Transcripts For MSNBCW The 20240704

And now it is a legal term. Ask anybody. Theyll tell you. Thank you, ari. See you later, joy. And we do continue to follow the breaking news tonight that donald trump has received indictment number three, courtesy of the d. C. Grand jury investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And let us just be clear, this is an historic moment in this country. Never has a president of the United States refused to relinquish power until trump. Never has a former president come up with a conspiracy that involves having their Vice President overturn the will of the people through the use of fake electors until trump. Never has a former president incited an insurrection with armed extremists to storm the u. S. Capitol until trump. And no u. S. President has ever been indicted before trump. And again for trump, this is indictment number three. And in many ways, it is the most historically significant one because its not just about his personal conduct. It is about us, our democracy. And now to the substance. Donald trump has been charged with four criminal counts, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights, specifically the right to vote and to have ones vote counted. And as we now now, trump did not attempt to do this alone. The indictment names six unnamed coconspirators who assisted him in his criminal efforts, four attorneys, one Justice Department official and a political consultant. Just in the last hour we heard from special counsel jack smith about this indictment. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American Democracy. Its 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 heros 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 principles 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 is 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. And trump will find himself back in a courtroom this week having been summoned to appear in d. C. On thursday. Im joined by claire mccaskill, jen sake, neal katyal, jill winebanks, ankush candori. And nbc news justice reporter ryan reilly. Thank you all for being here. Im going to start with the lawyers, with due respect to all my guests. We have a great panel and were holding them all hostage as long as we can. Ill get to everyone. I dont know how much of this you have read. Ive been watching you on the air for much of today. I feel like youve read more of it certainly than i have. Im on page 25. What ive taken from it so far is that this indictment, which ari melber has called a Shouting Indictment because it definitely is narrative and its very loud in what it says. It seems to me that one of the things that this indictment is doing is being very careful to detail all of the ways in which donald trump was told he lost the elections in all of the key states that he wanted to contest. And his insistence on tweeting and insisting and lying about those elections one by one by one by one. Why do you think it was so important to do that for so many pages in this indictment . Yeah, so its a Shouting Indictment, joy. Its not just one of the most significant indictments, it is the most significant indictment against donald trump. It is the most significant legal case of our lifetimes. It is one of if not the most significant case in the United States history, it is up there with dread scott, up there with brown versus board of education. This goes to the Essential Question of who we are as a people, do we let someone, the president , act in this way and thats why going to your question about the detail, why is the detail so important . Because jack smith has to do two things, and he has to do them unproved under the highest standard of the law, which is all against him calledont a reasonable doubt. He has to prove two things to a jury of 12 people. He has to prove, one, that donald trump committed a bad criminal act that he conspired, he agreed to try and overturn the election, to interfere with the Election Results to obstruct the counting of the votes on january 6th, one of our most solemn days. Thats number one. Number two, smith has to prove that donald trump did that with a bad criminal intent, that he didnt do it because he thought he won the election, but rather the contrary. Thats where these 45 pages and, yes, ive been trying to read them as furiously as i can, really are so significant, joy, because its page after page of damning fact after fact. And of course donald trump is entitled to the Presumption Of Innocence. Of course hes got the highest standard of the law in his favor, but at the end of the day, these facts speak really loudly and they cant be spun. You can try it, you know, on the media or on truth social, whatever, on twitter, but these are going to be tried in a courtroom, going to be tried in a courtroom with one of The Very Best judges in washington, d. C. , i dont care if youre a republican or democrat, if youre a prosecutor or defense attorney, judge chutkin is known for being incredibly fair minded. She has a criminal defense background for 20 years of doing this, a good ten to 20 years and most importantly she was confirmed by the United States senate to a federal judgeship, not by some close squeaker vote, 950. That is who providing over this case. The 45 pages will be aired out before a court and a jury. If im donald trump right now, hes got away with a lot of things in his life but this is karma coming to roost. And you worked on the case that was the next closest weve ever come to having a president ever indicted, obviously Richard Nixon. It seems to me the narrative here to neils point, this was unprecedented but what donald trump did was unprecedented, to remain in power. This indictment makes very clear he was told in no uncertain teams by people he hired himself, appointed himself, put in place himself, and told people they lost. If you were to read this indictment on a loudspeaker to a maga crowd, it would be very difficult to dispute that he lost the election. I wonder what you make about the significance of the fact of the indictment and the way the indictment is laid out from your very unique perspective . The first thing i think is this is central to defending our democracy. If donald