until charging donald j trump with felony violations, to national security laws, as well as participating and a conspiracy to obstruct justice. the united states of america versus donald j trump. we have one set of laws in this country. and they apply to everyone. tonight, the stunning 49 -page indictment. 37 criminal counts. secret national security documents. strewn around his country club, onstage in a ball room. on the floor in the bathroom. a conspiracy to hide them from the feds. the lies he told to cover it up. rachel maddow, lawrence o donnell, ari melber, joy-ann reid, alex wagner, andrew weissmann, and jen psaki are here on msnbc s special coverage of the second indictment of donald trump. good evening from new york. welcome back to our special coverage. i m chris hayes here at 30 rock with the whole team. as well as the great and the good rachel maddow who is joining us remotely on this historic day. and unprecedented, is an understatement. 37 count i
witnesses expected to be heard by this grand jury. amid reports that the former president was told he is a target of the investigation. there s just more and more signs that the case is coming to fruition. then, first christy, now pence. well attacking the front runner have ever any effect on a republican electorate? anyone who asks someone else to put them over the constitution should never be president of the united states again. plus, new evidence of the ongoing threat to democracy from an old trump world figure. all we have to do, claudia, is find 11,000 plus votes. and halted flights, cancel the games, and tens of millions breathing toxic air. david wallace wells on the unmistakable consequences of not doing enough to combat man made climate change. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i m chris hayes. we have had an absolute whirlwind of new developments today in the federal criminal special counsel investigation into donald trump s misha
trump s legal team went to the justice department to meet with the one and only jack smith. remember, just two weeks ago, trump s lawyers sent an official letter to attorney general merrick garland asking for a chance to make their case. the attorney general was not at today s meeting, we don t know everything that was discussed. but the washington post reports this, people familiar with the matter say trump s lawyers asked the department of justice not to charge the former president. earlier, former federal prosecutor andrew weissmann said this meeting is a sign of what s to come. there is no reason to have the meeting if there weren t going to be potential charges. when you look at what the facts are, it would actually be a violation of the rule of law for donald trump, not to be charged. not long after, his lawyers left the department of justice, donald trump himself posted this on his social media platform, quote, how can doj possibly charge me, who did nothing wrong,
so, he is just as close to trump today as he has ever been. but a witch described his granary appearance as quote, fulfilling a legal obligation, he also criticize the investigation halves quote a deeply troubling effort to get donald trump. it comes just one day after the new york times reported former trump chief of staff mark meadows testified in jack smith s investigations. according to two people briefed on the matter, thousands of secret service agents have been subpoenaed, or appeared before the washington grand jury in the classified documents investigation. here is a former federal prosecutor and member of trump s legal team during his first impeachment robert gray, summed a whole lot of these things up. typically an independent counsel investigation as i am familiar with, you bring people in who are the eyes and ears of what is happening around the president wore former president. so, those are the tied up to prepare a case for trial, so suggest that jack smi
but at least they have, like, i don t know it s nicer there generally. what a day. thank you, my friend. and thanks to you at home for joining us this evening. tonight we have new reporting which confirms something that up to this point we d only suspected. former president donald trump is officially a target of the criminal investigation of alleged mishandling of documents at mar-a-lago. that news reported first today by the guardian. multiple outlets are now reporting federal prosecutors notified trump in a letter that he is the target. now, nbc news has not independently verified those reports, but donald trump is the person who allegedly took those classified documents from the white house and then refused to comply with the justice department s order to return them. so if anyone in this case is going to be targeted for potential criminal charges, it is probably donald trump. for his part trump today posted a caps lock-heavy statement arguing being the target of an invest