has just happened tonight for the first time ever, former president of the united states has been indicted by a federal grand jury. donald john trump charged with seven counts in the classified documents case. this is a special edition from new york. i m anderson cooper. here in washington, i m kaitlan collins. in keeping with his reality tv roots, the former president preempted any justice department announcement of the charges against him in a series of posts on his social media network. in one just a few moments ago, he wrote, quote, i have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday at 3:00 p.m. he goes on to say he never thought it would possible that such a thing like this could happen, then drifts into boasting about how he won all the votes in the presidential election, which we know is not true. he also wrote in all caps, quote, i am an innocent man. kaitlan joining us now. our senior justice department department correspondent evan pere
receiving from the texas billionaire and republican billionaire donor harlan crow, all in the name of hospitality. so, what did justice thomas and his 2022 financial disclosure claim? we are going to have to wait a little longer to find out, because justice thomas has requested a 90-day extension. . that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. and now it is time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. good, evening lawrence. good evening, alex. does this mean that i have to disclose every time that out britons me flowers? well every time? the 600 dollar bouquets you get weekly should probably be disclosed. the smaller i am prepared and the corsage s that you get may skate under the disclosure limits. i m prepared to disclose right now all of the flowers i have received in my entire life, which i believe is exactly zero. i will change that. i am going to change that is going to change. you don t have to there you go. no, i m going
developments just coming in in the last 90 minutes or so, including the huge shake-up involving trump s defense team. about 90 minutes ago we learned two of his attorneys resigned. they were part of the team that met with jack smith on monday and trusty has been defending the former president on tv nearly every day since, including this morning. he will be represented by todd blanche. we learned trump is not the only one being charged. he has learned that his former valet is facing charges. he was a military valet in the white house. appearing to confirm a report in the wall street journal and remembered that he had come under scrutiny under shifting accounts of whether or not he had moved boxes of documents at the former president s urging. in the last hour, nbc news has confirmed that judge aileen cannon will be overseeing the case. it caused months of delay for prosecutors after the mar-a-lago search. decisions that were ultimately overturned in a scathing ruling by
stretched for five years. and the source told the fbi about these conversations in june 2020. that s right as joe biden was wrapping up the democrat nomination. the burisma executive told the fbi s confidential source that burisma had to pay the biden administration for help getting rid of the ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating burisma for corruption. quote: 5 million for one biden, 5 million for the other biden, the burisma executive told the confidential human source. now, people who have seen the document tell us that the $5 million payments were a kind of retainer agreement that burisma had with the biden administration do deal with a number of issues. one of which was getting rid of this prosecutor. other issues burisma needed biden s help with was help with oil deals. now, the executives said they needed to pay joe biden because hunter was quote, unquote, dumb and couldn t get much done by himself. now, people who have seen this document say it looks like a pay
his ton aides here in bedminster, new jersey. we learned today he is facing 37 felony charges for his handling of classified documents after leaving the white house and in some cases prosecutors say he showed those documents to people who should not have seen them and in one case he is accused of showing a plan of attack put together for him by the department of defense. our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the united states and they must be enforced. violations of those laws put our country at risk. special counsel jack smith announced the first federal criminal case ever against a former u.s. president. the federal felony charges trump faces include willfully retaining national defense information, withholding and concealing documents. making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. the former president calls the indictment the box hoax and smith a deranged lunatic. they can t stop because it s elec