trump were to get away with what he attempted to do and is continuing to attempt to do, it is the end of our democracy. So we needed this indictment. Ari is right, its a Shouting Indictment, its a quiet shout. It lays out facts. You can pick any random page in this indictment, any page, and just start reading and you will go, whoa, those are really compelling facts, those are really incriminating of the president. It talks about the defendant did this. The defendant made a phone call. The defendant directed someone else to make a phone call so that it really is about him and his actions. And the fact that hes the only defendant i think is important. It means that jack smith wants this to get to trial right away. The fact that it includes six coconspirators is because their testimony needs to be admissible and its admissible if its a codefendant. Or a coconspirator. So thats why theyre named or not named but included. Its not unlike what we did in watergate where we had Richard Nixon a unindicted coconspirator. The reason to that was we needed to admit his tape evidence. As a coconspirator, his conversations were admissible. I also want to point out we had the entire grand jury come to the courtroom to hand up the indictment. And it was because every one of them wanted to say, yes, we handed up a true bill. Yes, we voted that way. We also handed up a road map to impeachment that we got permission from the court to violate grand jury secrecy and turn over to the Judiciary Committee and that included lies that Richard Nixon told to the public, which we thought werent perjury but were impeachable. I want to do a little bit of reporting here. We can now confirm to jill weinbanks point. Nbc confirmed that coconspirator number one appears to be rudy giuliani. They are described in this indictment as an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendants 2020 Campaign Reelection Attorneys would not. In the indictment they tell several stories that do make it appear it is rudy giuliani, including the story about the allegations that he made against ruby freeman and her daughter, shea moss. They spell those out in the indictment, which makes it pretty clear this does appear to be rudy giuliani. Coconspirator number three, who is described in the indictment as well is apparently sidney powell. That is the reporting from nbc news, that coconspirator three is sydney powell, described as an attorney whose unfounded claims of Election Fraud the defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded crazy. Nevertheless, the defendant embraced and publicly amplified coconspirator threes disinformation. That person appears to be sydney powell. And todays indictment serves as an important reminder, anyone who puts himself over the constitution should never be president of the United States. I will have more to say about the governments case after reviews the indictment. The former president is entitled to the Presumption Of Innocence but his candidacy means more talks about january 6th and distractions and less attention paid to joe bidens economic politics and goes into an attack on joe biden. I do want to bring you in. It does appear that mike pence did not participate in the january 6 hearings. Hes refused to testify, refused to participate and has refused to even call january 6th an insurrection. He very like will have to testify against donald trump, i assume, right . I assume he would be a prosecution witness. It does appear that way that pence would be an essential witness on some of the events here. So what would be the use he was a potential victim, right . Yeah, in a sense hes a potential victim of the effort to sort of get him to throw the certification to trump but also he would be there to talk about all the things that trump was being told about whether or not he actually lost the election, the local theory or lack thereof for the grounding of the local theory and what trump himself was saying and doing. I cant help but notice the indictment was pretty light on things coming out of trumps mouth. I suspect were going to be learning more about that as the case unfolds. Its not necessary to lay all that out in detail in this particular document. But people like pence, the people actually with him, physically with him during these key meetings with be witness necessary this case. And he seems reluctant to talk about donald trump, though he has said repeatedly that what he did he thinks violated his oath and attempted to get pence to violate his as well. They went into the garage and went up and this was all unfolding during the proud boys seditious conspiracy trial. After seeing through so many of the January 6th Hearings and see their lives ripped apart because they bought into the lies, i wonder what theyre thinking if they have some degree of accountability for donald trump. A few days ago there was a family of these individuals who all sort of bought in to the lies and his son who physically stormed the capitol, went down on the floor, was covering up the cameras, was trying to open up the doors and they afterwards, the parents went before the judge and said, hey, i was tricked, i was fooled and told them they were really embarrassed by their actions because they were full adults and should have known better than to believe these obvious lies. Thats at the heart of this case, that this was really obvious at the time, basic Human Understanding or basic logic that this was nonsense. I think thats what theyre trying to emphasize here is that donald trump, who purports to be one of these really intelligent people had to known this was absolute garbage. Theres no way people could say otherwise. Claire, this is the challenge, i think. I personally hope this trial would be televised. I dont think thats the way it works. But the thing that is so noxious about what trump did is that if you talk to many trump supporters, they regurgitate with very little prompting everything that trump said and that is recounted in this indictment up to page 25 here. They go through page after page after page of a person saying no one wanted donald trump to win more than me. No one worked harder for trump to be reelected and named the state and he lost and i told