Good morning, everyone. Its wednesday, august 2nd. A historic morning in u. S. Former President Trump is due in Court Tomorrow after a federal grand jury indicted him on four counts. This morning, city and federal Law Enforcement agencies are gearing up for that appearance. Also new this morning, a sense of trumps defense. His attorney tells cnn his clint is protected fully by the First Amendment. He was acting on the advice of counsel. We just heard from rudy ju giuliani. New details about the judge who will preside over this case. The judge has been randomly assigned. Hes overseen january 6ths defendants. The form e President Trumps 2024 rivals are weighing in on the charges. Their reactions ranging from condemning trump to condemning the Justice Department. Georgia, Fulton County sheriff said trump wont receive special treatment. Quote, it doesnt matter your status, well have mug shots ready for you, all of that this hour of cnn this morning starts right now. Third indictment. Fourth potentially on the way. Yet it feels like this one is bigger, more consequential and means a lot more for the country, however it lands and thats exactly right. Its about our democracy. Thats what we heard from Special Counsel jack smith last night. Multiple reactions from people across the spectrum. We have Team Coverage this morning. Sarah murray is live in washington, d. C. Here at the table, the expert, pbs newshour white house correspondent. Jeff duncan. And john avalon. First, 40plus pages, what do they say . Well, to your point, i mean, this is the first time that the government is trying to hold donald trump accountable for what happened around the 2020 election. And around january 6th. They point out that the peaceful transfer of power went smoothly in this country for 130 years until donald trump. They say he lost the 2020 election, he knew he lost the 20 election, and he tried to stay in power anyway. Special counsel jack smith criminally charging former President Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. And undermine the peaceful transfer of power. An indictment was unsealed charging donald j. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, Disenfrom Shiez voters. Reporter federal prosecutors write, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determine native fraud and that he won. These claims were false. This morning, were getting our first sense of trumps defense. Focusing on the fact that what we have now is an administration that has criminalized the free speech of a Prior Administration during the time the that theres a political election going on, thats unprecedent. We have never seen that in the history of the United States. Reporter he can see the trial lasting nine months to a year. Trump also took to his truth social platform to blast this latest indictment. Claiming the purpose is to interfere with his 2024 president ial campaign. Mr. Smith and his team, career agents, prosecutors, follow the facts and the law wherever they lead. Reporter trumps six indicted coconspirators are not named. But cnn can identify five of them based on quotes in the indictment. The indictment focuses on five tactics, they along with trump allege order to execute to overturn the 2020 election. Fueling claims of Election Fraud to try pressure state Election Officials to subvert the election results. Trying to use the power of the Justice Department to conduct Sham Election crime. Pressuring thenVice President mike pence to falsely alter the results. Finally were going to walk down to the capitol. Reporter stoking tensions on january 6th. Fueling the capitol riot. The attack on our Nations Capital on january 6th 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of the american democracy. Its described in the indictment it was fueled by lies. Reporter investigators also obtain notes from pence and documented a conversation on january 1st where trump berated pe pence. Pence told trump it was unconstitutional. Trump responded, youre too honest. A conversation between trump and former white house Chief Of Staff mark meadows where meadows said Georgia Election workers were, quote, conducting themselves in an exemplary fashion. One day later trump tweeted that the Election Workers were trying to cover up fraud. Now, again, we have identified five of the six unindicted coconspirators named in these court documents. One of them is john eastman, allegedly involved in crafting this plan where then ve president pence could overtu the election. John eastmans Att Th Respect to questions as to whether dr. Eastman is involved in Plea Bargaining the answer is no. If dr. Eastman is indicted hell go to trial, if convicted hell appeal. Another one of the unindicted coconspirators in this indictment is Rudy Giuliani, he spoke last night. Violating the right of free speech as an american citizen, never mind whether he was president or not it could be anybody, it could be a homeless person, you dont get to violate peoples First Amendment rights no matter who you are. This isnt the first time acted like an unethical lawyer. Should be the last. Your reaction . Very fiery rude j giuliani, i think were going to hear the First Amendment defense from Donald Trumps team and also from several of these unindicted cocon coconspirators. Theyre not just taking issue with the things he said, theyre taking issue with his actions, pressuring officials in arizona, georgia, michigan, to go around the Legal Process where we certified the lek tors and go to Electoral College so this isnt just about a couple of comments that donald trump made at a rally or Rudy Giulianis claims. Thank you for that reporting. Well see you in a little bit. Lets bring back in our experts. Jack smith knew that was going to be the defense counsels argument, thats why he gets to page 2, the defendant has every right to speak publicly about the election, even to claim falsely there had been fraud. Its kind of rare to anticipate a defense like that. The first thing. Exactly. I think its an important thing. Heres my problem with First Amendment defense. We have a broad First Amendment right when it comes to political speech. But heres the problem the first amend mtd doesnt Cover Everything that may come out of a persons mouth and one of the clear delineation is fraud. If you use words to steal something, to steal money from a bank, to rip off an investor, you do that with words, by speech, by promising things thats fraud. Here the theory is that what happen the thing that was being stolen wasnt money bu the election itsel i want to build off of that, intent comes into play here. In this indictment if you go through