five criminal trials while they re attempting to run the country. from a legal standpoint this indictment will do nothing to stop donald trump from running for office. in fact, there s nothing in our law or any of the laws charged here that would prevent a person who s been convicted or even imprisoned from serving as president. he s now been twice indicted. one at the state level. one at the federal level. twice impeached as well. this is not part of the qualifications and criteria that the framers of the constitution contemplated as disqualifying. how this plays out could depend on who wins the election. if donald trump were to win the presidency and was to be convicted of the charges that the justice department levied against him, we could be in some real constitutional quagmires that there have never been before in american history. trump might lose the election, in which case go ahead, try him at will. trump might win the election, in which case he s going to be the
subpoena, the former president confers with his attorney, evan corcoran, and suggests that perhaps they should just not comply with this or lie to the fbi, saying that they have no more documents. at one point, trump says something to one of his attorneys along the lines of, i don t want people going through my boxes. as a criminal defense attorney, when you have a client that receives a grand jury subpoena, they have a lot of questions. attorney tim parlatore represented trump in the classified documents case. he left the former president s legal team weeks before the indictment. they will ask those questions in the confidential attorney-client communication, you know, realm of, do we have to comply with this? do they have the power to really make us do this? wouldn t it be better to give them nothing? the president s lawyers and his supporters are going to try to minimize this because somebody who is facing a subpoena is going to ask his lawyers for advice. where this cross
of classified information they wanted someone like jack smith who was going to have a much lower profile, somebody who was going to put his nose to the grindstone, help the team that was already doing the work. we very much look forward to presenting our case. so to hear him finally speak surprised many. really unusual to see a special counsel make a public statement like this. many people might be enticed to, in that role, make sure everyone knows who they are, almost be drunk with the power of it and wanting to be out in the forefront, and, hey, look at me. the fact that he didn t seem to revel in it and wanted the indictment to speak for itself might buttress his credibility. thank you very much. despite all efforts by the former president to tear him down. jack smith. what do you think his name used to be? does anybody ever jack smith. it sounds so innocent. he s deranged.
story. i m anderson cooper. the indictment of former president donald trump mark the first time in history a former president has faced criminal charges. this is now the second indictment for the former president, who was criminally charged by a manhattan grand jury in march on more than 30 counts of business fraud. now he s facing 37 federal charges relating to classified documents from his time in office that were uncovered by federal agents. a special counsel has been investigating this case since november of last year. he s pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. what makes the situation, though, even more extraordinary is that mr. trump is also the current front-runner in the republican party for the 2024 election, which means he could be taking on president joe biden while a special counsel appointed by the attorney general is working to convict him. trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. over the next hour, our pamela brown lays out everything we know about th