him he lost. This is recounted over and over again that is the lingering impact of the big lie, isnt it, claire, that there is a good third of American Adults who still believe it. Yeah, this is an interesting day. I started my day opening the New York Times and reading the headline that said that joe biden and donald trump are in a dead heat high for president of the United States. And a few hours later we have an indictment that in a way that no american should ever think is acceptable that the president of the United States tried to basically take away peoples right to vote and install himself wrongfully as president of the United States. And we have about somewhere around 20 or maybe a little less of america that is going to believe donald trump no matter what he says. So as we talk about this indictment and as we cover this trial and as we go forward, i think we all need to be really mindful that there are a lot of people out there that we need to not assume they know what all the facts are. I would say to everybody right now assign this indictment to your book club. Ask your children to read it. Ask your next door neighbor to read it with you. Go out of your way. Theres a huge number of americans that are persuadable that donald trump did do these things. They know hes not a moral man. And this is hes not getting indicted for lying. I thought it was great that jack smith started this by saying you dont get indicted for lying. You get indicted for conspiring to stop the function of government in counting fairly the votes of the American People and certifying those votes. Thats what this indictment is all about. We need to stay focused on that and realize that right now in america, its a jump ball. This guy could be in charge again. And how frightening is that once youve read this indictment . You know, jen, that is the Communications Challenge and you know of Communications Challenges working for two white houses. The indictment starts out by saying that donald trump had a right to fully litigate his challenges to the election and he did that and failed each time. And then goes through in a way that is an attempt to persuade, and it is clear that immediately after hes told you lost in wisconsin, he turns around and says there was fraud in wisconsin. Well, you lost in georgia. He turns around and says there was fraud and people get Death Threats as a result of it. So that is the challenge here is that the way hes going to frame this is that joe biden is attempting to prosecute his biggest and most powerful opponent. This indictment is the answer to that but how does that message get through. Thats exactly how he will try to frame it and he will try to frame it that it is the same as what hunter biden and any other members of the biden family are guilty of. They made a similar argument back in 2020 and it did not work. Because the American People are smarter sometimes than we give them credit for. Having done communications for a while, you read just the first, the second paragraph here and the first sentence is despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. That is the whole point of this entire indictment right here. Im not assuming everybody would read it. I would echo, claire, use it for your book club, encourage your friends and neighbors to read it. I will also say things that i you think can be effective from a Communication Standpoint is the specifics. We talked about mike pence and page 36, 37, 38, whether these details are all from the former Vice President , they may be, maybe theyre from his former Chief Of Staff, theyre so specific. They go through moment by moment. And they have this line, upon learning of this this is when the defendant grew frustrated and told the Vice President the defendant would have to publicly criticize him. Hes saying im going to publicly criticize in this meeting. The Vice President Chief Of Staff was so concerned for the Vice President s safety, he alerted the head of the Vice President S Secret Service detail. That there tells you how jarring this was. Former Vice President mike pence, conservative, republican. Well see what he says publicly but that is a very jarring thing. Its a challenge, i think its going to require at some point President Biden not speaking to the specifics of it. They think their strategy is working on this front at that point but making this about the value and the difference and it is about democracy versus someone who isnt going to protect your basic rights. We saw that in 2022. I expect thats where theyll take it and what will be effective. Very interesting. It is a Communications Challenge but the facts are very, very clear here. I do want to bring in congressman bennie thompson, democrat from mississippi and the former chair of the house january 6th special committee. Congressman and mr. Chairman, thank you so much for being here. I actually asked earlier this afternoon for my team to reprint your Opening Statement at the very beginning of the January 6th Hearings in which you reference the civil war, the sort of last great conflagration and question of whether we would remain a unified democracy. Im very curious to get your reaction as someone who presided over the hearings that gave us so much of the detail that helped us understand what happened on january 26th. Your reaction to this indictment . Well, thank you so much, joy, for having me on. First of all, let me say none of us take any real pleasure in where we are at this point. What i think we all have to understand that as a nation of laws, even a president or former president is not above the law. And so we have to go forward as a nation of laws identifying what those challenges are. What our committee did i think in great detail, we told a story, a lot of what we hear and see in this indictment came from the body of work of our committee. So i feel from a vindication standpoint that our committee followed the facts. I feel that the facts after following them spoke for themselves. So its not a proud day for us, but in order for democracy to stand from time to time we have to get tested. And what we have right now is a test of our great democracy. And you were a plaintiff in a lawsuit that uses the Ku