ari melber starts right now. i m glad i let you go because i remember you have your own show to anchor. thank you. our thanks to nicolle wallace and the whole team there doing this cover nl. we continue the breaking coverage of the first ever federal indictment of a former president. today the justice department unsealed an indictment of defendant donald trump of 37 counts. we re covering this historic and unprecedented development with our legal experts who have been pouring over this 44-page indictment since it was first unsealed this afternoon. the nation heard from special counsel jack smith for actually the first time ever today. a prosecutor known for his work and today his actions, indicting the former president after about seven months on the job. and he spoke clearly and concisely about this indictment and national security crimes. today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. trump with felony violations over national security laws, conspiracy to obstruc
We are live in atlanta. We want to welcome our viewers here and around the United States right now. Im George Howell. Newsroom starts. Its 5 00 a. M. On the u. S. Coast. The u. S. President is set to take the stage again in a few hours at an annual gathering of conservatives, better known as cpac. This is the first time we will hear from him after he returns from kim jongun in vietnam. That summit ended abruptly without the two side reaching a deal. While it was taking place the president s reputation was taking a beating in congress and the man saying the most unflattering things, his former personal attorney and sellstyle fixer Michael Cohen. Cohen will be on capitol hill in a closed door session. There is this. Congressional investigators have questions following a New York Times report. It says President Trump insisted his soninlaw and adviser Jared Kushner receive a top secret clearance despite objections of officials. Mr. Trump denied he was involved. A lot to cover here. We get
through stuff like, oops, uh-oh, there s documents which our boss has to say we either have to pretend doesn t exist, a lie or move or destroy a separate crime. the doj said this was not them going rogue but at trump s direction. nauta had denied knowledge of the documents. the fbi which is part of what jack smith went out of his way to praise today the work of law enforcement, they questioned him, he got the receipts. really if you went to the max and technically wouldn t go this high in sentence but technically up to 20 years in prison for some of those counts. maya, this is a new character here late in the season s ark, and yet a pivotal one it would seem. this is walt nauta comes out in this indictment like matthew calimari and weisselberg and the henchman, always around,
him and his businesses what the wall street journal reporting new york prosecutors are reportedly investigating whether the one-time body guard to the former president, a guy named matthew calimari got tax-free fringe benefits. the journal citing people familiar with the investigation. nbc news reached out to the trump organization, no response and not independently confirmed that reporting. the journal notes calimar nor anyone from the trump org is accused of wrong-doing. new today an fbi agent acknowledges in a court filing trump backers talked about a revolution before january 6th and as it relates to the insurrection, the justice department has released this video showing somebody accused of leading the proud boys in the insurrection. with me now investigative reporter for the wall street journal rebecca ballhouse who broke the story on the investigation into the former president s ex-body guard and
national security and justice correspondent ken dilanian. rebecca, tell us what this means and what you learned as it relates to the former president. so what we ve learned is new york prosecutors are investigating whether matthew calimari, the chief operating officer at the trump organization received tax-free fringe benefits as part of his employment at the trump organization. we know this is part of their larger investigation into whether the company and its employees illegally avoided paying taxes on such perks, so according to people familiar with the investigation, we re told that in the last couple of weeks, both callima ri and his son who also works at the company were advised by prosecutors they should get their own lawyer and previously represented by a lawyer also representing other trump organization employees. while this doesn t mean that