying, this was probably the state where there was the most concerted effort at all levels of government from the governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary Of State, all the way down to Election Workers who were targeted with intimidation. It was the slimmest margin of victory also was it not . Of the Battleground States . It depends of the Battleground States, yes, it was. The reason i hesitated to even respond to that is because were talking about over 10,000 votes. Thats a lot of votes that trump was down by. And yet they still pursued this strategy of trying to basically fraudulently overturn an election in that state. But as it relates to the story in the indictment, they really do have to show what is the connection between all of these different story lines that have been playing out that we know a little bit about . And if that connection goes all the way up to the white house and former president trump, thats the crux of the matter. Thats why Georgia Matters so much. Unlike the january 6th case, which is sort of centered on the broad scope of things, this is almost like a case study of how to steal an election and luckily how they failed. But the indictment needs to show kind of what that connection is between all of these different schemes that were out there that we do know something about. And by the way, the viewing in public has seen an indictment recently about electionrelated interference. And although there is absolutely no requirement there be any coordination or even conversation between fani willis and the courts jack smith, the public has already seen one. So, there might be a temptation to think this has got to be different from that. Otherwise, why would you have a separate jurisdiction other than jack smith overseeing the investigation . Well, simple matter is, thats a federal case that jack smith has. This is a state level case. Why is that so significant . Well, state cases, one cant pardon one from the white house were he to become president. Or if they would indeed pardon him if they would become the rnc nominee, that also would not immediately apply to any of that as well. So, youve got this overarching thing. One more point politically. Georgia is significant because these werent democrats that he was trying to convince otherwise to say, i want to find one more than a democratic candidate. This is brad raffensperger. This is the general counsel as well. What was his name . Ryan jeremy, the former gc of the Secretary Of State. This was the actual republican governor as well, brian kemp, all of who rejected the actual Pressure Campaign, which is really the crux of the entirety of it. So, the argument would suggest, oh, i couldnt get a fair jury here like the one theyre talking about in d. C. , might not apply for a different reason. Jamie, one of the other things thats interesting about this is we cant ignore the political ramifications of it, which is the fact that donald trump is far and away likely to be the republican president ial candidate based on nominee based on todays facts anyway. Right. And right now is polling at 43 against joe bidens 43 in the latest New York Times poll. I asked marc short, Vice President pences Chief Of Staff earlier today, do you think the fourth indictment of donald trump is going to have an impact . And what he said is that there is a difference he ak nonled that the indictments have had a Rallying Effect to help trump in the republican primaries. But he said there is a difference between this period of this jurisprudence and the period where there is actual information presented in a court of law where donald trump is the defendant. And day after day after day, damning testimony is presented against him. That might be Wishful Thinking, but they are two different things. So, one thing that may not be Wishful Thinking and we dont know when these trials are going to happen. Donald trump has not yet been named in this one. But in addition to in georgia you couldnt pardon yourself, there are cameras in the courtroom in georgia. Thats right. Thats right. And i think that has a very different effect. Think back to the new york indictment, where we just had the still photographs of donald trump sitting there at the table. It had a different feel. We have not seen that in d. C. We didnt see it in florida. That said, the protrump Republican Base has not seemed swayed so far. Voters are going to have to make up their mind. Theyre probably not going to get conclusive verdicts in all of these cases, certainly. But in a case like this, with this scope, a statelevel case, you could be looking at a long period of time. Theyre going to have to make up their minds based on the allegations contained in this document, which is why the indictment itself is so important. Obviously the process, when it plays out from a legal perspective, is critically important. What happens to donald trump. But for the voters, they may not have the benefit of a verdict and a conclusion before they have to decide whether hes going to be the republican nominee or hes going to be potentially the next president of the United States. Right. The iowa caucus votes are getting ready for january 15th, which is certainly well the other candidates have to make up their minds too. Yeah. About how theyre going to treat this. Its not just the voters out there. By the way, i believe its up to the discretion