Klux Klan Act To Challenge Donald Trump on the violence that took place. And we saw so much footage that was later misused, i would argue by speaker Kevin Mccarthy and handed over to a now fired ed fox so they could man i lay what manipulate and gas light us of what we saw. What do you make of the fact that donald trump is not charged but the violence is described nonetheless in the indictment. First of all, when i became chair of the committee, i stepped back from the lawsuit. I thought it would be a conflict. I think theres value in the lawsuit. Im convinced that what occurred on january 6th based on evidence well find in court, former President Trump potentially had a lot to do with it. The indictment states that. But as important, joy, is this notion that three of the four charges in this indictment came directly from the work of our committee. Im convinced that the public viewing the body of work and d. O. J. Looking at it feeling that at this point given what weve seen and what weve collected and what has been shared by the committee, we have to go forward. So to some degree we created a path for the Department Of Justice to start its formal investigation. So im thankful that Speaker Pelosi at the time appointed the committee because the congress failed to set up a bipartisan committee. But as you know, we had to do something. And so those several hundred witnesses that we interviewed, so much of the information that we see in this indictment came from those interviews. So i over time im convinced, joy, that more will come. And we know that some key figures such as mark meadows and obviously Vice President mike pence refused to come before the committee and testify and having seen all of the evidence and reviewed all of the evidence and chaired the committee, what do you expect them to be able to add as, you know, presumable witnesses in this case . Well, obviously it would have been nice in the Vice President , as well as mark meadows and some others, including members of congress had honored the subpoenas but they didnt. I think in this venue now they dont have a choice. Theyll have to come forward under oath and i would hope tell the truth. Once the truth comes out, im convinced that those facts in the indictment will be proven factual. It is clear that based on the information of our committee the president started taking advice from individuals other than the people who had been working with him during his presidency. He brought in what some people referred to as a clown car because the individuals that came to the white house Offering Advice were not people in his administration agreed with. And they told us in the hearings as well as in the depositions that they disagreed with it, and they told the president of their disagreement. Congressman, we really appreciate you being here, congressman bennie thompson, former chairman of the january 6th committee. Thank you, sir. We really appreciate you being here and hopefully youll come back because were going to continue to talk about this. Thank you, sir. Let me go back to you, neal. I can report now that weve all been playing the Guessing Game all day. Ive got my indictment here and i will proudly note that i appear to have been correct that so far im doing pretty well on my pop quiz. Nbc now can confirm that it does appear that coconspirator number two, who is described as an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to obstruct the certification of the president ial election does appear to be john eastman, who we know wrote the memo and goes all the way back to the year 2000 in which he believed in this idea that these sort of electors dont have to be connected to the votes that are supposed to be attached to them and that number four, coconspirator number four described as a Justice Department official who worked On Civil Matters and who with the defendant attempted to use the Justice Department to open Sham Election Crime Investigations and influence State Legislatures with knowingly false claims of Election Fraud appears to be jeffrey clark, who donald trump attempted to install in power. Your thoughts. So, joy, i clerked with john eastman on the Supreme Court. Its so sad to see what hes done and whats happened. And, you know, jack smith is facing two challenges here. Challenge number one is timing and making sure that donald trump cant run out the clock before the november 24 elections through his typical delay strategy. And thats why this indictment is just against donald trump. There are six other people mentioned as conspirators. None of them are indicted and i suspect thats because jack smith doesnt want the trial of the other six to be bundled up with this and slow this down. Second challenge, this is the one senator mccaskell was talking about and jen psaki was talking about, the massive amount of information that donald trump spews, that he did nothing wrong, that this is the biden Justice Department going after a political rival. And smith has two things that need to happen here. One, people need to understand jack smith is not a biden official. Biden had nothing to do with his appointment. Jack smith is a career prosecutor, not appointed by either party. Hes independent and hes operating under special counsel guidelines that give him the independence to do this prosecution without talking to biden or others in his administration and seeking their approval. I wrote those regulations as a young Justice Department staffer and when you hear donald trump talk about the biden d. O. J. Going after him, its just flatly wrong. Second thing that i think needs to happen, because of the amount of disinformation, i think the public needs to see this trial for themselves. It would be great to have the book club that senator mccaskell talks about and i hope everyone joins it, but the reality is tv and visually seeing it in live, realtime is going to be the most important antidote for disinformation and the idea that were going to have this trial, the most significant trial in our lifetime not on television i think is really dangerous. We faced this in the george floyd prosecution in which i was special prosecutor and it was televised, even though minnesota had never televised a