it s march 31, 2023. we are reporting on the first filing in the prosecution of former president donald trump. you may not have seen this yet it s new it s formalized by a court document that lists this case for the first time, the people of the state of new york versus donald j. trump, defendant what you see on your screen we have highlighted the key word there is actually a first for all of mr. trump s legal scuffles and civil cases, which end in payments, not prison, even if you lose this is the first time he has been on the other side of the government the people of the state of new york versus this criminal defendant. we have this new order from a judge. it marks the formal opening of this case file it notes the indictment which is called a true bill you see that there it was returned by the grand jury think of the words true bill as equivalent legally to indictment or charges under that piece of legal terminology or jargon, we learn there is a true bill, there are
down the rhetoric, despite a wave of violent threats against law enforcement. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, august 15th. a lot has happened since we got off the air friday, so since we finished coverage friday, we learned the search warrant for mar-a-lago revealed former president trump is being investigated for possible violations of the espionage act, tied to the mishandling of national defense information or classified material. now, according to the fbi, 11 sets of classified records were seized from trump s home, including some marked as top secret, meant only to be available in special government facilities. two other laws were also cited as a basis for the warrant pertaining to removing, destroying, or concealing records and obstruction of justice. according to the search warrant for mar-a-lago, agents were allowed to search trump s office, all storage rooms, and all other rooms available to trump, his staff, or anywhere documents could be
equivalent legally to indictment or charges under that piece of legal terminology or jargon, we learn there is a true bill, there are charges. a judge authorizing the d.a. to publically acknowledge that yesterday. again, you see this. we got this today. it was formally filed in the court system yesterday i will explain why this is important. you see the date at the top, march 30, 2023 this is new. this is formal this is real now, this ruling was not technically public yesterday but it was legally implied we know that because a d.a. cannot legally discuss a sealed indictment without judicial approval as the d.a. contacted trump s lawyers to arrange for his booking, which we have been hearing about, and word appeared to have started to leak out, we can see what the d.a. did, which is by the book the d.a. asked the judge overseeing the new case for
that is a crime that doj takes really seriously. it goes to the heart of what the department of justice does. yeah, can you help me can you help me out on this one quickly? of course, we re finding out now that they have surveillance footage that shows the removal of boxes from storage room. this is just reporting. we don t know if the reporting is accurate or not, but it certainly lines up with this investigation and the way it s broken out. but the doj contacted trump. trump s people apparently moved things out of the storage area, according to the reporting. then a lawyer signed a document, an assurance to the doj that they d returned all of the classified material. that ended up being a lie. does that stick with the lawyer, or is that on donald trump? because the lawyer was, of course, signing the document for donald trump as his legal
shut down after the times contacted alpha bank s representatives, but before the newspaper contacted trump. max, who s one of the computer scientists, an alias, says that shows a human interaction. that is pretty weird. i mean, what more evidence do you need? it s very, very obvious. and it s really razor here, the fact we ve still not been able to rule out the idea that was a covert communication channel no one has come forth with a plausible explanation for why this is happening, why it s one of three organizations communicating with the trump server in the months leading up to the election is completely remarkable. i think the fact that frank s story got overlooked or criticized as much as it did and the fact that now it s being revisited and you have the editor of the new york times saying that there, you know, was