reimbursing cohen. as we know that the prosecutor certainly on the federal side has laid out a lot of that evidence in connection with michael cohen s plea deal on illegal campaign contributions a lot of this documentary evidence has already come out, but they may have more we understand that d.a. bragg obviously, you know, spoke to a lot of different witnesses there was a lot of different testimony before the grand jury. there may be other things we just haven t seen yet. and barbara, trump s lawyer joe ta ka pino was on the today show. i think it s all going to rise and fall on the issue of this settlement agreement, a v and how it applies to campaign finance laws. could this be a preview of trump s defense here it seems like his goal is to kind of float some trial blues out there and see what their
kelly o donnell. reporters actually tried to ask the president about his indictment what was his response? reporter: well, i was among the group of reporters who were on the south lawn earlier this morning when the president was leaving the white house heading to mississippi for that tornado damage we asked him in a couple of different ways he declined to comment we ve just learned from the white house a new detail they tell us that the white house learned about the trump indictment from media reports and then it was chief of staff jeff zients who briefed him on what they had learned. it was not something they got any advanced notice about or inside heads-up from alvin bragg s team in new york they learned just like the rest of us. when we were talking to the president this morning, this was an opportunity for him to speak on this issue and the fact that he addressed reporters at all was a decision we were not even certain he
has not charged the former president or any of his family members with those other fraud offenses despite criticism from some former lawyers in his office who said it was a good case it came as a bit of a surprise, frankly, when we learned that bragg had revived this separate hush money case, which had been dropped by federal prosecutors and also by his predecessor. as this investigation has heated up, officials say bragg has been the subject of dozens of credible threat, and he s now the first prosecutor ever to have indicted a former president, jose. and ken, we re of course going to be hearing a whole lot more about the judge trump is expected to appear before next week what do we know about him? yeah, marshan last year ran the trial of the trump organization which was convicted of tax fraud and presided over the guilty plea of allen weiss weisselberg. he was born in bogota, colombia, moved to the u.s. when he was 6. he worked his way through baruch
not tolerate this injustice and the house of representatives will hold alvin bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account, and of course we already know, jose, that three different house committees, the administration committee, the oversight committee, and the judiciary committee have engaged with the manhattan district attorneys. they want alvin bragg to come for a transcribed interview. they ve asked for documents. it s not clear, though, that they have the authority to do so, and the district attorney s office just this morning responding to these committees saying that they will not allow their request to interfere with their prosecution of the former president. so there s no doubt that members of congress at this point, jose are going to be sitting objn th sidelines in this dispute. they seem to be actively involved in it of course they have nothing to do with the prosecution itself it s really about the court of public opinion that you see both republicans and democrats
now from capitol hill. also joining us is michael steele former rnc chairman and an msnbc political analyst what kind of reaction have we been seeing from members it s really fallen along party lines as you might expect, jose first, democrats applauding the efforts of the manhattan district attorney asking for the process to play itself out and then pointing out that in their minds this is an indication that no one is above the law, including a former president of the united states. and it s, of course, the exact opposite reaction from republicans, particularly house republicans that were quick to rally around the former president, attack alvin bragg as engaging in a political prosecution, and then even taking it a step further saying that house republicans in particular will find a way to hold him accountable this is what the house speaker, kevin mccarthy said yesterday. he said the american people will