Against donald trump and get rid of this nightmare . Dude, ive been preaching it for the last six or eight months. I dont know why the party doesnt corral around one of these individuals on the stage to just say, this is the horse thats going to ride us to a brave new world. And they just cant. Because that base, small though it is, hes outsized in the money it produces, and the power it wields. And that, even in a parliamentary system, can overwhelm the system sometimes. Yeah, i was going to say, just look what happened to will hurd. As you said, booed there just for speaking truth to power. On a personal note, michael, i just want to say that its the first time ive seen you in person. Thank you so much for filling in for me a couple of weeks ago, i really appreciate it. The time off i owe you one, my friend. No pleasure, no pleasure. That just took a cold brew youve got it. Next time i see a pint consider it done. Good evening and welcome to ayman. The case against donald trump for the next two hours we are going to break down the important legal developments this week, including that Superseding Indictment against the ex president and its nixonian echoes. Were going to explore the Election Interference Case and how close jack smiths to another trump indictment. And then were gonna head down to georgia as Fulton County d. A. Fani willis begins a critical period in her investigation into trumps potential criminality. Im ayman mohyeldin, lets get started. We want to start tonights show by looking back for a moment. Back to july 27th 1974, which was an Inflection Point in our countrys history. It was on that day the House Judiciary Committee recommended that americas 37th president , Richard Nixon, be impeached and removed from office. Six republicans joined 21 democrats in sending that first article of impeachment against the president , which accused him of obstructing justice to the full house. And now, 49 years later, to the day, another former president has found himself accused of the very same charge again. On thursday, donald trump was hit with new counts in Special Counsel jack smiths classified documents case. In a Bombshell Superseding indictment, the ex president was charged with an additional count of willful retention of National Defense information, and two new counts of obstruction. So with these new charges, trump now faces a staggering total of 40 criminal counts in that case, the most serious of which could land him in prison for up to 20 years. Now, in that Superseding Indictment, prosecutors have accused trump, along with his coconspirator walt nauta, and a new third defendant Carlos De Oliveira, a maralago Maintenance Worker attempting to delete Surveillance Video from the resort. Coincidently, just after trumps lawyers received the grand jury Subpoena Requests for that footage. According to the indictment, on june 27th 2022, after some phone tag between trump, nauta, and de oliveira walked to the i. T. Office at maralago and requested that he and an unnamed trump employee, the works Resorts Director of i. T. , could talk. Well, the two men then went inside a closet and thats when Carlos De Oliveira told the employee that the conversation should, quote, remain between the two of them and Carlos Olivia then asked the employee than how long the a believed it was approximately 45 days, give or take. And then in a move, honestly, straight out of a monster movie, Carlos Olivia told the employee that the boss wanted the server deleted. The employee raised concerns that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do so, and Carlos De Oliveira repeated that quote, the boss wanted the server deleted. And asked, what are we going to do . Now, its still not entirely clear what happened after that conversation, and honestly, even if the footage was ultimately deleted. But with this indictment, the federal government has now accused donald trump, a former president , of seeking to destroy it possibly incriminating evidence against him. Which brings us back to that nixon comparison, because nixon was only just accused in fact, he was also accused of destroying evidence as part of that coverup during the watergate scandal. And during that investigation, it was discovered that nixon had a habit of reporting conversations in the white house, and those recordings were later subpoenaed by a special prosecutor, after which investigators noticed an 18 and a half minute gap in one of those tapes. Now, while nixons personal secretary claimed to have accidentally a raced the missing minutes, which are believed to contain a conversation between nixon and his Chief Of Staff just three days after the watergate break in. Many suspected it was the president himself who ordered its destruction. But thats where trumps parallel to the other disgraced ex president ends, because on august 8th 1974, just 12 days after the house recommended those first articles of impeachment, Richard Nixon faced with the overwhelming evidence against him and Eroding Support within his own party, he resigned. Down trump isnt ready to give up. Hes not going anywhere. Here he is just yesterday, doubling down on his commitment to retake the white house, no matter what may stand in his way. If, going forward, you get these indictments, their heads up, youve got a jury in d. C. , you get convicted and sentenced, does that stop your campaign for president . If youre sentenced . Not at all. Theres nothing in the constitution to say that it could. And even the radical left crazies who say and it wouldnt stop me either. Not at all. Now, as more details continue to emerge about the sheer scope of Donald Trumps alleged criminality and the possible coverup that followed, it is