criminal trial in its history up until that point. I think it was powerful for the public to see it all. I think the same thing is true here. Jack smith has done a really important thing for American Democracy, which has frankly been spit on a lot in the last few years, but in order to bring the task home, i think its really important for all americans to see this trial, see, you know, whether these allegations against donald trump and all the details of the 45 pages were talk about, can jack smith prove it up and prove it up under the highest standard, beyond a reasonable doubt. I suspect he can but lets see it for ourselves. Say a little bit more for us, please. How can that happen . You literally anticipated what my followup was going to be. I agree with you because there is nothing that i can say, that jen can say on her amazing show that anyone can say. Even Rachel Maddow could not convince the however many tens of millions of people who are in sort of a religious relationship with donald trump that any of these things are true. But theyre laid out so frankly by jack smith and so matter of factly and without theyre not festooned with anything. If its not televised, i agree with you, no one is going to believe it. So how do we get this trial televised . What are the rules . How is it done . First of all, joy, all your shows are amazing and i do want to push back on the idea that nobody is going to listen. Criminal trials, even if theyre not televised, do have a way of changing peoples minds because they operate under established procedures and rules and, you know, again trump is entitled to all these presumptions. So i do think a certain number of people are going to be swayed by the criminal trial itself. But the way in which it gets done, is for the Chief Justice, john roberts, to allrise the televising of this trial. He has the absolute power to do so and i think for reasons of American Democracy he very much should. Ah, its up to john roberts. Now you see, you brought me up. Now, my friend, you have brought me down. Were going to keep talking about this. We have to let you go, neal katyal. I think we need to talk more about this. Were going to let him take a break and were going to also take a quick break. Before we do that, i do want to bring in olivia troy, former Senior Advisor to Vice President mike pence and the cofounder of the Group Mission democracy. Im going to hold my my feelings about the john roberts piece of this and having to rely on him to get the trial televised but im going to pause on that for a moment because jen psaki did a great job for us. A dramatic reading is not as Claire Mccaskell said were doing a book club and there will probably be amazing cake at it. I want to go right to page 36 and that is also on january 5th the defendant met alone with the Vice President , your former boss. When the Vice President refused to agree that he obstructed the certification, he said the defendant would have to publicly criticize him. We saw that dramatic restatement of your bosss refusal to get into the car and leave. Hes in the garage. Hes obviously in danger. We saw the phone call that Speaker Pelosi placed to him with great concern for his safety. Tell us what you make of the indictment and the role that mike pence is going to play in this prosecution. Look, you know, were on the same page because i actually had it opened to that page and i have that part circled because that gave me chills. It was just so reminiscent of i want to the january 6th select committee hearings. I was there when they went over what happened with mike pence and the Vice President s general counsel. I dont think greg realized how close they had come to the Vice President. It was within several feet. And that is a vision that came back to me when i was reading this and just thinking about the fact that when your staff and you know this very well, you know the personalities, you know how the Battle Rhythm is going to play out. By this point we knew who donald trump was. Mike pence knew who donald trump was very well. He was critical of this. To go back to neal about the trial being public, i wanted nothing more than to have mike pence speak to the committee when it was happening because i thought it was important for the public to hear it from him directly given the divisiveness we have in this country. Its critically important for accountability. Its critically important because when i think about this and i think about today, all of this led to threats against americans across the country, election workers, the Georgia Election workers. I think about an election worker, a local registrar who quit her job because of fear and the troll farms that had gone after her based on the lies and this narrative and this conspiracy on this election where it all started in the white house and the oval office, the most powerful office probably in the world, where all of this was coordinated and now we see all of these witnesses. And he lays this out so clearly. And these are republicans, their own party saying we told him, he knew, he was fully aware. And from the very top of the country down to that nicole who quit her job for the fear of all these people coming after her and the threats, those threats still remain today. Thats why this matters. Thats why accountability, thats why this rule of law matters. And i hope that well see this process play out because i do think that americans need to see it and understand it and while he has loyal followers that are unwavering, i think you need to sit down and think about your neighbor, someone that you knew, your Family Member who Still Believes the election was stolen and read this document and have that serious conversation with them. Thats what i think about. I think my Family Members who dont speak to me still today who think im part of a deep state conspiracy because i voted for joe biden because it was the right thing to do for the country. The thing is your Family Members who are not speaking to you are going to have this trial interpreted by fox, by news max, by oann and not by you and not by you and not by any of us. Claire, ill bring you back in here on this note because i do i agree with you on the book club