american history, literally. today was the very first televised hearing in that georgia case against donald trump and 18 of his allies. district attorney fani willis and her team revealed three big things about the election interference charges. first, they want to charge and try all 19 codefendants together. secondly, this trial could last for months. and thirdly, they will call more than 150 different witnesses. that means that the former president of the united states could spend a third of the next year sitting in a courtroom. in just one of his cases, while running for a second term. it is just extraordinary. and we are getting a preview of the tensions to come. two of those codefendants, trump s legal advisor sydney powell, and the so-called architect of the coup plot, kenneth chesebro, they want their trials to be separated, even though, through their lawyers, they, today, started pointing the finger at each other, essentially over who is less crazy. she was fired be
thank you so much for joining us. cnn prime time starts right now. hi, abby! hey, thank you so much. have a good night. good evening, everyone. it is shaping up to be one of the biggest criminal trials in american history. literally. today was the very first televised hearing in that georgia case against donald trump and 18 of his allies. district foreigner fani willis and her team revealed three big things. first, they want to charge and try all 19 co-defendants together. second, this trial could last four months. and third, they ll call more than 150 different witnesses. that means that the former president of the united states could spend a third of the next year sitting in a courtroom. in just one of his cases, while running for a second term. it is just extraordinary. and we are getting a preview of the tensions to come. two of those co-defendants, trump s legal adviser, sidney powell, and the so called architect, they want their cases to be separated. today they sta
you would catch them. see their demeanor. hear their testimony. look at the surveillance evidence. and make your own determination. and so the fact we could watch this hearing and we have having this discussion talking about how the attorneys are argue, how the judge responded back. that was a win for the justice system and we need more integrity so people can have trust in this trial as it plays out. that s a great point. you think about honing in on the why. why would these two people not want to be tried together? the comment from his lawyer was he was kind of the more intellectual of the two. pining about the electoral count act. he said sydney powell was more hands on. much more thought of as the master mind. she denies all of that. they don t want each other s stink on them. but if you are sydney powell, people know her from the defamation case. maybe if you are chestboro, you want a big ten foot pole. what about the other 17 including donald trump who has no
david weiss may have changed his mind at different points here? yeah, new insights over the weekend from the new york times about that internal deliberation and the hachagglin that is hovering over every decision. some on weiss s team were ready to move forward with a deal that would have no criminal charge for the president s son. they investigated potential illegal lobbying, money laundering, tax evasion and gun possession charge but at a certain point this year, they were ready to end the investigation with no criminal charges. however, things at a certain point changed. and what the times report is highlighting is the fact that that was when irs whistleblowers decided to emerge and go public with their accusations that the
collapsed plea talks between hunter biden and now the special counsel, david weiss. at the same time prosecutors are saying today that they don t believe that this deal on a gun possession charge is valid. they say it was never signed off by the probation department and therefore it was not binding, something that hunter biden s team had been pressing. still a lot more to come in this case. but still a legal shapeup and some potential new developments, we ll see, on what the judge thinks of this plea deal. phil? kara, to your second point about the latest filing, i know you ve been reporting that reading that right now. does that change where you think the dynamics are? i mean, right now this is still an issue before the judge. so she has to decide whether or not this plea deal is in effect. both sides have now laid both of their positions on the table, phil. all right. kara scannell for us. thanks so much. and thank you for joining inside politics. kr cnn news central starts