becoming clear that he is in a lead of his own. Donald trump isnt just another Richard Nixon, hes nixon on steroids. Lets bring in my panel, Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and Legal Affairs columnist at politico, but charles blow and Michelle Goldberg we, with a columnist for the new york times. And both are msnbc political analysts. Its great to have you with us. Renato, let me start with just the basics of what we saw this week. How common or Superseding Indictments, and what are these new charges if anything, as well as the addition of this third defendant . Tell us about the scope of of jack smiths case here, and if it is, and what direction, it is expanding . Well, they are not uncommon. I think most dont have i think what it says, first of all, jack smith is continuing his investigation. And hes made a determination, ayman. He wants to have donald trump. Even if it means that hes not going to race to the finish line, even if it might cause a little bit of a delay, once have the strongest possible case. What did he add here . A number of things. First of all, account involving the actual document that trump was waving around. Trump claimed, oh, it was a newspaper, it was just bravado, it wasnt really a classified document. Now they have that document. Theyre charging that document. And then hes included this Obstruction Conspiracy involving the destruction of evidence. Very powerful evidence and, frankly, a very powerful count that, we listlessly the jury, i think, is going to have a lot of trouble excusing, a lot of trouble ignoring. You could say whatever you want about the president ial records act or about declassification, the bottom line is destroying evidence, thats the sort of thing that the average person could get their head around. So thats really important, and then theres also the dynamic between these two defendants now, these two minor defendants. Are they going to try to flip against whos going to flip first . Is one going to flip against trump . Are they both going to flip . Theres a dynamic now where walt nauta, he cant just be assured of the fact that he is going to be the lone man in the turn bowl at trial. Now you have to potential employees, and neither of them know what the other might do. Charles, lets talk about that point that renato brought up about how this undercuts trumps own defense, if you will, more or less. Its not quite the behavior youd expect from someone who is acting lawfully. Not just in a sense of trying to destroy evidence, but hes also been making the case that he had a right to these documents, and yet here he is trying to get rid of the evidence that he has those documents, allegedly. The thing that im most interested in here is what evidence the Special Counsel has beyond a competing eyewitness. If there is nothing on paper, on tape, if theyre meeting by the bushes and in closets and the only evidence youre going to have is a testimony of one person, youre going to have three defendants, all of whom are saying together that we didnt do this, what this person saying. So if one person has testimony gets others, thats not as strong as i would like to see. Coming into from an indictment. But that may be what they have. The second thing is my understanding, and i could be wrong, but my understanding is the Trump Universe is also paying for this third defendants defense. And that makes it less likely that there will be some flipping among the other defendants on trump. So, the problem here is the structures around our legal system and our political system just cannot quite catch up to the novelty of donald trump. The nixon example falls flat a little bit, because nixon had a sense of history and a sense of the country where he wanted to kind of shield it from more damage. Trump doesnt have that. He doesnt care if we destroy the whole thing so let me just go back to your point, which is, and let me play devils advocate here for a second, given the gravity of the moment that jack smith must be aware of, would he bring an indictment against a former president if he did not have substantial evidence of beyond just simply hearsay of a witness . Dont you think he would probably have, perhaps, a text message saying hey, the boss wants this deleted on somebodys phone that he was able to recover . As opposed to just simply saying hey, i have a witness who saying the boss told him to delete it. I get your point, but i suspect that jack smith, knowing what has happened in the past with donald trump, realizing the severity of the moment and these Superseding Indictments, is probably not coming to bring these charges forward without substantial evidence. One assumes, but we only know whats in the indictment. So in the indictment he does not disclose that. He simply says conversations that he records in the indictment are persontoperson conversations. He never mentions anything in text message. We would hope that he has that, but im just saying what we know, we dont know that. Michelle, the charges against de oliveira include him lying to investigators. Does that sent a Warning Signal to potentially other witnesses . Could the chance of facing an indictment themselves boost the possibility of a cooperation, going back to renato earlier point which is that could there be other people out there that are flipping against these two men, or perhaps getting these two men to flip against the former president . As a non lawyer, it seems pretty obvious to me that some other people already have flipped. You have all of these accounts of conversations with various other people at maralago, conversations, the boss wants me to do this. Presumably someone is giving that to jack smith, unless he has it recorded