the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts right now manhattan grand jury voted t indict john j trump on thursda for his role in paying hus money to a porn star today is the first day of the rest of don trump s life this is a monumental, historic importance. before tonight, president in this country were - now you are seeing citize trump being treated the same way that anyone else would regardless of the active o former president he s got to be photographed fingerprinted, he s got to appear before a. judge i believe that donald right now is petrified this is one of his biggest fears. tonight he is calling the indictment, quote, political persecution. the first thing the lawye tells you when you are indicte for somebody or charged with something s shutout. he does not have a good defense, his defense will be a reliance on politics, it wil only get uglier from thi moment on. get ready, stop on your legal seatbelt, we are going forward as a country that is goi
this may be the least importan of the things that donald trum is under investigation for and has been under investigation for. he is a person who has, for th first time in our history, blocked the peaceful transfe of power worked with his allies, an lieutenants to overturn an election a free and fair election and to falsely claim fried whe he was advised otherwise that is perhaps his most serious matter that he is unde investigation for. the second, and what she i also under investigation, is a case that you and i would be as we said many times, you and i would have been handcuffed and in jail the day after ou homes were searched. classified records were foun within them, after we have bee subpoenaed to return all o them so yes, this is a surprise for the reasons of timing. and it s a surprise for th reasons of significance. when you get a case, against again, for the first time in
keep the temperature down, he got to not talk, and he has go to, i think, do a really thorough job - which is the process by just electing the jury. clare, we have long memories before you are a senator, yo two or a brilliant legal min and you still are. neil, what do you think th most important thing that we need to know tonight is? well, i think, first of all i totally agree with tha assessment of clare. what we need to know about is, basically, what is trump going to do and what is his defens going to be? first of, all of us now we are moving from indictment - which we have been doing for the last few weeks, into new territory, arraignment launch. this is for no one to i don t care who you, are th criminal process is always a horrible thing jail is a horrible thing i ve defended many crimina defendants pro bono, it always heartbreaking it is a heartbreaking moment
for the country, that donald trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence and all the protections, that th criminal opposite system provides for him and i hop that he has great lawyer defending him. at the same, time to me, thi is about a vindication of th rule of law as well because fo so long trump has acted like h was above the rule of law an today the district attorney, brag, and a new york grand jur finally dragged trump down t the same level as the rest o us so that is great now, what is his defense going to be? clare s right to say that we d not know what the charges ar exactly because the indictment has not been unsealed but at least it is being reported tha part of it starts with a misdemeanor offense of falsification of busines record that is something that these new york district attorney bragg does every day of th week, it s bread and butter, it s not a complicated thing that is not unusual. what makes it unusual is tha bragg is thinking abou enhancing this into some s
politics just wart storm daniels telling her story an there s so much evidence tha he paid, while president of th united states, $35,000 a month from his personal checking account, to reimburse michae cohen for the hush money payments that the federa prosecutors that were illegal, that it is literally beyond by imagination that it is going t come down to michael cohen, wh received a check from donald trump while he is president, that that track was not part o the reimbursement s game go further with me. while we do not know what th charges are, what you just sai to me, he is not a critica witness. however, however he was ther 18 different times because wha it sounds like is they are crossing every possible, t and dotting every i. alvin bragg has such a high ba that he has to meet, and thi is unprecedented that we hav ever seen this happen. so as a lawyer who went with