of the judge about whether you televise. You can televise in georgia. But lets see what the Presiding Judge would want to do. But the other candidates have to kind of fish or cut bait at some point. And if this is going to be televised and some of the candidate versus been tiptoeing around donald trump, et cetera, they have to decide what they take. I want to throw to Kaitlan Collins right now. Kaitlan . Jake, joining us now is cnn contributor, geoff duncan, former republican Lieutenant Governor of the state of georgia and tonight a witness before that grand jury today. Geoff, what role do you think your testimony played in these ten indictments that we are learning about now . Well, i certainly answered the questions they gave me and supplied them with the facts and details that i knew existed. Thats what this is all about is just getting the facts to the surface. Finally, its taken two and a half years to move past all of this misinformation and all of these conspiracy theories. The facts will rise to the top. Thankfully its taken us to this point here now. What was it like to even be in that room today . Was it intense . How would you describe it . Yeah. It certainly felt loike the center of the universe. There was no doubt in my mind. It was a very serious tone, a very prepared tone. Everybody in the room knew why they were there, to weigh the facts and present the facts. And of course my job was to answer the questions. It was very, very serious. No doubt. We saw several other witnesses also going in and out today to presumably testify. Can you just give us a ballpark of how many witnesses were waiting to go in when you were there . Id prefer to let the District Attorney answer that question. Its probably not the right time for me to answer that. From the questions they asked, did you get a sense that they have a real understanding of the entire scheme of everything that was happening here . Yeah, there was certainly a firm grasp of what the details were, wanting to confirm information, connections, all that stuff around the different scenarios. Ive written a book about this, right . So, connecting these dots on all these wild, farfetched conspiracy theories, connecting the dots on how you get to a point that Brad Raffenspergers phone call happens with him, how you get Fake Electors, how you have mock hearings that are presented as though theyre real and serious. Theres a whole trail of information that i think america is going to get to see. And quite honestly, as a republican that wants to see us win going forward, we need to use this as a pivot point, right . We have to take this moment serious. This cant just be about a case. This cant just be about a trial. As a Republican Party, we need to take the opportunity to move on. All these candidates that are out there running cant just stick their toes in the water and kind of call donald trump out for lying. They cant just call him out for the election wasnt really rigged. They need to fully jump into it and say, this is wrong. We need senators, we need governors, we need everybody to get on board and say donald trump is wrong. But donald trump needs to get out of this race. Its best for the Republican Party and best for this country if hes not in this case in 2024. Speaking of donald trump, he posted about you today saying that you shouldnt go and testify. He talked about how you refused his demands to call a special session. I mean, beyond the fact he also spelled your name wrong, did you see that as an effort to witness tamper . Or how did you view that post from him . Well, i faced much tougher opponents in my life than donald trump. Im certain of that. And secondly, you spell geoff with a g, not a j. I got there on time. I was ready to testify. Nothing he was going to say was going to deter me. This isnt the first time hes tweeted at me. This isnt the first time hes spoken down to me or many others, right . Its just his game. Hes a small man in a big job, and he just gets to put that on display every minute of every day. What kind of effect do you think that has on other witnesses . Youre going in that room today the former Lieutenant Governor of the state. Youre used to the public eye. There are other witnesses that have gone that arent in the same position you are. Do you believe hes trying to pressure witnesses here . Well, i dont know what Donald Trumps game is. Ive stopped guessing what his game is. I certainly was uncalled for. I was one of his attorneys, i cant imagine they would enjoy waking up to see what he sent my direction today. It doesnt make the situation any easier. This makes the math continuing to be impossible if you want to win as a republican, right . You can throw red meat to the crowd and get 35, 40, maybe 50 of republicans to kind of sort of support you. But you lose the game when you jump in and try to beat a democrat like joe biden. This should be the easiest election for us to win in decades, maybe in a century, but yet we cant even break the strings of gravity because donald trump is the wrong candidate. Just like Herschel Walker was the wrong candidate. This is so easy to see coming. We cant just try to win primaries. Weve got to win generals. But do you believe this is this would be the fourth indictment if trumps name is on that list of ten indictments. Do you believe this is a moment that crystallizes that for your party . It doesnt seem