thing. I think they should put this on those Speaker Trucks. You used to campaign, the Speaker Trucks that drove through the neighborhood. I worry that without a trial like the o. J. Trial, this is the most important case of our lifetimes, of any of our lifetimes. This is a president trying to overturn an election for the first time in the history of the United States. But without a televised trial, its just going to be us saying it and saying what happened every day and interpreting it for people and then watching it on the local news maybe from one of those, you know, companies that puts out sort of a conservative version. I dont know how we get people to see it and i dont have faith in john roberts. Im going to be honest. Do i have faith in chief Justice Roberts . No, i dont. Well, there are people that can influence Justice Roberts and those people are federal judges. And i really believe that every federal judge in the country ought to do a Gut Check Tonight and think about why is it why is it that we could televise the o. J. Trial decades ago, that was in the 90s, and people could see what actually happened in the courtroom. And i would argue while there was a lot of uncomfortable americans about what happened in that trial, they werent able to make stuff up because Everybody Saw It in realtime. So i do think federal judges should begin influencing the federal judiciary that this is ridiculous in this day and age when we have the little computers in our hands feeding us information and we have algorithms reinforces what our views are over and over and over again, there ought to be an opportunity in this kind of historic trial that everybody sees the evidence as admitted into our courts of law. It would be reassure that about our rule of law, it would reassure them about the fact that most of this evidence is coming from trump loyalists. And then finally, joy, ive got to say the other people that could have influence over this are people like mike pence and republicans who could quit dancing with this guy. They could quit playing ftse with this guy. They could quit pretending that he actually has a point about the election being stolen. If every republican leader would speak up and say the election was not stolen, he is lying to you, not only would maybe one of them have a chance of beating him in the primary, maybe their party would have a chance again with folks in this country that see very clearly he was just trying to make stuff up so he could stay in power, which was against the constitution. Yeah. One can hope and pray and dream. Former senator claire mccaskill, thank you. Always a pleasure. Thank you, my friend. Hmm. Ah. Well see what happens. I know we have to take a break but you are our resident former prosecutor here. Is there a process by which a formal request, do you know, can be made to chief Justice Roberts to televise this trial . I think we all agree without a televised trial, its going to be interpreted and then people will just choose their own venture on what they believe . Im not aware of any kind of process for this to take place in an organized way. I do agree that actually having outside voices, including other judges, letters to the editor, could have some sway here. Not to bring folks down further, i think theres going to be a big trial in this case before next november. The average time for trial to disposition in washington, d. C. For a federal felony case is over a year and a half and that includes cases that are pled out. Theres going to be a very assertive effort to make this trial happen next year. Otherwise, as you know, if trump manages to win the republican primary and is reelected, theres never going to be a trial. If we get to march, it is possible given the way the polling looks now that donald trump is already effectively the nominee by march. And then hes got another trial thats ly going to start in march, the trial on the documents case, the florida case and hell go back to that friendly judge and say joe biden is trying to try his chief opponent. And then this case here hell go back and say joe biden is trying to try his chief opponent. So without a speedy trial, without a televised trial yes, im going to bring you down and bring you up. One of the most alarming numbers to me in that the New York Times poll that you referenced, joy, was the 22 of people who thought that he was guilty of a crime or had done something very bad or i will and still would support him. That does confirm everything you said about the primary process and trump being the very, very likely nominee. I mean, weve seen poll after poll convey that. Im going to bring you up now. I also think what we saw in 2022 is that the American People independents, democrats, people who may turn out because its an election theyre excited about, a Midterm Election or a general election dont like this antidemocratic big lie pushing, right . And that is going to be incumbent. We all agree a public trial would be best for this but that argument, not shying away from the argument democracy versus what is representing over here, right, standing up for the values of our country, the foundations of what weve been based on, my view this is also about fighting about trumps effort to make himself the victim. He is not the victim. Everyone needs to start saying he is not the victim. The victims are shea moss and ruby freeman. Theyre the Republican Party i think you could argue. I hope i brought you up. You do. Its primary in general. Different animals. And per the indictment, the victims are the American People because one of the counts is conspiracy of the attempt to deprive the American People of the right to vote and have your vote counted. Lets go back, though, to this procedure. Talk about speedy trial procedure because that is one of the things that jack smith did say in his very brief, very matter of fact media appearance. He said were going to look for a speedy trial. How can that happen and what do you think the chances are of being able to somehow petition the Chief Justice to televise it . So let me answer about the speedy trial and then i want to talk about cameras in the courtroom because i just looked up the current rule and i im going to