it it has a lengthy list of officials who told trump that the fraud claims were untrue. Mike pence, senior doj officials the director of national intelligence, i think with can pull up the list here real quick, its a significant number. By the way, if you dont want to read the indictment they also said this. So, were in the oval and theres a discussion going on and the president says, i think it could have been pompeo, he says words to the effect, we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next issue meaning President Biden. I remember a week after the election was called i popped into the oval just to like give the president the headlines and to see how he was doing and he was looking at the tv and he said, can you believe i lost to this guy if. Cathat call was crazy. He knows its over. He knows he lost. I didnt agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff which i told the president was [ bleep ] and, you know, i didnt want to be a part of it. So, again, we see jack smith anticipating a defense i think correctly which is he was relying on other advisers. He believed what rude rey told. The argument theyre going to make not only should he have known and in those clips he did know, he acknowledged it. Thats crucial evidence. People might not know you worked for Rudy Giuliani back in the day when he was americas yor new york city. Theyrlisted as coconspirators, unindicted. Where do you think his role in this goes from here . Well, i think, its very clear that rudy was directly involved in trying to overturn the election on Donald TrumpsBehalf Acting in his capacity as counsel. Theres month right to commit crimes and to overturn an election. The First Amendment argument that rudy so forcefully articulated doesnt fit the fact matter of this case. Again, this goes to the heart of democracy. This isnt a typical kind of indictment. This goes to the heart of democracy when the president of the United States is entrusted in upholding the constitution of the United States undermines it. Other court dos said no reasonable person would believe their claims after the fact. So, this is a serious ast gets and whether rudy is prosecuted along with these others thats through the Looking Glass at the moment. The fact pattern the clear, they tried to overturn the election at any means by their disposal. We know from rudy to delay the election. One of jarring things about the maralago indictment was how much we didnt know until we saw the indictment including photos obviously, but i think a lot of the behind the scenes stuff tied to it, most of this indictment, people were at least general aware of because of all of the reporting. What stood out to you as new, until you read the indictment. A lot of it is clearly around the former Vice President mike pence, he had these notes that he had from conversations with donald trump. The phone calls that happened on january 6th. Trump at 6 00 p. M. Called two senators on january 6th as they were still rioting going on in some parts of the capitol to talk to them again about rejecting certification to not move this forward and then at 7 00 p. M. He was called by pat cippolini. You need to call off those lawmakers, you cant be asking them to further obstruct this proceeding. Conversations like that just add to that picture we had started to see already because of the january 6th committee. Im not an attorney, a much more simple analysis, indictment saying donald trump is an intentional liar. He couldnt do the math. January 6th was tragic but from Point Of View it wasnt a surprise. You could see this feverish pitch playing out. Sitting there getting pounded with crazy idea after crazy idea and had this sophisticated, youd see somebody come up with bad idea and donald trump would tweet something about it, giuliani or meadows would stoke the fire, this will sucked the minds out of these people in georgia and across the country. You agree as a conservative who has stood up for the truth and the law, do you agree with judge michael ludwig, one of the conservative jurist, hes the one who had that famous tweet, mike pence does not have the authority to step in, mr. President , and overturn this thing. He said yesterday after reading the indictment these are grave offenses as president could commit. He said the former president is neither a victim nor a martyr today, america is Donald Trumps victim and donald trump has martyr ed america. Republicans are letting americans down right now by sitting here and fanning the flames of donald trump. Right, we know exactly what the right thing to do is, turn away from the lies and failed record of donald trump and to move forward. Politically speaking this is a golden opportunity for republicans. Theres no more statistical advantage right here to beat a sitting president but we continue to step on our toes. A Pivotal Moment for mike pence, nikki haley, tim scott, a Pivotal Moment to call donald trump out. They should turn their backs on donald trump. Call for him to step down. Move forward. I mentioned this yesterday, we were downgraded yesterday. Thats major story on joe bidens watch that happened. But yet nobodys going to hear about it. Because of what happened in this country on january 6th. Stay with us. Team trump once again trying to discredit the indictment and the latest on his strategy. How trumps many legal cases could disrupt the primary calendar. Thats coming up next. This is american infrastructure. 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That was Donald Trumps attorney slamming Special Counsel jack smiths latest indictment of the former president. Theyre claiming trump is charge ing smith is Charging Trump purely for political reasons. Reporter good morning. I have some new reporting, essentially about how Donald Trumps team had been preparing for this indictment. They spent monday and tuesday expecting for this indictment to come and lining up surrogates and influencers and allies to be ready immediately for when additional charges dropped. As you saw last night thats exactly what his supporters did. Donald trump had been speaking with his allies on capitol hill including the house gop conference chair Elise Stefanik and as you said poppy, exactly the same playbook that Donald Trumps legal team likes to lean on, arguing these charges are mounting to Election Interference and directly attack Special Counsel jack smith for operating within a twotier Justice System. We heard one potential legal strategy from one of Donald Trumps lawyers in an interview last night. Our focus is on the fact that this is an attack on free speech. And political advocacy and t