like the others have, at least not for the republican primary voters . Yeah. This one feels different, right . I think, you know, im anxious to see the indictment. It sounds like theres tenplus folks that are going to be mentioned in this indictment. I think theres going to be a lot of story behind that, who got indicted, who didnt get indicted, who maybe cut a deal, which lemts they indicted, what crimes. Theres going to be a lot to be had here. This feels different. You know, what donald trump did his most damage in georgia. He sucked the soul out of the Republican Party here. He sucked the morality out of the Republican Party, the fiscal responsibility out of the Republican Party. He sucked our Winning Percentage out of the Republican Party. Hes taken everything from us, and its our turn to take it back. Its our turn to face elections based on the things we think are important. This is the prime time to call out joe biden better not running the border right, not putting our best foot forward internationally. These are our moments in time. If we make this about the Three Ring Circus of donald trump, we will lose, lose, and lose again. You make a good point. This isnt just about trump. There are several other names we expect to be in here, including some pretty prominent members of your party in that state, potentially. Do you expect to see some Georgia Republicans that youre used to working with potentially in this list of indictments when we find out the names . Yeah. I mean, certainly wait and see the names. But all along, i have certainly anticipated seeing several folks. This list of Fake Electors is members of the Republican Party, some elected folks, some successful business owners. I mean, this is just a wide swath of who the Republican Party should have looked like. And they got sucked in. And i think its going to be interesting to watch this case play out. Some folks showed up into that fake elector room because the sitting president or some official told him it was the right thing to do. Some folks showed up because it was a sinister plot. It will take time to unpack who was who. Even these fake hearings in the senate, this is all about creating enough feeder to take a little grass fire and turn it into a forest fire. Thats what this was about each and every day, taking these little notions, these little tweets, these little blips on the radar and turning them into something that was supposed to be reality. Its taken two and a half years, but im starting to tell you thats going to unwind and change directions. You werent supposed to testify until tomorrow morning, you said, and then something changed. You were asked to come in earlier. What does that say to you about how quickly the District Attorney was moving here . Yeah. I wasnt behind the scenes. I just answered the call and reported on the shorter timeline. Could not be any more grateful for the respect of the Law Enforcement officers. Theres just heavy, heavy security. Everybody was doing their job. And also the District Attorneys office was very kind and cordial and navigated us through the difficult day. Do you think the former president sees the difference with what could potentially be this indictment and the federal indictments hes facing. He sees the 2024 run as legal Insulation Fororgia would be a different case. He wouldnt be able to presumably pardon himself, for example, if he got reelected. The one tool donald trump have anymore is most folks arent attracted to being in his Cool Kids Club anymore. If i look at the Shrapnel Flying around in the post2020 election, there was a lot of these elected State Senators and local county officials, an opportunity to buddy up with the president of the United States, whether calling him or texting him or someone in his inner circle. I would imagine a number of those folks arent attracted to him anymore. Am i going to spend time in jail or Tell The Truth . My guess is theyre going to gravitate toward telling the truth. Thats going to work against him. Theres no doubt where ive been on this. Two things were certain on all of this stuff. It felt coordinated but also felt sloppy. To me, thats probably a bad recipe for somebody thats in this position. When you look at this and the Bigger Picture of this and what you just said about what you believe elected republicans and high ranking republicans you feel need to say specifically about this, what does it say if this indictment does happen and trumps name is on that, and he still becomes your partys nominee for 2024 . What does that say about your party . It says theyre weak. Any candidate at this point in the game that doesnt call somebody out for having state and federal indictments against them and all the other shrapnel thats throating around donald trump, all the losing records thats gravitating toward donald trump, theyre weak. Every candidate with an r next to their name running for president ought to say, donald trump, its time for tow step down. For the good of the country, the best thing you can do is step out of the race. I think u. S. Senators should do that. Republican governors should do that. The biggest donors in the country ought to do that. We need to hold this man accountable so we can get our party and country back. If we make this about the issues, if we go to 2024 and make this specifically about the issues, make it about the border, the military, the