really bring you up on that because it said that a judge may authorize broadcasting, televising, recording or taking photographs from the courtroom and in adjacent areas during such activities in a courtroom during other proceedings or recesses between such other proceedings or the presentation of evidence for the perpetuation of the record of the proceedings, store security purposes, other purposes of judicial administration, et cetera. I believe the district of Columbia Circuit Court could authorize a camera in the courtroom. And i believe that the American Bar Association may have some interest in helping this to become real. Now, to your question about speedy trial, the Speedy Trial Act really lays out specifics of how many days you get, and how many delays you can take and which ones will count against the number of days and keep in mind that a speedy trial is for the benefit of the defendant and the American People. And in this case i would say the American Peoples interest in knowing the outcome of this case before they have to cast their ballot is so significant that it would be derelict of any judge to allow this to go. And i would point out that in watergate we indicted in march, we went to trial in september and had a verdict on january 1st. So a complicated trial involving the president as what coconspirator, yes, its different with him as a defendant but not that much different, it could involve the Attorney General, Chief Of Staff, we had multiple defendants, which complicates it and yet we were able to get it done. And thats how it happened. And in that time period we also went to the Supreme Court to get a ruling that said we had a right to the tapes, that the American People had a right to hear them. So i think we could have a trial before november and i think it could be televised. That is excellent news. Look, shes run us all the way up with the twostep process. Im coming back to you then. If that happened, what people would see in this trial to your point is a series of republicans, a series of trup loyalists. Not a Single Person here is a never trumper. None of these people were against him. He cant portray them as that. These are his people. So this trial, whenever it takes place, will be about republicans who told trump the truth and he refused to believe it or refused to act on it. Thats right. The theory of the case here does closely track the january 6th committees, the case. Actually, the piece that just went live on politico, i dont think we would have seen this indictment had it not been for the committees, the hearings and the Incredible Service they did for the American People but in terms of how they instruct the case and imcompute knowledge to trump about what he knows and so much of it is about how much he issing told from his own people, his own officials, his own supporters, that is a theory that we saw first and foremost through the committee. It has been productively, it seems, retraced here. I do think it was critical to engaging people last summer and would be critical to try to pull in some of these people who may not be inclined to just believe the governments allegations. Nothing, is you know, if you have witnesses, you are talking about people like cassidy hutchinson. You are talking about people who were working for trump and he chose himself, several people are named here. Jack smith makes the point of saying they were hired by trump, they were brought in by trump. There is people. Yeah, absolutely. That is who testified. Thats who witnessed it. They were his, people loyal until the end. Right. And they didnt leave before the election. They stayed there. They were waiting for him to get reelected. That was our hope. Then they realized, okay, this is out of control, this man is out of control and he is lying and what is happening here, the country met more to these people than one man. Claire mccaskill is absolutely correct, that needs to resonate with republicans. Looking around and saying, please, everyone knows the truth here. Lets acknowledge it and move on. I mean, the country would be in such a better place if that could just happen. Yeah. Really quickly, jill, i want to go back to you for one moment, since you brought her up so, much happy smiling in this video that we could see this trial. Talk about these other unindicted coconspirators. If you were them, one of their lawyers, if you are representing, them would you be concerned that at some point during or after at some point they might be facing indictment as well . Because their participation is described in very, very specific terms. Yes, i would. If i were one of their lawyers, i would be trying to make a proffer and make a deal. Im not sure jack smith would accept a deal because each of them is so culpable and that they would have to plead guilty and accept some Jail Sentence in order for me to accept a plea from them. That is what we did with john dean, thats what we did with jen magruder. They were crucial witnesses, but they were so complicit in the crimes it wouldve been unfair to let them get away without pleading guilty and serving a sentence. So yes, i think there will be a separate indictment of those, so that this trial is unimpeded by the complication of multi defendant cases. There is one person i think i would have to say, in some sense, has been vindicated today. That would be Merrick Garland. Ive been a very big skeptic of Merrick Garland, i think at one point i called him merrick i admit to doing that. But it is very clear that his strategy in appointing jack smith one out here. He has somebody that has got distance, distance from the doj, distance from the white house. Let me play you what he said, he had very brief remarks. Lets play them. Career men and women at the Justice Department engaged in what has become the largest investigation in our history. In november, i appointed jack smith, the special counsel, to take on the ongoing investigation, in order to underline the departments commitment to accountability and independents. Mr. Smith and his team of experienced, principled, 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 court. Jen, i think because this is so unprecedented, a former president of the United