has just happened tonight for the first time ever, former president of the united states has been indicted by a federal grand jury. donald john trump charged with seven counts in the classified documents case. this is a special edition from new york. i m anderson cooper. here in washington, i m kaitlan collins. in keeping with his reality tv roots, the former president preempted any justice department announcement of the charges against him in a series of posts on his social media network. in one just a few moments ago, he wrote, quote, i have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday at 3:00 p.m. he goes on to say he never thought it would possible that such a thing like this could happen, then drifts into boasting about how he won all the votes in the presidential election, which we know is not true. he also wrote in all caps, quote, i am an innocent man. kaitlan joining us now. our senior justice department department correspondent evan pere
of that calculus. i don t think it s the only thing. i think part of it if he doesn t run, he is not relevant. it s a huge opportunity to continue to raise a ton of money and have events at his clubs and so forth. it s absolutely the case that he believed this is something that he could use, a campaign, a political campaign could be used to say this case is political, that everything is political. we re getting information in drips and drabs. i want to go to kristen holmes right now. what have you learned? we have learned that of the seven charges, at least one of them is related to a conspiracy charge. now we don t know exactly what that means. but this is something that we believed the department of justice was trying to prove. we know they had brought in a number of lower level aides trying to prove this conspiracy theory that there had been a larger conspiracy around obstruction of justice. now, again, i want to be very clear. we do not know exactly what this con virus charge
and the amount of information in there was absolutely stunning at the time. i mean, it was shocking at the time. that they had such a powerful case already. simply by virtue of the fact they found the stolen property in his office and at his home. so the fact of the matter is he could have been indicted months ago. and again, if it was one of us, he would have been indicted months ago. he has gotten special treatment in his favor. and that is not a criticism of the justice department. it s a statement of fact that the justice department has to be extra careful and extra cautious and make sure that it has all its ducks in a row before bringing a charge against the former president, a presidential candidate. but these charges could have been brought long ago. and one other point. on the venue, there has been the suggestions that somehow this was a sudden change in venue. the fact of the matter is we knew back in august that there was going to be a potential
retentions, and no one s being dismissive. when i hear that phrase, document retention, that you heard on the other panel, about this being something relegated to a minor thing. these are current laws on the books involving the presidential records act, involving congressional legislation to say, we as a society do not want documents that are classified or of national security interest or otherwise or defense information to be out and about, retained, released, disclosed, in some way. so, when you re talking about the document retention aspect of it, do you think that people see it as minimized based on the fact that these are documents and the fact that the information itself, yes, it s in trump s head. but if you disclose the information, there is validity and gravitas about what that means for our national security and our way of legislative life, don t you think? no, absolutely. it s not to minimize, again, by calling it document retention. it s really going to come down
special counsel emphasize and focus on something of, as you re talking about, relative minor consequence. but really in the long run, lawyer to lawyer, thinking about this, the fact that the information is no longer lawfully in the lawful possession of a person who s no longer the president, that carries a great deal of weight, whether we want to discuss. i don t know what the documents, nor do you fully about those things. but i know there has been a lot of talking points that have been raised about what jack smith is looking at and the actual substance of the documents. but the fact they no longer belong to him, that is significant in and of itself and his refusal to return them, right? the issue by the way, i separate out whrks we talk about the refusal to return them. i separate out the first year they re talking with nara, year and a half, versus when the subpoena gets involved. those are kind of two different standards. under the presidential records act, a president is suppo