education, the economy, republicans will win up and down the balance from coast to coast. If we make it about the Three Ring Circus called donald trump, we will lose, lose, and lose again and continue losing. Geoff duncan, testified for over an hour today. Thanks for joining us tonight. Anderson, back to you. Cnns sara murray is outside the courthouse in atlanta with more on what the rest of the night might look like. Sara, what are you hearing . Look, we obviously want to know when were going to know what is in these indictments and if we could hear from the Fulton County District Attorney. We are learning shes expected to make public statements this evening. That is not going to happen until these indictments are processed. Were told that that could take one to three hours. So, were still in this waiting game to see how long its actually going to take the Clerks Office to process these indictments, to make them available public. And then after that happens, again, one to three hours from now, we are expecting the Fulton County District Attorney to make public statements. We should note the one two three hour clock, were told, did start when the clerk left judge mcbernies courtroom and started heading down to the Clerks Office. Your producers tell me that was at 9 00. So, were already a little bit into that countdown. Well see how quickly they can process that through the Clerks Office. Sara, you want to get out of there, dont you . No, i want to stay here all night. Its finally not 95 degrees. Its actually very nice out here now. Its a pretty broad ranging time, one to three hours. Any reason for such a huge window . You know, its a little unclear to me why there would be such a large window other than obviously they want to make sure that they do this by the book. I think you talked a little bit earlier about a document that reuters had reported was posted erroneously, potentially related to this case, that the Clerks Office disavowed as not an official document earlier today. So, i think that they want to be very pain staking in how they process this to make sure its done correctly, stamped officially, especially after all weve seen earlier today. All right. Let us know when you hear something from the courthouse. Were joined by alyssa farah griffin, White House Communications director for the former president. Back with us also former republican congressman adam kw kinzinger, van jones, elie honig, and michael moore. Michael, you hear the worst Case Scenario is that it will take three hours until the documents are made public. Why would it take so long . Well, it normally would not. I mean, i think this is just the belt and suspenders approach, given especially that there was this misfiling that appeared on the clerks site earlier today. Theyre just making sure theyve got everything done, that there are no technical errors, no clerical errors. They cant do anything to change the vote of The Grand Jury at this point. This is just about making sure the administrative process is done properly, and they know there will be a litany of folks that want a copy of this. I imagine theyre expecting that as well. Nothing particularly unusual expect that this is an unusual case, should not typically take this long and would not. Do you have any read on, Given Fani Willis history, what kind of, how specific these indictments may be. Are they speaky indictments . What are you trexpecting . I think she will try to tell the story in the indictment. She said people want to know what happened. I wouldnt be surprised if this is a seasoningal indictment with a lot of defendants named in the indictment. Thats very possible because again if youre talking about a rico case where shes naming several people, shes talking about the scheme and remember that rico really is just being able to talk about everybodys dirty laundry and not just one defendants problems and the allegations against that one defendant. You get to get soiled up by everybody who was part of your corrupt organization. Thats why i think there will be much detail here. She probably remembers that alvin bragg was criticized for the new york case when it first came out, was not detailed enough. And certainly shes had the time to prepare and to give a very detailed indictment, given the time she spent both with the special purpose grand jury and the Intervening Time shes led up to this very short and abbreviated presentment to a regular criminal grand jury. Elie, do you agree with that . I do. I think we should see quite a bit of detail out of fani willis. She has heard from dozes of witnesses, including geoff duncan, and she has said quite a bit about what her intentions are. Shes been careful to toe the line. But i would be stunned if we just saw bare bones indictments. I think what were going to see here is a detailed narrative. Part of that is because you want to get the public ready for whats to come and also theres a story to tell here. I think fani willis clearly understands that, yes, shes doing the normal job here, but shes also speaking to the general public and the history books. Elie, how were the defendants notified that theyve been indicted . Will they learn about it by watching the tv or hear about it from the District Attorneys office. Lets hope they dont learn about it from us. The way it should work theres not a rule requiring this. But any practice, any good, courteous