States, a president who attempted to remain in power, it is so mindboggling just as an historic matter. It just had to be someone like jack smith. It had to be someone with that kind of distance. In many ways it had to be Merrick Garland. I remember i was on the transition when joe biden nominated him. One of the things that was appealing about him was that he is allergic to politics. That warranted critiques and frustration at different times. He was playing for history here and was not going to be pressured by public pressure. That may be good for history. We will see. But that is what we are talking about here. If we take a step back from all this paper and the crazy things that make your eyeballs pop out of your head, this has never happened before. A president of the United States has never tried to overturn an election. And what is so striking about this is that it is about two months. Its not about one horrific, day a very horrific day. It is about two months. Yes, Merrick Garland is a little allergic to politics. Sometimes a negative, largely positive probably for history. He named jack smith, what is also striking to me is the Communications Person is the lack of leaking from all. This every time something comes out, there are things we learn. That is them doing their jobs. Yeah. All these days of darkness, we should feel good about the Justice Department, the Justice System working and moving the process forward. We were learning more from Donald Trumps social media feed about what was happening than we were from the doj. Yes. We were only finding, out the reason weve been on this waiting game is because he keeps saying im about to be indicted. Yes. He keeps talking. And its him that is trying to drive and be the comms around this because he wont shut up. But in this case, it has been a silent but really powerful move. This is damning. It is damning. I think the discipline around this is very, very impressive. I will say i have been quite critical of merrick, garland i was critical for much of the first two years of the administration, where i kind of felt like they were deliberately trying to avoid, quite honestly, this confrontation. It felt like, it sure. I think we will learn more in the future about whether and to what extent the committee indirectly kind of moved this forward. But i think at this point in time, having Merrick Garland as the Attorney General is an incredible asset to joe biden. He is someone i wrote a profile, at one point i spent months talking to people, nobody has anything bad to say about him, its remarkable. Nobody ever accuseism of being dishonest or less than forthright or doing anything less than what he thinks is the absolute correct thing. So ive been pulling my hair out trying to find stuff, but lets not even go there. But to have him be the front person at this point in time, it may be the best position for this case to be an over the long historical sweep. Trump will try to attack him, but he is in a sense unimpeachable, in the sense that he is so vanilla. He is not at all partisan. He is not political. And that is going to be difficult to make him the straw man here. To his point and what you said about donald trump attacking, him ive spoken to many republicans when Merrick Garland was appointed and took the job. They have the utmost respect for him. He was known as a true person of the law, well respected in Law Enforcement, the legal community, the National Security community, which is where i came from. Many of my former bosses had nothing but very good things to say about him. Yeah, jill winebanks, there could be nothing more complicated or more difficult in prosecuting a former president of the United States. Whatever donald trump has said about lock her up when he was running for president in 2016 and has continued to, you know, troll lot about how much he loved to indict hunter biden and joe biden and all the bidens. This country has not prosecuted a former president. Came very close with nixon, but didnt. Talk just about, that this sort of historic nature of trying to try to put on trial a former president of the United States. It is his story. It is his sto ry it would be more historic if he had been indicted as president , which i do believe the office of Legal Counsel is incorrect that there is no legal, Constitutional Foundation for that opinion. I argued for the indictment of nixon as president , and even more when he was the resigned president. Because all the and arguments about not indicting a sitting president , because it interferes with them doing their job, is irrelevant when they are just a private citizen. I think it was a great disservice that nixon got pardoned by his successor, president forward, and was never indicted. Because had he been, i do believe there wouldve been a stronger message to donald trump that the president is not above the law, and that you have to obey and abide by the rule of law. I am sorry that nixon wasnt and feel very sad and there is no other word for it, somber inside, that we are on this day indicting a former president , but it was sad he got elected and could have gotten reelected and could still be reelected. So it is important to get these facts out so that it doesnt happen and that our democracy doesnt bend. Well said, jill winebanks, who would know very well, which brings us to you, my friend. Joe biden is that guy, hes mr. Bipartisan. Ive had a lot of people who have expressed concerns he would pardon donald trump. What do you think . I dont know. I think he is somebody who reaches for that, reaches for that healing approach. And what i dont know what would be in his head in this moment, joy, honestly. I know how he will run the campaign. He will be going back to some of those messages from 2020 about standing up for who we are as a country. But if it comes down to it and there is a former president who is in jail, i dont know. You brought me back up, she brings me down, but we love. Our jen psyche, jill winebanks, olivia troye, and all of our guests tonight. Thank you all very. Much that is tonights reidout. State for more indictment special coverage with the great Rachel Maddow. Rachel maddow. Good evening and thank you for being with us tot