or, as charles said, in Text Messages. There clearly are people cooperating, and although de oliveira is in a difficult because, as charles mentioned really worth going to prison for donald trump. And i think he could look at the history of other people involved with donald trump, gotten involved with donald trump, and see that very often, even if donald trump the people around him are not. And its just another lesson here, is dont work for donald trump. From that kind of most low level person to the Vice President , there is nobody who comes out unscathed from their association with this person. Andrew goldstein, renato, you may recall hes the Lead Investigator for the bob mueller obstruction investigation. He told in your signs, quote, demanding that islands be destroyed is the most basic form of obstruction and it is easy for a jury to understand. He also said that whats described in this indictment is actually more quote, straightforwardly criminal, then the Obstructive Act detailed in the Mueller Report. Based on what youve seen, do you agree . How does evidence like this play in front of a jury . What would be your threshold to convince a jury that an obstruction request, or destruction of evidence request, did in fact take place . Is it simple to say hearsay is going to be enough to convince jurors . Well, first of all, great question. Agree with that assessment, by the way. And the reason why i agree with that is the Obstructive Act that were discussed in the Mueller Report were for example, trying to fire mueller himself. Trying to use pardons to influence testimony. Trying to fire the fbi director. All of those sorts of activities are more complicated, and the juror might view that is more political. Destroying evidence, that is, like goldstein, said thats very straightforwardly criminal. Its a sort of thing that jurors are used to understanding, theyre used to seeing that, theyve probably seen that on tv and movies. And i think that when we look at all these counts, i appreciate charles. Point. I think hes right that jurors will look at each count separately and theyre going to look at the evidence and see if theres more than hearsay. But you cannot actually, if youre really trying a case, look at these counts separately. We have to remember that this evidence is going to come into a trial where the jurors are going to see overwhelming evidence that trump really, really, really wanted these documents. He wanted them very badly, and his lawyers were telling him that he had to return them to the government, and essentially, all of this Obstructive Activity was an end run around those lawyers. And so i think all of that in combination along with that reporting, i think it makes a very strong case. I actually think that jack smith, the maralago case really stands alone as the most straightforward easily proveable case of all the cases that are arraigned against donald trump, in my opinion. Charles, we may be discussing this among ourselves, the similarities and the comparisons between trump and nixon and whether they are like and where they are not, but the truth is trump seems to take pride in these comparisons to nixon. Just today he shared this letter from his pen pal back from the 80s, in which nixon predicted trump would one day win the presidency. Why does trump continue to idolize a man who resigned in disgrace and is arguably one of the worst, if not the worst president in modern american politics . Because donald trump idolizes outlaws. And we should never forget that. Thats not just in america, thats around the globe. The people, the letters that he saves, the ones that he brags about, theyre all outlaws and dictators. And so the idea of him living outside the bounds of what is a normal is where he has always lived and where he lives and now. And that is the comparison. I would make one last point though. I would be very interested to know if jack smith, if they were not able to delete footage, if jack smith has any footage of people going near bushs or closets because its totally going to bolster the case, even walking together on the days that are described. That kind of thing i think is what that kind of evidence to bolster if there is only hearsay. Yeah. That bolsters that argument. Michelle goldberg, let me ask renato very quickly. When we find out what evidence that jack smith has . Is it during the trial or is it beforehand in any of the proceedings whether we will know if he has recordings or Text Messages or this footage . There will be motion practice. So there is going to be for example, that fence is probably going to ask for all kinds of Classified Information to try to delay things. But theres also going to be motions going back and forth, for example, whether or not theres sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to last statements to come. And there will be, im sure, motions to exclude evidence by the defense. So i think in those motions over time we have going to learn more and more the motions and responses, what the evidence jack smith has, and then, of course, as you point out, in the eve of trial, with an exhibit list, a witness list, and then we will, i think, have a better sense of things. But that understanding is going to evolve in the months ahead. Michelle, sorry for jumping out of turn but i do want to come back to you. About the politics of this for a moment, because you have several republicans as we have noted and staying on the nixon comparison here for a moment they actually supported the Impeachment Efforts against nixon and he resigned. In part due to the Eroding Support that he had within his own party. And even if they didnt do it on capitol hill, we know that people went to t