practice from the prosecutor is you call up the Defense Lawyer and notify them directly. You may tell them were going to send you the indictment now. I think what fani willis is going to do is shes not going to want to give donald trump or anyone else who may have been indicted any sort of head start here. If im in fani willis shoes, i will wait until the indictments are fully stamped and scanned and docketed by the clerk. And before they come public, i would come downstairs. I would make my public comments. Right at that moment, i would have them sent to the Defense Lawyers, essentially as i took the podium. We can expect to see some strategic thought tonight. She does not want her first words to us preempted by a truth social tweet. Alyssa, this is the first time were hearing from you tonight. What are you anticipating tonight on the cusp of hearing what the indictments are . Listen, ive long said that i think this is the investigation that Donald Trumps most afraid of. And kaitlan alluded to this point. But of course as its a state case, he does not have the potential if reelected to grant himself a pardon or to wrap up a doj investigation. And going even further than that, even if he werent to win reelection, i think there are some within his camp who think he could appeal a federal case up until a supreme court. This is very different. He doesnt have that sort of jurisdiction in georgia if he is indicted and then charged. So, hes been very afraid of it. And, i mean, the facts of this case are as clear as day. We all heard the phone call. We heard the Pressure Campaign. And im just reminded i was actually with the former president on his last stop in georgia. I believe we are in macon county, right before the collection was called for joe biden. And i remember him saying, like, theres no way we could lose georgia because he did have such a massive audience turned out for him. But his team was just wrong. It was a state that they were not predicting well enough, how close it was. We were paying more attention to pennsylvania, to north carolina, and other states. So, i think he was genuinely caught off guard when he lost. And then he just kind of got into this survival mode. And, i mean, the crimes, the offenses just followed from there. Congressman kinzinger, given the former president was the only person indicted with jack smith so far rngs would it be satisfying to you if others who are involved are prosecuted in georgia . Its tough. I dont want to say satisfying. Yeah, i mean, after what we saw in the january 6th committee after, you know, youve seen people out not just carrying the president s water because they can carry his water but how there really just destroying democracy. I think seeing this, what i call the second tier level of people being indicted, itll be i think itll be essential for democracy. I think itll be essential for justice. Itll be essential for the defense of this selfgovernance thing that weve tried to do as this country because its saying, yes, if you attack the capitol, as an example, youre going to go to jail. Weve done that. Weve seen that. If you instigate that. If you destroy faith in elections and do it in an illegal way, youll be held accountable as well. I just continue, though, today i saw, i think, ramos swamys tweet or something going after this. I have no idea, anderson, why anybody but donald trump is running for president of the United States unless youre somebody like chris christie, will hurd, or asa hutchinson. Because all these other candidates are doing nothing but defending donald trump for his absolute utter law breaking because theyre too scared to say the truth. I dont get it. Drop out and endorse donald trump if youre unwilling to go after him. Hes the front runner. But i just to this day and i think once we read this indictment, were going to be even more shocked at whats in there. And i will be even more shocked to see some of my former colleagues and candidates for president continue to defend him. Van, what is your expectations . I just think it was really moving to see regular people, everyday people, doing their job, walking those documents up to that judge. You think about it. You know, we live in a country where that happens every day. Its just a regular majesty of the wheels, turning of justice. In a lot of countries, someone like donald trump would be untouchable, absolutely untouchable. And certainly everyday working people would have no shot at all saying, hey, theres a line here and youve got to come to this court and answer to it. Thats what happened today. I felt it was moving. Those are just regular working folks, and they put their time in and they sought information, they got evidence, and they could have said, hey, reason, we dont want any of this. Hes too big, hes too powerful. They didnt do that. My expectation is were going to hear from this prosecutor. I am hopeful that after, you know, a two and a halfyear wait, whats on the papers will be strong, will be powerful, will give us more insight than maybe we have already. Im very much looking forward to what she has to say. What do you expect . Do you have an expectation of what these indictments may contain . In order for this to make sense from a historical point of view, you already have jack smith. Hes put a lot of energy toward this case. Georgia is a part of the federal indictment. So, i think what youre