Trump indictment. Also this hour, the urgent search for the missing in the charred ruins of mauis wildfire catastrophe. The Hawaii Governor will join us live with an update on the Disaster Response as the death toll could surpass 100 at any moment. Cnn has Exclusive New Reporting on former republican legal officials siding with the Special Counsel Prosecuting Trump in the january 6th case. Ill ask a retired judge turned trump critic why he and others believe its critical for the former president to get a speedy trial. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and the United States and around the world. Im woman bliwolf blitzer, you in the situation room. Lets go right to georgia to the grand jury who may be poised to indictment donald trump. Sarah murray is just outside the courthouse where grand jurors have been hearing new testimony today. What do we know about the proceedings this hour . Reporter well, wolf, it has been a very busy day here at the Fulton County courthouse. We
overthrow the 2020 election culminated in a violent mob storming the u.s. capitol. for a few weeks, trump was an outcast. a political comeback seemed farfetched, almost impossible to imagine. and yet, thanks to his allies in congress and the maga movement on hold, donald trump has emerged here at the end of 2023 not nearly rehabilitated politician but as the undisputed leader of his party. now, trump began this year as the prohibitive favorite for the republican presidential nomination. even in january, he had a monster 20 point national lead over his closest rival, florida governor ron desantis. and in the months since, trump s lead has only widened. at this point, a rematch against joe biden appears almost inevitable. and yet, while trump s march towards the republican nomination this year was mostly interrupted, there has been for the last 12 months an x-factor that he has had to contend with, a series of criminal investigations. as the year began, trump was the subject of
department as a personal police force to pursue his critics and political enemies. here s what he said about it in an interview with uni vision last night. i could certainly happen in reverse. it could certainly happen in reverse. what they ve done is they ve released the genie out of the box, you understand that, they ve done something that nobody thought would happen. if i happen to be president and i see somebody who s doing well and beating me very badly i say, go down and indict them, mostly that would be, you know, they would be out of business, they d be out. they d be out of the election. it s all out loud now. so out loud that in a statement, a spokesperson for the trump campaign sought to walk it back and clarify trump s remarks saying the ex-president was simply highlighting the dangerous example president joe biden is setting which only makes sense if you say his conspiracy theory that the work of joe biden and not the end result of years of investigation
text messages can go a long way. what kind of timeline are we looking at for an eventual legal proceeding? well, wolf, it will depend on the scope of the case. there are public indications that it s going to be a large case. there s plusses to rico, but there s minuses and one of the minuses is that it can take a long time. now, the young thug rico prosecution that fani willis is bringing now, gang related, jury selection alone in that case has taken more than half a year. so it could be a long timeline for this and then we ll have to consider once the dust settles if there are indictments we expect in the context of the jack smith case where the special counsel is seeking a january trial. the alvin bragg case for 2016 alleged election interference through hush money, a march trial. a may trial for the mar-a-lago documents case. how does that slot into that? one other point to laura s very
date which trump s lawyers wanted. but even though cannon didn t immediately cave to trump s request, her timeframe could still prove complicated. given the political calendar. on may 20th, all but six states will have had their primary elections. meaning we will probably already know who the republican nominee for president is. and if that nominee is trump, which is very likely, then having a may trial will no doubt lead to cries of election interference and calls for further delays. but even as the twice impeached, twice indicted former president is clearly counting on that friendly judge and the friendly florida district to help him avoid conviction, he s not exactly out of the woods. especially as another indictment from jack smith s office could come at any moment. this one relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. and today, we re learning new details about what exactly the special counsel wanted to know from william russell, trump s personal aide who testified