they just have to put sufficient evidence for what you are telling us. i d love for you to reflect on that, as i remind our viewers here joining us from the east coast, we are not following at least the beginning initiation of grand jury voting and that trump election case in georgia. yeah, so, ari, you raised some very important points. so, number one, you do not have to have a unanimous, quote, verdict reached by grand jurors. as i said, in the state of georgia, you need to have at least 12 of the 23 grand jurors that have sat through the presentment of the evidence to be able to put a charge through. number two, another critical point, the burden of proof in a criminal case when you go to a trial is beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. but the burden on the prosecution in this instance instanin the presentment of evidence and the grand jury, is just probable cause. as we know, probable cause is a much lower standard. and so, to your point, not only could not all
always possible, they won t reach that number. that also is a legal process we would learn about, because they would return a notable, basically, no charges. that s what we are going to learn. we ve got our coverage coming. we ve got rachel joining us shortly. andrew weissmann is here with me in the newsroom. and i don t mean to be a broken record, but i try to be very clear that we are in the shank of the story, we are in the moment of this story, but we can t get ahead of what s coming. so we want to be very clear about that. with regard to this grand jury process, which is somewhat different in georgia. we were reminiscing about how it starts with an investigative grand jury, and then it becomes this more traditional grand jury, and then we have been hearing about how it s a little more open, a little more chatty, perhaps compared to other places. certainly, from your time as a federal prosecutor, what is on your mind tonight as you watch this process play out? i am very focused o
charges that were related to, say, one individual or more than one individual, that wallets to a small number of charges, or a large number of charges. we know from the grand jury process that basically, this is the instrument of charging. we heard a lot about the earlier special purpose grand jury, that was the investigation side. if you want to simplify it, what s been leading up until tonight, you had a process of a local system for grand juries, investigators or police. and now we are in the d.a. prosecution side. but this grand jury, basically, it s going to be presented with these potential charges. and it s either going to vote yes. and all grand juries in america have a relatively low standard, that is to say you don t have to prove the whole case. you re not going to be beyond reasonable doubt it s much lower standard. they can say either yes to go forward, or they can vote no, they don t think it s meeting that standard, and they also say no to those charges. it s definitel
moment, but with the grand jury voting, we hope we are able to answer that soon, which is white senate ricky news tonight, is how these charges are being presented. for the recent example, jack smith pro, everyone recalls that you had what is called the speaking indictment, because it had a narrative about defending donald trump. and it had six unnamed coconspirators, none of whom were indicted. we just don t know yet what they are presenting is gonna go in a number of directions, and involve for example a focus on potentially donald trump as a target, and deal with other people later or not at all. or whether it could happen to more of those people. the reference was made earlier, and i wanted to bring robert in on this as well, as we are all kind of doing the coverage together. the reference was made earlier regarding that leaked document, that case information document, and i m just curious, robert, without using that document to advance the news, because we have been very careful a
you continue to do these threats, i m moving the trial date up, because i cannot risk having the integrity of my process flip that away. how long do you think this voting is going to take tonight? well, a grand jury, usually it only takes 12 to 23, and that s it can be fairly fast. but if there are multiple defendants, if there is a, you know, very, very lengthy charge, they have to read all of that. and then, they have to vote as to each defendant, as to each charge. so if you have ten defendants we were discussing this earlier. six unindicted coconspirators, that will be different if this was five, ten individuals. we just don t know right now. exactly. let s say you have 15 people. and you have 20 charges. they really have to focus on each one. however, if they have really listened to the evidence, they may be able to do that relatively quickly. but it does take an individual determination. you want that. so, that could take a little bit of time. yeah, as we continue t