large interest most significant federal indictment of donald trump ever. this is in a way that we'll document more significantly than the legal headaches he already has. this will be tonight the first time any former president has been indicted by the justice department for trying to steal an election. now, i mentioned, if you have been walking our breaking coverage, we have been going through what is a voluminous filing. jack smith found six other coconspirators that are named in the filing. it alleges that trump spread lies, that there had been outcome determinant fraud, fraud that would have swung the election back to him, and these claims were false. and trump knew they were false. i'll put on the screen what we're watching for. want to share what we're learning. s this a day we have been trying to hew closely to what we know and don't know. in the last several moments, the most heads up you'll get from an agency that jack smith will approach the podium you see here. some of the local beat reporters have assembled in that room. he'll approach the podium any moment. it's 6:01 in washington, and speak on this new indictment. if he does do so -- you can see the preparations for that. it will be only the second time we've heard from jack smith publicly. the first was in the original indictment of donald trump in the classified documents and espionage case some when we get anything from that room, we'll bring it to you live here on "the beat." this is a breaking news night. i want to bring in our experts. we have david kelly, former sdny chief. former sdny christy greenberg. our experts will be expanding over time. we've talked about this. tonight it becomes reality. when you look at this case, when you look at the four counts, three conspiracies. and to be clear with people, that means above and beyond and separate from the violence on january 6th and what happened in those hours on january 6th, these are other longer range conspiracies, some that run weeks if not months. what kind of indictment is this? do you view it as narrow or broad? as kind of precisely nitpicking or looking at a wider set of election plots? >> i'll say a couple things. one is i think it's a masterpiece. it lays out concisely what the charges are and what acts support the indictment. and i think that it's also a masterpiece in transparency for those very same reasons, which i think are incredibly important that the -- there's a whole group of folks that think this is a hoax, and these are facts that can't really be contested, haven't been contested, and they really jump out. saw someone call it a screaming indictment. >> i said a shouting dime. because it's so loud. >> it is, and it's loud, but there's an elegance to it and a grace to it because of how well it's composed and it's just jammed with facts that are going to be very difficult for the defendant to dispute, and it's going to be very difficult for that large portion of the american populace to think that this is a hoax. and this is just a testament to the fact that facts matter. >> yeah. and that fraud is one of the charges -- i mentioned christy greenberg is here. so is andrew weissman, one of the many experts waiting on them we spoke about it earlier in our breaking coverage. david just pointed out this is the area where lives become criminal. i want to ask you something i haven't had a chance to discuss with you. jack smith goes out of his way in this indictment, as i read it, to say the defendant may lie in public. the defendant may zealously advocate for his criticisms of the election, and yet he went parter than that. why does smith say that? some people might be surprised it's okay to lie in the eyes of the doj, and why does he say something worse happened here, something criminal? >> i think that's really smart to make it really clear to people reading this what is lawful and allowed under the first amendment. it's clearly saying, just because you say something that's not true, that's not what you're being charged with. that may be a crime if you are lying to a federal investigator such as david and christy used to have in the southern district of new york. it may be a crime if you're under oath in front of congress. he's making it clear, you want to tell lies to the american public and to the press, that's one thing. you want to tell lies on the ellipse, that's one thing. that is not what's being charged here. so i think that is really smart to make it very clear. because one of the things, following up on david's excellent point, which is one of the reasons you do a speaking indictment, particularly in a case that -- there's no case that's going to get more attention -- is there's an educational function here to those people willing to listen. obviously they're some who are just not going to think this is worth the paper it's printed on, but there's people willing to listen, to read it. it is really important to do that. having been in the special counsel mueller investigation, one of the really wonderful things was seeing the judges understand that educational function and the unique moment that they have to help people understand the criminal law and why people are before them and what rights they have and why they're being held accountable. >> i want to keep our entire panel here. we've got three experienced federal prosecutors. now that the federal prosecution team run by jack smith indicted donald trump for a coup to overthrow the election. i want to give a reset on what we're doing. i want to show the room where we're awaiting jack smith to speak tonight. we're told any minute smith will come to the podium and speak for only the second time in in the probe. unlike certain legal activities where you