going to see is a deeper assess skpmt more people named. I think youre going to have a better sense of all the different players and the different parts. Thats my hope anyway. This was a straight up conspiracy. This is not just donald trump making one phone call. Thats what we all think about. Thats what we know about. Its so outrageous. This is an absolute on the ground multiparty conspiracy to overthrow an election in georgia and to make sure that the voters of georgia how hard it was to win the right to vote in georgia, how many martyrs they put in the ground in georgia. You think about john lewis, think about all the things that have gone on in georgia. For that state to be the place where donald trump says, im going to put those votes in the garbage can because i dont want to leave office and for an African American lets just say it, an African American District Attorney to stand up and say, no, buddy, thats not how it works here, i think is powerful. Its extraordinary when you for a moment reflect on the fact that there was a sitting president going after two Election Workers, two black women, who were doing the job which they had done before, and, you know, a patriotic job, a really important job that they took pride in, and really went after them and destroyed their lives. Ruined their lives. I mean, they had to go into try to hide, and theyre not people who have a lot of resources and security teams. Right. And i think thats what sometimes gets lost in this whole sense of whats going on here. Thats what democracy is, anderson. Itseveryday people, working pe, neighbors i am going to help my neighbors, vote and im going to make sure that all these documents get done. And things get signed off on so that everyone matters, everyones vote counts. And you dont think your life is gonna be destroyed for doing that. Yes, and you had Rudy Giuliani sweaty and hatay calling them like alleging they were drug dealers and just it is stunning that these powerful people reached down and picked these two black women and just destroyed their lives. And today, some people who were also maybe considered powerless in the ordinary course of things of south African Americans and others, reached back up and grabbed donald trump by the lapel and said, buddy, that doesnt work in america. And that is the power of today. Thats what you just saw. Yeah, lets go back to jake, jake . Thanks, anderson, im still here with cnn Correspondent Analyst anymore kate jamie gangel and laura coats. Something interesting that jamie gangel reminded us of is that it was just a few months ago but judge david carter, who was ordering trump attorney john eastman who is thought to be one of the coconspirators in the federal charge, judge carter ruled that donald trump had handed in information, be its War Undergrowth was true, in a georgia lawsuit. Even though john eastman, according to emails had told donald trump this information is not true, you cannot swear that it that its accurate. He did it anyways. Thats a crime, i would think . Of course, of course, signing an affidavit in support of a law definitely a georgia crime . That would be a georgia crime, could be perjury, false statement to court officials. So, yeah, absolutely. You cant deliberately make a false representation in the course of a civil lawsuit. You, know its interesting, because i wondered why it is that georgia has been doing this, when we know that the Pressure Campaign took place in arizona, in michigan, in wisconsin, in pennsylvania. In georgia, obviously. Why georgia . And it really does seem that he left a lot of fingerprints on the glass in georgia. Right, i was just reminded that doesnt only raffensperger we spoke to in a tape recorder phone call, but he also called the Chief Investigator for state elections, for the state of georgia. What he said to her, apparently, on the phone, is that, you know, if you dont do the right thing, you are going to be in trouble. I am not the one who is gonna be in trouble. You are the one who was going to be in trouble. So it was quite threatening to her, and what she said back to him, apparently, was we are gonna get to the truth, mister president. That is our job, to get to the truth. So was this a tape recorded conversation. Did raffensperger tell all of his people . If you ever get these calls, tape recorded them so they are, you know, i have got to think that there is a lot of stuff just like in the federal indictments, that there is a lot of stuff that we dont know. And a lot of conversations that were had that we dont know about yet. That could really incriminate donald trump. Because he was not shy about calling people. And i think that that is why georgia, right . The why georgia is because trump himself was the one making the calls. And doing a lot of the pressuring. He was making calls to, like, County Clerks in michigan . Thats true, but i think that, i think that just at the minimum, the minimum bar is that trump needs to have been deeply involved in a lot of this, that was true in georgia, it was true michigan and it was true in arizona. And then on the other part of it is fani willis. We just alluded to this, she has decided that she is gonna take this on. She is gonna take on a former president , not every prosecutor wants to do that. Whether or not the law is clear or not. So i do think that the conflict between trump and these prosecutors, particularly