Donald trumps legal team responds, accusing the Special Counsel of going after trumps First Amendment rights. And now both sides are facing a new deadline. Brand new exclusive reporting. U. S. Officials just briefed on the ukrainian counteroffensive are now calling the progress being made against russia, sobering. Not in a good way. The challenges that ukraine is facing. And a violent brawl in alabama goes viral. A group of white boaters accused of jumping a black Security Guard and then a fullblown fight escalated on the river front. Warrants are now filed as demands for justice grow. Im omar jimenez with kate bolduan and john berman. Cnn news central starts right now. Special counsel jack smith and Donald Trumps legal team now face a 3 00 p. M. Deadline today to respond to the judge over seeing the 2020 election case. At issue now is how much and under what conditions evidence can be publicly disclosed ahead of this historic trial. Trumps legal team not surprisingly is fighting for l
cnn s nick valencia is live outside the courthouse in atlanta. nick, i think it s no secret duncan isn t the biggest fan of trump. he s testified in this case before. but what could this grand jury be hoping to soon learn from duncan? reporter: that s right, omar. duncan did testify in front of the special purpose grand jury. now the fulton county grand jury wants to hear from him. the republican has been a harsh critic of former president trump. and while he was lieutenant governor, he was the president of the georgia state senate, the same state senate where former trump attorney rudy giuliani appeared in front of three times to spread election conspiracy theories and election interference lies. duncan has called those meetings unofficial and said they were unsanctioned and even gone so far to call them an embarrassment. listen to him last night on cnn. yeah. i ll be there to answer the facts as i know them and to continue this process of trying to discover what actually happened
election. but bernie kerik yesterday, he spoke to the special counsel s office for about five hours. and upon leaving, his attorney said they have a lot of questions about what the giuliani team was doing. giuliani is a coconspirator in that indictment against donald trump. he s not charged at this time, but clearly the special counsel still has questions and a reason to be convening that grand jury today in the courthouse behind me. kate? katelyn polantz, glad you re there. thank you. omar? and to georgia now, where this morning the grand jury is weighing whether trump will be indicted for a fourth time this year. they are seeking more testimony. former lieutenant governor jeff duncan said he was subpoenaed last week by the jury and will testify this month. just last knight the republican called trump s current attacks on the legal system erratic and unmoored from the truth. that s for trump s 2020 find the votes call to georgia secretary of state, duncan describes it as dangerous
convicted there. we re a long way from that. i do want to ask, all the things we re seeing this week, and by the end of the week we ll figure out how important they are or not, but one of the things that has come out are the statements that trump is making on social media, including the one where he said if you come after me, i will come after you. the washington post, aaron blake raised this question. it seemed like a good one. what constitutes witness tampering? if you come after me, i ll come after you. trump also went after mike pence on social media. pence is going to be a witness. this is art not science. this is one of those areas ultimately it s in the eye of a judge or if there s an official charge of witness tampering a jury. the rule is or a witness. you can t say something that is intended to influence or intimidate a witness against you. of course, that has to be counterbalanced against the first amendment statement. and this particular statement, if you go after , i l
case. at issue now is how much and under what conditions evidence can be publicly disclosed ahead of this historic trial. trump s legal team not surprisingly is fighting for looser rules around that than what the prosecutors are requesting. trump s team now claim in a new filing that prosecutors are on a politically motivated campaign to restrict trump s first amendment rights. now the judge appears to want to put this to bed asap, saying she wants to hold a hearing to settle the issue before the end of the day friday. adding to this now, cnn has learned that this man, trump ally, bernie kerik, has now met with jack smith s team as well. the former new york city police commissioner, long-time associate of rudy giuliani, he coordinated with giuliani during the contentious post-election period trying to investigate election fraud. and now he s speaking to the special counsel. let s get to it. cnn s katelyn polantz is outside the federal courthouse in