think you've heard leaks or quotes or interviews with prosecutors -- the prosecutor in georgia's done interviews, for example -- we haven't had a single interview with jack smith anywhere in the world, and this will be only his second remarks. everyone in america will want to hear what special counsel smith has to same we'll bring that on msnbc at any moment. the second thing we're doing here, this indictment just came out within the last half hour, so if you made your way to your news show here because you heard about it or just watch the news regularly, this is truly a breaking news moment. we're going to experience it together. i can tell you while i'm talking to you through the cam remark vi lawyers in all corner of the set going through every page of it. what i will tell you is we're going the try to break this up and make it clear so we learn tonight what's in here. we have been waiting for this for a long time. the conspiracy here is broader than just january 6th. in the moment i'm going to read from the indictment itself. the overview as we have been processing this, you can think of four big conspiracy allegations that the judgment is making from donald trump. number one, that in seven different states, they committed a type of fraud with those fake or fraudulent electors we've heard about. that they tried to basically hijack the election process with a kind of a coup or abuse of government power at the justice department. that's why there's so many coconspirators listed. one was a doj official at the time. third, something the january 6th committee shined a light on, donald trump's efforts repeatedly to get the vice president to do something the doj says was illegal, which is try to steal the election. fourth with the horrific violence, jack smith puts it -- he does not say donald trump was the sole cause of the violence. but he does say, new tonight in this indictment, that trump and his coconspirators tried to, quote, exploit the violence that did occur that day by people trump did summon to washington in an ongoing effort to try to illegally overthrow the election, even as that violence occurred and according to many, got out of control. that's different from incitement or insurrection. we're going to hear from the lawyer as we break this down. i also want to state, and you'll hear this repeatedly, that donald trump is a defendant. he has rights and he's legally presumed innocent in the american system and court of law. reading from the indictment, and then we're going to bring our lawyers back in. it states that trump pursued, quote, unlawful mean of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results, and goes on to state trump sought to enlist the vice president to use his ceremonial role at the january 6th certification to, quote, fraudulently alter the election results. bringing in christy greenberg. when you look at some of those details as i mentioned, not all involve the violence of january 6th. some of what is now newly put down in writing here, efforts to lobby or issue illegal orders to the vice president -- smith is saying that would have been an illegal plot even if no one stormed the capitol. >> right. i think this indictment -- i mean, he is in his taylor swift speak now era, jack smith. this is a speaking indictment 45 pages of just incredible detail where he goes through what i think is really important, that count four especially, which was a bit of a wild card. the conspiracy against the right to vote. and the fact that in order to prove up that charge, there needs to be a specific intent to deprive someone of that protected right to vote, and that just seems at the heart of this whole indictment, this idea that you are depriving the democratic process of working the way that it should, and that's something i think every american goes in to cast their vote for any election can really relate to and look at this and say, hey, this affects me. this isn't just about, you know, any event that dealt with violence. this is about every person having their right to have their votes counted. >> we're getting a notice, david, that jack smith really will be coming in any moment. i reserve the right to cut in on any guest if he does. but the fact that much of this speaking indictment speaks about illegal activities separate from the violence on the 6th. >> i think just to build on her point, you know, focusing on the vote, but this really goes into some detail as it goes through each of the major contested battleground states and what efforts were taken there. we talk a couple weeks ago on the show about how, in the case of -- michigan brought the case against their fraudulent electors. this goes well out beyond the steps of the capitol, out the each of these states and talks about how these efforts were to undermine the democratic processes in those states and that he had specific intent to do that, to deprive those people of their votes. not just in a tangible way, but when you look at how he's laid it out state by state, act by act, it really brings it home. >> andrew, i want to read from page 37, which has really damning allegations about the lengths they went to submit these fraudulent electors. there are some on the president's team who tried to say, look, fans will be fans, and they held meetings. who cares? a kind of real minimiziminimizi. just watching that camera. we're watching special counsel jack smith approach the podium. let's listen as he speaks on this date of the second federal indictment of donald trump. >> good evening. today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. trump with conspireing to defraud the united states, conspireing to disenfranchise voters, and conspireing