potentially bring together into a case, if they are still planning ongoing to the grand jury and asking them to approve an indictment. it is notable that at one point, trump was opposed to this meeting. now he says it was productive. reporter: right. so at first, donald trump was telling his lawyers or those around him, our sources, that he didn t want them to do a meeting like this. they did one the last time the special counsel indicted him. it didn t desuede the justice department from bringing a case. in this situation, trump appeared to be of the belief that it wouldn t change anything. this was already a done deal. the justice department had been working for quite a long time on a potential case here, had indicated he was a target, but it is one things that happened at the end of an investigation. social media today.ize it on
and the man who could be prepping a second indictment tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. the grand jury in that probe is meeting as we speak. sources tell us that trump s attorneys hope today s meet would delay any potential indictment. katelyn polantz is outside the courthouse in washington, d.c. for us. and also with us is election lawyer ben ginsburg. katelyn, what did we learn about this meeting between trump s attorneys and jack smith? reporter: we re getting a little bit more detail about what happened in that meeting. according to kaitlan collins, the attorneys for donald trump, who went to that meet ing after receiving that warning from the justice department that donald trump was very likely to be indicted, they went in there not to argue with special counsel jack myth about the facts that he has gathered or to learn about the facts or to argue the case itself, but rather a broader idea of presenting an
argument about indicting a f former president of the united states. someone that they believe, if he is facing an indictment now, could cause turmoil in the political environment across the country. and so that is one of the things that was coming out of this meeting. another thing coming out of this meeting is there wasn t a clear indication given to the trump defense lawyers about impactly what was going to happen next if there was going to be an indictment, what the potential timing of that would be. all of that is in flux. we are here at the federal courthouse because we are closely watching a grand jury that has worked for months and months not just with special counsel jack smith s pros prosecutors, but generally on what happened after the 2020 election, what happened on and leading up to january 6th. they have heard from witnesses from inside the white house. people as high up as vice president pensmike pence, who h those direct conversation cans with donald trump. all of this i
ut o a statement saying, my attorneys had a productive meetinwith the doj this morning explaining in detail that i did nothing wrong was advised and an indictment of me would only further destroy our country. no indication of notice was given during the meeting. very close to the read out we have gotten from our own source here s at cnn. please standby. ben, i m curious to get your perspective on that reporting. that trump s lawyers went in there not talking about the facts of the case or to seek what the special counsel was considering charging trump for, but to present the argument that indicting a former president over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election w08d bring about political chaos. what do you make of that? one of the things we have known is the trump lawyers are worried about not knowing all the evidence that the justice department has. so going in and arguing the facts at this point would
what happens next? how would we find out if donald trump is indicted? an announcement by the special counsel? does anybody know? reporter: we don t know when and if it s going to happen. or in the come ing days, but the are basically two ways that this can go. the grand jury can be asked to approve that indictment. they could have it go through the court system stamped by a judge. then it goes into the judicial process. it could become public quite soon after that. there is a way to do it that way. but the other option is that the justice department could want to keep things confidential for various reasons. and perhaps think would want to give donald trump and his team a little bit of time to make some arrangements. that is a possibility and that is how things went in florida where the grand jury was in all day. it felt like a quiet day.