day that will go down in american history as unimaginable, inconceivable, unthinkable, and also equally, hey, what took you so long? i am rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters with joy reid, chris hayes, ari melber. we are gonna be joining you with special coverage by lawrence or diana o donnell, stephanie ruhle, alex wagner, jen psaki, plus all the legal experts and reporters we ve come to depend on so much for our coverage of this still unfolding fairly epic story. by now we all know the basics of what is going on. what s an indictment? well, that s the prosecution laying out its charges against a defendant. that happened last week. when the public got our first view of the unsealed federal indictment of former president trump on friday. 37 federal felony counts. 31 of them under the espionage act. what s an arraignment? that s what happened today. the defendant is brought to court and essentially introduced into the legal system as a defendant. for most, that means the
people. this is now the second indictment that trump is facing since he went in office after manhattan prosecutors charged with 34 felony counts earlier this year over alleged hush money payments. and a post on his truth announcing the indictment, trump wrote the correct biden administration has informed by attorneys that i ve been indicted. i am an innocent man. tonight, trump posted a formative video repeatedly claiming that investigation is a hoax. politically motivated. they can t stop because its election interference at the highest level there is never been anything like what has happened, they figured that the way that they would stop us is by using what is called that s what this is. it s wolf warfare for the law. it s called election interference. they re trying to destroy the reputation. and they can try to win the election. joining us now is msnbc colleagues, ari melber and lawrence o donnell, also with us is laura jarrett, nbc news senior legal corresponde
to the teflon don. josh marshall hugo lowell and andrew weissmann. appreciate it. that s all in alex on this thursday night. wagner tonight starts right now, good evening, alex. chris, what a thursday. accountability, i think that is the phrase of the day. accountability. yes. again, lots of things it seemed here to for unthinkable, becoming think-able as the other theme of the last few years. in some, ways unthinkable to donald trump. as much as he knew this was coming, now that it s happened, he s in a different league. he has made history, not the kind of history that i think you want to make. thank, you my friend, as always. you bet. thank you to you at home for joining us this evening. nbc news can now report that former president donald trump has been indicted in the special counsel s investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents. the indictment was filed in federal district court in miami. trump has been summoned to appear in federal
also a resident and dear chiefs fan, former missouri senator was at the event and got herself a selfie with the president. so, congrats to clare and all the chiefs kingdom for the super bowl victory. and on that victorious note, i wish you a good night. to all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late with. me i will see you at the end of tomorrow. thank you for joining. us so we spent 21 years of spying against the united states. he did it for money and who knows what else. but they did pay, him they paid him in cash. i also paid him in diamonds. which is a nice spy movie touch. but he s putting as the race for 21 years. and then, for the next 21 years after that, he resulted in federal prison. so 21 years as a spy against america, and then 21 years and counting in prison because of its. before he died today. in prison, at the age of 79. it was stopped the presses huge national news, when they first caught in 2009. from nbc news
as much as possible, operating in the background and then disaster happens. between the potential rail strike and this accident, it just blow this whole thing open and now we are acutely aware of all the risk involved. thank you, my friend, as always. and thanks to you at home for joining us tonight. do you remember this photo? the iconic image of classified documents laid out on the floor of donald trump s mar-a-lago home after the fbi search the esophagus. the reason we have all seen this photo is because donald trump essentially forced the justice department to reveal it in a court filing after trump went to court to try to slow down the investigation. that is how we all access to the photo a summer. a filing in open court. there is literally no question as to its origin. who made the photo public, and why it was being made public, which is what made this exchange the day between senator ted cruz and attorney general merrick garland, it s why it made it a little awkward.