a bedrock principle of the department of justice and our nation s commitment to the rule of law sets a an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone. applying those laws, collecting facts, that s what determines the outcome of an investigation. nothing more, nothing less. the words of rachel math maddow, stunningly simple words in both the indictment and from behind the podium. it was the first time we as an american public have ever heard from the special counsel notably he praised the fbi and the prosecutors on his team. rachel pointed out they have already come under vicious attack by the indicted ex-president. he encouraged all of us to read the indictment itself, an endeavor we re taking seriously. it s known as a speaking indictment, meaning it is straight forward and, frankly, gripping and dramatic. it lays out the alleged crimes trump faces. 31 counts have to do with the espionage act. we re going to unpack all of them.
the breaking news of this historic and quite frankly damning indictment released to the public today. laying out the special counsel s case against donald trump and his gross mishandling of classified documents. given that this is the first time such actions are being taken against a former president, the special counsel made sure he came prepared with the receipts. and they could not be any more incriminating. in all, the special counsel is charging trump with 37 counts. 31 of them have to do with trump s willful retention of national defense information. otherwise known as the espionage act. these are charges related to false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding and corruptly concealing documents, as well as scheming to conceal. included in some of the charges is one of trump s closest aides, walt nada, who was also indicted. also today, we heard for the tir time from the man leading the special counsel investigation, jack smith. our laws that protect n
look, it s just a bunch of guys who were moving boxes around. who knew? they didn t know what was going on here. this counters that. it s important to tell any one of your neighbors, coworkers, family members, read the facts. would you do this if you thought are you were doing something illegal? and the other thing from a national security perspective, look, every time you mention these things are moved, every body that s looking at these, handling these, eyes on, is another spill. it s another hemorrhage of classified information. and then, really, what makes me cringe is reading in the indictment the hundreds of people that traipse through mar-a-lago during the time period we re talking about. attending weddings, movie premieres, staying at the hotel, all potential people who could have had access to some of these documents. you said spill, there was a literal spill at one point and the response was, oh, my, and they took a picture of the
indictment. we ve seen things from republican members of congress. this is from republican congressman clay higgins of louisiana. president trump said he s been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. hold. our potus has this. our potus is what trump people use meaning real president of the united states. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. one over 50k, know your bridges, which means be ready when it comes to knowing about critical infrastructure. rock steady calm. that is all. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors and then this reference in military jargon to what people should be doing in
nada and employee number two. this document, this indictment attributes oh, no, oh, no, to employee number two. the line says, trump employee number two replied, oh, no, oh, no. and i m sorry, potus had my phone. i suspect potus had my phone means potus saw the picture. so i now gut it back and say oh, no, oh, no to you. very excitedly. but anyway, the document itself in the structure of this sentence, attributes the oh, no, oh, no to donald trump. to the reaction. either donald trump i think it s more plausible, but the motion is the person who is alarmed about this is donald trump. because they have the pressure. clearly, there is some amount of concern being expressed to and by employee number two about this stuff. and keep in mind, all of those people are witnesses. i want to talk about the judge real quick. we had a lot of talk, the anxiety i think we all feel about this, the one thing that s