out. donald trump facing 37 counts for his handling of classified documents including willful retention of government documents, obscu obstruc documents concerning nuclear weaponry of the united states. u.s. vulnerabilities to attack. the indictment includes images of boxes stacked across mar-a-lago including a ballroom, a shower and bathroom. a storage area. donald trump accused of personally being involved in taking documents from the white house. and after authorities asked him to return them from allegedly suggesting hiding or destroying documents. also allegedly asking what if we just ignore the request? tonight, and aid former president trump also charged in the case, queues of allegedly helping to hide documents at mar-a-lago. pierre thomas tonight and our chief legal analyst don abrams and her entire teams to anybody on the gravity of the charges and what this means now in the race for president. meantime, our political team reaching out to all of the republican can
in the early days of the investigation when the fbi was trying to get access to many of these documents. she ruled for donald trump against the fbi, got overturned by a higher court, she was appointed by donald trump. so that is a big win for donald trump at least in the early stages. david: one last quick question. this could play out before the election? reporter: it absolutely could. it could be largely up to donald trump. as the defendant in a case, you have a lot more control about the speed of when the trial happens. david: dan abrams with us all day long here as well. thank you, dan. this of course will play out before the american people want to stay with a former president has been holed up your in federal court in florida at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon to answer these charges. i want to bring in our senior investigative reporter aaron katersky to my present from the federal courthouse right there in miami. aaron, take us through how this will play out on tuesday. repor
reporter: i think what jack smith was trying to show here is that this is not just a classified document case. this is a case about the most sensitive documents to the national defense and the national security. and secondly, trying to show the lengths to which the former president went to obstruct the investigation, to conceal, to lie about the documents after the fbi had subpoenaed them. david: dan, the venue. the special counsel could ve made the case for this to be handled in federal court in washington, d.c., on florida. we know this will now play out florida searchlight what we know about the judge in the case? what difference does it make, the venue, and why did the special counsel move in this direction? reporter: so i think the special counsel did it because most of the alleged crimes occurred in south florida. but this is a win for donald trump. better perspective jury pool in south florida than in washington, d.c., and in particular, the judge is at least initially ass
detail in the indictment, including all those photographs. for his part, trump spent part of the day attacking the special counsel and his wife on social media, david. david: pierre thomas leading us off or on a friday night. pierre, thank you. special counsel jack smith, as pierre reported, decided to unseal the 49 page indictment today rather than waiting until the court appearance on tuesday, fully aware of the speculation, the political discourse that would have filled that time as the american people waited to learn what he had uncovered. i want to bring in our chief legal analyst dan abrams tonight and dan, jack smith also very aware of the history made here, the weight of this moment. in fact he told the american people, you and i were on the air together when he did this come he invited them to read the indictment understand the gravity of what he uncovered and dan, jack smith also made a point, talked about the presumption of innocence. i know this struck you as was welcom