bit later. the surrender and arraignment are two different things. in the federal system we see them sort of happen together. it remains to be seen when he ll be arraigned. i m sure we ll all be watching when he is. i hear from people, family and friends, people want to hear about lisa. we get to be going to law school essentially through all this. it s learning and i think we talk about it all the time. i just have to thank gwen fleming keys. oh, thank you, gwen. actual lawyers. to be with you is such a privilege but to cover some of the players here and i ve been
in addition to the security that we do see, there s a lot of security we don t see. we know there are plain clothes officers that are mixed among us here in this kind of judicial complex in downtown atlanta. we know they are of course checking on threats and fani willis has increased security as well, jason. thank you, blayne alexander. thank you so much for setting the scene and setting us up for tonight. let s bring in greg bluesteen, and joyce vance, msnbc legal analyst, former u.s. attorney, and professor at the university of alabama law, and gwen fleming, former district attorney of dekalb county, georgia. greg, i ll start with you. this is major. ewoo were just talking to blayne alexander about security on the ground. what is sort of the political mood right now in metro atlanta? you know, are there sort of talking points that the local republican party has been handing out to state legislators and members? are police sort of more concerned? what is the sort of feeling on
reflect real confidence in his legal defense? right, so jason, i ll answer that by saying i have had plenty of defendants during my career who started out talking just like that, tough talk. didn t do anything wrong, not pleading guilty. and you would wait and they would have the opportunity to read the indictment and to see the evidence. much like gwen is suggesting. and they would realize at some point that a plea deal was in their best interests. for instance, here. the rico statute has a five-year mandatory minimum, but the sentence can be much longer than that. it depends on how the judge evaluates the case at sentencing. it s very likely we ll see some charges against the former president that will potentially carry a lesser sentence. a normal defendant, a typical defendant might reach the point where they decided it was in their best interests to plead to one of those lesser charges. donald trump, i think, is constitutionally incapable of pleading guilty because to do that, he
alexander about security, but you know, are there worries that people are running by and chanting this at the courthouse? is it just letters and emails going to d.a. willis office? where is the racial component on the ground or is it hidden and only directed at the people directly working on the case? i think it s the latter. there s a reason there s such high security at the courthouse behind me, a reason why streets are closed, why courtroom staffers have been told to work virtually, because they are worried about threats and violence. and there s also a reason why even the state capitol is going to be the gates are going up around the state capitol. workers at the state georgia house have been told to work from home. they re taking precautions because this isn t new, but i think the intensity has ratcheted up to a new level surrounding the potential indictment of the former president. and gwen, i don t want to take you down an unhappy memory lane, but on the scale of sort of
hear the evidence, but there are no guaranteed in that regard, and this grand jury might decide for any number of reasons ranging from the mundane like someone needs to go home and tend to a child or fix a meal, to something complicated, like they do want more time before they vote on this most serious of indictments. gwen, you are a former prosecutor down there, you know the sort of legal system in georgia better than most. when you look at a case like this, and you look at what fani willis has been doing, can know this may sound simplistic, but how big a squad are we talking about? is this fani willis with just a couple assistants or sort of the entire legal apparatus of the state and the county involved in this? because as she mentioned, this has been a 2-year process. that s a lot of resources for a state to be involved in for something that the entire sort of national zeitgeist rests upon. how wig is the group of people working on this case that may finally get an indictment