the breaking news of this historic and quite frankly damning indictment released to the public today. laying out the special counsel s case against donald trump and his gross mishandling of classified documents. given that this is the first time such actions are being taken against a former president, the special counsel made sure he came prepared with the receipts. and they could not be any more incriminating. in all, the special counsel is charging trump with 37 counts. 31 of them have to do with trump s willful retention of national defense information. otherwise known as the espionage act. these are charges related to false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding and corruptly concealing documents, as well as scheming to conceal. included in some of the charges is one of trump s closest aides, walt nada, who was also indicted. also today, we heard for the tir time from the man leading the special counsel investigation, jack smith. our laws that protect n
decried the weaponization of the justice department. and nikki haley said we should just move beyond it. long shot contender vivek ramaswami promised to pardon trump. the only ones who didn t fall in line were chris christie and asa hutchinson. both happen to be former prosecutors. the best mike pence could muster, he s deeply troubled, but no one is above the law. pence is right because people not named donald trump regularly get charged with retaining classified documents. literally just last week, a retired air force officer got three years in prison for keeping classified materials at his florida home. sound familiar? also, edward snowden was charged with espionage and reality winner went to jail for veelting the espionage act. iraq war hero david petraeus reached a plea deal for giving highly classified documents to his mistress. president clinton s national security adviser sandy berger also pleaded guilty for taking government materials from an archive. joining me is congresswom
Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who became a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state but saw his legacy tarnished when he made the case for war in Iraq in 2003, died on Monday of Covid-19 complications. He was 84.
scam, sham. you know, for him. yeah. for him. that said, i think the calendar is what one wants to look at. if you ve got mitch mcconnell and the white house counsel agreeing on two weeks and getting it done, that s not going to be witnesses and testimony. that s going to be opening arguments from each side. from the floor managers. and then closing arguments. and then closing arguments. that means the 51 votes that he knows he can count on to shut it all down get it over with quickly because the testimony itself is so damning. uncontradicted by all of the republicans in these hearings. they have dealt with process. they have dealt with conspiracy theories. but they have not been able to shake the key witnesses. one of whom had a, you know, medals on his chest as he was testifying. an iraq war hero and a current national security council
morning will be crucial. in just a few hours, gordon sondland will speak publicly. the u.s. ambassador to the european union is the only witness thus far to have spoken directly with president trump about the scheme to pressure the ukrainian president to investigate the bidens. ambassador sondland already had to amend his testimony once. and gop sources tell cnn they are concerned about what he will say today. the eu ambassador is walking a delicate tugt rope. will he say that the president directed him to demand a quid pro quo? to issue a bribe of millions of dollars in exchange for investigations? so this morning the hearings following nearly 12 hours of testimony from four witnesses. one of them lieutenant colonel alexander vindman testified about his concerns with the call and the national security risks involved. for that the iraq war hero was attacked by the white house and