and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. the indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the district of columbia and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. i encourage everyone to read it in full. the attack on our nation's capital on january 6th 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it's described in the indictment. it's fueled by lies. lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the u.s. government, a nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. the men and women of law enforcement who defended the u.s. capitol on january 6th are heroes. they are patriots, and they are the very best of us. they did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. they defended the very institutions and principles that define the united states. since the attack on our capitol, the department of justice remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. this case is brought consistent with that moment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. in this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. in the meantime, i must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. i would like to thank the members of the federal bureau of investigation who are working on this investigation with my office as well as the many career prosecutors and law enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6th investigations. these women and men are public servants of the very highest order, and it is a privilege to work alongside them. thank you. >> why didn't you charge any of the other coconspirators? >> brief remarks from special counsel jack smith on the first ever indictment of a former president for trying to steal an election. donald trump now indicted in the january 6th probe along with 6 coconspirators. this is msnbc's breaking coverage from you. we are going to get reaction from our legal experts. i want to bring in for the first time this hour, neal katyal. neal, it is official now in a way that it wasn't an hour ago or even the day of the target letter. so with that in mind, i'd like your response, one, to what we just heard in special counsel smith, and two, quite seriously, what tonight means for legal history and democracy in america. >> ari, the gravity of this moment cannot be overstated. i mean, it is just unbelievable what we just saw with jack smith. you saw a career prosecutor, someone charged with enforcing the law, say the former president of the united states and the current leading presidential candidate for one of the parties is charged for his role in trying to upend a free and fair election. this is certainly the biggest legal case in our lifetimes. it is one of the biggest cases ever in the history of the united states. jack smith did something today to restore confidence in the rule of law in unimaginable ways, and you saw -- you heard him speak in such a measured way, emphasizing donald trump's presumption of innocence that this evidence all has to be tested in a court of law. i expect donald trump to continue speaking in exactly the opposite way -- demonizing jack smith, calling him deranged, call it the biden prosecution. but i think all of our viewers should understand, jack smith was not appointed by president biden. he was picked as an independent career prosecutor, and he's operating under special counsel guidelines that give him full independence to conduct this investigation in the way he wants to and charge who he thinks is warranted. so when you hear the attack on the biden justice department going after him -- going after donald trump, that is poppycock. this is an independent career prosecutor bringing some of the most grave charges imaginable because of what happened on january 6th. so i think jack smith has met the moment, and now it is up to this criminal trial to proceed with a very, very good judge, with judge chutkin. if donald trump is convinced he's innocent, bring it on. put on your defense in a court of law, and let's see how it fares. >> neal katyal, stay with me. part of our breaking coverage here in the newsroom. same question to you, andrew weissman because sometimes covering these stories can be like the weather channel when the storm is days away. by the time the storm gets here, everyone's moving on to the next thing. i want to make sure we absorb what this means now that it's official and what you thought of what we just heard from special counsel smith. >> it's great you started there. i think what happens a lot of times is we get anecessaitized to what happens. you forget to step back and think about the enormity of the situation. we are about to see a historic ordeal that the country is going to go through because of choices that donald trump made. i think that as a prosecutor, i think jack smith correctly -- you can see it in the indictment -- really focused on the lying. that you have a former president who, in order to stay in power, lied in just numerous, numerous ways to try and stay in power. i wanted to -- i know you wanted to focus on some specifics, and i do think the specifics sort of goes to your larger point. one of the things i was struck by in terms of the pressure, not just to a department of justice that we worked in -- and it's very hard to read this and see what was being done to the department of justice and what clearly jeff clark was willing to do in order to fabricate a fraud investigation to keep the former president in office. but the pressure on mike pence. one, it's very clear that mike pence gave clear testimony in the grand jury. it also looks very clear that mark meadows can. >> let me slow you down. and i'll let you continue, but slow down the key points. on some of the damning material, from