be successful. you know, understand this is an unusual situation. in an ordinary course, you would expect the attorney general, unless there is some extraordinary reason not to, to endorse the charging decision of the special counsel. it suggests, to me, they think the special counsel s decision is a foregone conclusion, which means the only avenue left to pursue is whether or not the attorney general will authorize the prosecution. that is a significant moment in american history. i mean, i guess maybe there s lots of significant moments. it is a significant moment. as i have confronted in my own past, the decision about whether or not to charge a sitting or former president of the united states is not a little deal. there are two people in the united states who are subject to election by all the people, the president and vice president. he is a candidate now for office again, that raises substantial questions. we could, be as a country, on the cusp of a very significant series of d
saying violates his free speech, and calling election interference. joining the table is one of trump s attorneys and the first impeachment trial, robert ray. he is the former head of the office of the independent counsel. maggie, i want to start with the timing here. this is very significant. we knew this could land smack dab in the middle of this next presidential campaign. now we know it is right after super tuesday happens, very significant time for trump. this is not the timing the trump team wanted to see. remember, there was going to be a lot of pretrial motions, an effort to get these charges dismissed, assuming they go ahead. this is when the trial is we ve never seen anything like this. i have no idea how this plays politically. we know that, let alone the bigger issue is a criminal trial, and the president,
going after him. if they can go after him, they can go after me. that is the verbiage people use. maggie raised the possibility, robert, this could and even before a trial. it could end in a dismissal of the charges. what do you think are the prospects? there will be a full set of motions that will be filed in the before the state court, and, of course, in june. there is the fact, is first substantive appearance in federal court with regard to removal, i know some of characterize that as a long shot. i have to say, i ve looked at the federal removal statute for criminal cases, it is broad enough to encompass things like what the former president is arguing, that he has federal defenses in connection with a state prosecution. it ll be interesting to see how a federal judge handles that, and no matter who wins or loses on that decision, it is going to be appealed. on something this significant, you can expect, like everything else that s involved, the former president, it s not g
as the leading republican presidential candidate for 2024 on the right, that s his safe space. that s mar-a-lago, where he railed against the charges. as we said, attacked the judge, the judges family attacked the district attorney who is prosecuting him. so let s bring in cnn political analyst in new york times senior political correspondent maggie haberman. it was. it was great to follow your tweets in real time last night as as a former president was speaking. i thought it was so interesting that you said this is the most united we ve seen republicans around trump since prior to january, 6th and the insurrection? yeah i mean, i ll give you an example. the new york post front page this morning. the new york post has been attacking donald trump since the midterms and today, uh , they chose they choose donald trump over alvin bragg. right and so i think you re going to see a lot of that because so much of our politics now is about who you are against versus what you are for now. is thi
clear exactly what the other the underlying crime that this relates to is. but when you read that statement of fact, there were so many things that happened that we had forgotten about. i had forgotten that amy the national enquirer. paid a doorman who had made what turned out to be a false allegation against trump. but buried in there is this fact that david pecker went to the white house, and trump thanked him for his help during the campaign. it was a reminder that this case, you know, there s been a lot of focus on michael cohen, who is clearly the key witness and brought the bulk of i suspect documents, texts, you know, testimony. but there are other pieces that support what michael cohen is saying. and i think that david peckers testimony. remember he was the first witness this grand jury heard from. he was one of the last witnesses they heard from. they brought him back. i think he will be really key as well. fascinating. um thank you very much, maggie. we appreciate it. all rig