Staff, mark meadows, and his postelection attorney, Rudy Giuliani. They are accused of engaging in a conspiracy to commit crimes intended to reverse trumps loss in georgia in 2020. The 98page indictment lists 13 State Charges against trump himself including racketeering as well as false statements. Prosecutors claim trump and his codefendants, quote, refused to accept that trump lost and knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election. District attorney fani willis wants the trial to start within six months. And unlike in Federal Court that trial could be televised. Lets begin at the courthouse in atlanta with cnns sara murray. And sara, this is a much more sprawling case both in terms of the number of defendants but also the nature and scope of the charges than what we saw in the Special Counsels case. Help lay it out for us. Reporter yeah, i think thats absolutely right. In these other federal cases we have seen donald trump largely charge
Veteran Former Mueller prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, seem right there back at work Andrew Weissmann. We are teeing off his expertise and legal analysis in his msnbc podcast with mary mccord who is also with us tonight. That is right here on your screen prosecuting donald trump. Before we get in any further, i want to begin with an open question to you that i think is on a lot of peoples minds in all fairness, can defended trump get a fair trial with these primaries approaching . Great question. I would broaden that question out. I would say can the government and the defendant get a fair trial . The answer to that is yes, that is going to put a lot of pressure on the judge in the d. C. Case, in the florida case, in the manhattan case. Its remarkable that were talking about three separate criminal cases and maybe even another one. But its important to know that both sides are need her entitle to a fair trump affair trial. And ultimately what the judge needs to do make sure that a
Special counsel jack smith was ever a serious lawyer, he lost that distinction tonight. He now has the sole dysfunction of being a political hack. The attack on this nations capitol on january 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of democracy, the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment. Laura well by listening to this guy you would think that trump himself was smashing through the glass at the capitol that day. That was one of the most demogog would assume that trump was alleged to have carried out the capitol riot. This is the criminalization of disinformation in order to get a conviction he will have to use material in of in my view is clearly protected by the First Amendment. Laura now this case should never survive a motion to dismiss, a motion of summary judgment, obama judge ever do the right thing, i want to remind you s
It is described in the indictment, fuelled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a Bedrock Function of the us government, the nations process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. The men and women of Law Enforcement who defended the us Capital Onjanuary The 6th are heroes. They are patriots and The Very Best of us. They did notjust defend a building, or the people sheltering in it they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that defined the United States. Since the attack on our capital the Department Ofjustice Has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment. Our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury o
The first one is Conspiracy To Defraud the United States. Second is the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. And then the conspiracy against rights. Thats, of course, the Voting Rights of u. S. Citizens around the country. Now, ill read you just a part where the Special Counsel describes what theormer president is accused of dog here. It says that the defendant spread lies, that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false. And the defendant knew that they were false. But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate. According to the prosecutors, wolf, the former president disregarded the advice of all of his appointed officials, people inside his own government, his experts, people from the Justice Department, people from the intelligence community, people from the Homeland Security department, all of whom were telling him that there was no s