the black women that he, you know, that he is always at loggerheads with, its part of the narrative here too. She is determined to get to the bottom of this. And trump is i think particularly incensed for that. And described all these people as, you know, not just a black, woman but even the black man in new york, he describes all these people as political operatives going after him for political reasons. But thats part of the narrative and the conflict of why i think we are seeing this case unfolding with the scope that it is. And thats why it is so scary in some respects, the second i saw, you know, the activity inside the courtroom, a part of me obviously, somebody who wants to know what is going on inside the courtroom, wants to figure out, wants to see it alive, doesnt want to rely on the sketches. Somebody who wants to be in the courtroom is, but then when you see the fact that this now opens up each of the people within that courtroom to the exposure of the wrath of somebody who is not afraid to use the court of Public Opinion and bend it at his will in a way that undermines the safety at times of people, you already heard josh could checkin in the washington d. C. Case, january 6th saying, listen, the more you play in this quarter Public Opinion, the likelihood increases that i may move that child it up. Now i wonder if the stretch will have a similar notion here, where the very reasons you articulated, abby, we just saw, although she was a clerk it seems, we saw a black woman walk across that screen. Next to a black man. The oval ready heard fani willis be called racist by donald trump. You have heard accusations that she has been somehow intimate experience relationship with the gang bang or for some reason, because it helps his narrative. So her security has had to increase. All of this, the idea of Courtroom Drama and antics, presents an opportunity for us to become a spectacle. And it really cannot be. It has to be following the notion that we are watching, we are watching it all unfold, that a former president of the United States shows georgia at all Different Levels to try to allegedly go forward this plan. That is why the rico charge would be something so interesting to see if it happens. That is the quintessential charge you use when you want to punish not just the ringleader of the minions but all of the parties involved. All have in one of these other states that has not brought ministration forward. And i said, well how michigan is charging its Fake Electors and your state is not in the top official said, they had enough, im not telling you it, is they had enough caveats in his state, in the phony electorate language. Unlike in michigan, where that state didnt feel like they could make out state charges. So i think one of the other variables here is, what are the state laws . And how hamhanded were these skimmers in that state. It seems as though in some states, the people doing at least according to this government official, the people doing the fake elector schemes were a little bit more clever than the ones in michigan. And who was involved . I, mean was it not just a bunch of fake or lectures. Was it the president s former Chief Of Staff who went to atlanta with him. Was the former president of the United States . Nobody had a position low enough for the president to say, oh im not gonna talk to that person. You talk to everybody. So i think georgia, the evidence just mounted and mounted and mounted, and raffensperger courted them. There is no question, there is no question that georgia was extremely trump and his allies were extremely aggressive in georgia. We see it over and over again. The first republican to lose that state since 1996. And also to senate seats. To your point earlier, these were republicans. You had a republican governor, you had jeff duncan with a tenant governor. Brad raffensperger, gabriel sterling. These were all republicans. And not squish, is, either as conservatives referred to moderates. These are die hard conservative republicans. Can i just underscore one last thing, abby, you said earlier the point that trump was, quote, deeply involved. And i think that that is what we have to go back to here. He was at the center of all of this. This all happened for one reason, he refused to accept the outcome of the election. My only point, we should not forget, this is the state of georgia. Trump targeted georgia and the parts of georgia where people of color live to try to disenfranchise them. People like Rudy Giuliani spread racist lies about Election Workers in order to try to disenfranchise voters. You cannot disentangle that from fani willis is well. And her view that this is necessary and important to prosecute that. And in this particular scene, which is at the heart of, you know, the Voting Rights movement in this country. Look, the prosecutors motivation matters. And i think that is part of it for her as well. We are at just about ten pm, eastern time, seven seconds away. With donald trump seemingly on the cusp of indictments number four, jake tapper here in washington along with Anderson Cooper and caitlin collins. . A little more than an hour, ago grandeur in atlanta handed of ten vitamins in Fulton County journey fani williss investigation of the former president s attempt to overturn the 2020 georgia election. Anderson, those investments are sealed, so we dont yet know who