what we now have that we didn't have this morning, is the vice president at the time, now former vice president pence, has cooperated at least to the degree that he handed over the contempt rain news notes, containing what he said at the time, lawyers find that probative, and he provided actual testimony. we're going to do it together. i think viewers will be able to tell. this is breaking, so we can't afford nate. i'm on page 37. what page are you on? >> 36. >> you go first. >> perfect. so on page 36, paragraph 97, this is part of the effort of the former president donald trump with his vice president telling him he has the authority to do something that the vice president is repeatedly saying he doesn't. so, this is one -- on january 5th, the defendant met alone with the vice president. when the vice president refused to agree to the defendant's request that he obstruct the certification, the defendant true frustrated and told the vice president that the defendant would have to publicly criticize him. upon learning of this, the vice president's chief of staff, that's mark meadows, was concerned for the vice president's safety and alerted the head of the vice president's secret service detail. just step back. this goes to really the specific and then the general point. the allegation here is that the president of the united states was going to take a step with respect to his own vice president that caused so much concern that the chief of staff -- his own chief of staff -- was alerting the secret service to violence that would come to the vice president of the united states because of the contact of the president of the united states. >> that was to your point, proven to be not only not alarmist, but press yent. nobody initially knew on the 7th, agents were calling saying good-bye to family members. you view smith as telling a jury what with this? we're on page 36, paragraph 97. >> this is one -- just one of the many lies that, as david pointed out, this is sort of a masterpiece in terms of a narrative. and yet it's also -- it's a tragedy in terms of what it tells us country that this is talking about allegations -- just to be clear, it still has to be proved, but allegations against the former president, of repeated lies, even where it could lead to violence against his own vice president, such that -- i mean, it's just remarkable that you have mark meadows who -- there's a reason i think he is not one of the coconspirators when you look at this. it suggests to me he definitely cooperated, because when you read just that paragraph, to me it a reads like that's where they got some of that information. >> you've gotten people to cooperate in the past. that's interesting coming to you as a legal analyst. speaks to the strength that smith doesn't just this the information that people know. follow-up on page 37. neal katyal, i want to bring you in, too. people ask, is it going to lead to anything? tonight it led to the indictment of donald trump for coup related conspiracies. on page 37 -- reading this for the first time on msnbc. language is interesting. conspiracy is that jack smith says was hatched in the white house at the highest levels of our government. and it says, quote, an agent of the defendant. always a bad sign when the outgoing president is described this way. an agent of the definite contacted a senator to help him deliver documents. the agent facilitated receipt of the, quote, fraudulent tickets asigned to the fraudulent electors in michigan and wisconsin. and this was, as you know, andrew, the effort and the plot and the new indicted plot went this far. deep into the days of 6th, after what you describe second down what he perceived as a safety issuing a threat to the vice president. now they're trying to get the fraud in his hands, trying to push it forward. this is paragraph 101. i want your analysis. seems like smith's prosecutors are saying here, what you did as an agent is conspiracy in concert with them and other people. went way beyond your lawful powers. >> absolutely. and i think paragraph 99, to me -- in something that i think, looking at this as a prosecutor, is something that is i think going to be readily provable and is really hard for the former president to counteract. that is where after being told repeatedly by the vice president that he is not going to disobey his oath of office and overthrow the will of the people, on january 5th, the president of the united states issues a statement saying the vice president agrees with me that he does not have to go forward. and that is something that is alleged here to be absolutely 100% false. and that is going to be a hard thing at trial for donald trump to ever counteract. the real question for a jury would be, why would he do that? if you want to get into somebody's state of mind, and did they intentionally do something? this is a clear lie. and just think about what it meant that it was on january 5th, just before the january 6th insurrection. >> andrew weissman, i want to bring in david, but more news coming out of the justice department. we are now told attorney general merrick garland will be speaking momentarily. we heard from jack smith moments ago. special counsel smith has a toop of independence had his role, but he does work within the attorney general's justice department. now we're told any moment, certainly within the hour according to the guidance we have, the attorney general will come out and speak. we will be bringing that to viewer as soon as we get eyes on the attorney general. we'll go as early as we can, same way we did with the special counsel on a night where we're dealing with the indictment of donald trump. david, go ahead. >> i was going to go on andrew's point. paragraph 99 where the president comes out and says he and the vice president are in total agreement, knowing that they're not, knowing that his position is wrong, it is not just another lie, but it also really speaks to his wrecklessness and dangerous necessary of his lies. >> looking at that, i want to read for neal something else i want to get into. we're going through this piece by piece. it is a lengthy speaking indictment. smith alleges on january 6th, trump made the statements integral to obstruct the certification and interfere with others' rights to vote. trump repeated the false claims of election fraud, gave false hope the vice president might -- election fraud, and -- the crowd the go to the capital and pressure the vice president to fraudulently obstruction the certification. neal katyal, building on what i was talking about, which is how the campaign and allegedly illegal campaign against vice president pence was carried out, is linked in this way to the crowd not the he'll of insurrection, at the same time, not as if it didn't matter at all. smith is making the argument and he has to prove it to a jury that the violence was used, exploited by then outgoing president trump. >> yeah, he's making that as part of the argument. the big picture here, ari, is jack smith has to prove two things as every federal prosecutor does to put someone in jail. you have to have a bad act and a bad criminal intent. when andrew weissman talks about fake electors and the plot in the seven states to throw out the popular vote and just replace them with fake electors that state legislatures dreamed up, that all goes to the bad act, the actus reas, the agreement to do something that is illegal. trump's defense has always been more on the mens rea side -- i legitimately thought i won the election so, i didn't have a bad criminal intent. i was safeguarding american democracy. that's where the other part of the detail in this indictment becomes so significant, both the part that you just flashed on the screen as well as page after page of people going and saying to donald trump, you didn't win this thing. there's no way you won this thing. and the picture that's painted is you'd have to be literally insane to think you won the election after everyone, including the intelligence officials, the election security officials and others are saying you didn't win. and so that's why you see both halves of this both going to bad criminal intent and going to the bad criminal act. >> neal katyal, thank you very much for making time for us on this breaking news tonight. we'll be hearing more from you tonight, and we're going to pick up the attorney general, i'm told speaking now. >> engaged in what has become the largest investigation in our history. in november last, i appointed jack smith, the special counsel to take on the ongoing investigation in order to underline the department's commitment to accountability and independence. mr. smith and his team of experienced, principled, career agents and prosecutors, have followed the facts and the law wherever they lead. any questions about this matter will have to be answered by the filings made in the courtroom. >> thank you, everyone. >> we have been listening to attorney general garland. we're going to try to keep our cameras for as long as we can. this is him making what was basically unscheduled remarks there on the move in, i'm told, philadelphia. again, that's breaking news, so we're just following it. we're seeing what you're seeing. our cameras live, just trying to keep an eye on the attorney general. he's speaking here roughly 25 minutes after special counsel jack smith gave what were only his second ever remarks in this investigation. and you heard the attorney general say something that is standard. but that also reflects the very tight lipped and very traditional approach this probe is taken, which is if you have questions read the indictment. we have been doing. that andrew, i have been doing that since before the attorney general recommended that. basically, that's a fair set of instructions. there are counsellors and others who have done it differently. ken starr and the prosecutor in georgia have been more public. but the attorney general echoing what special counsel jack smith said, read the indictment for the actions and updates in the news here. we have been going through. that i have other parts we haven't gotten to. i want to bring in former federal prosecutor joyce vance. first of all, good evening, joyce. >> good night, ari. >> good to have you. >> i want to start big picture and read quotes to you as we promised to do. andrew and i and neal and christy and david all reflected this evening that this is now happening. we are just an hour into the news. we are half an hour in roughly since jack smith spoke, and we have been all been making our way through the indictment. big picture, what do you see as the significance of this conspiracy indictment against donald trump for trying to steal the election? what does tonight mean for america? >>, so we'll all be reading this indictment and studying it for days. i think that's something we should acknowledge as we begin to look at it. unlike the rest of you all who are diligent, and i have been listening to you make your way through it -- i of course skipped to the end, which i'm bad to do, and focused on the fourth charge in this indictment, which is the 18 u.s.a 241 charge, the civil rights conspiracy charge, and to me that speaks the most starkly. we're happy to reach this moment where justice begins to look like it's being done, but it's also a somber moment. it's a difficult moment for our country, and it's that fourth conspiracy which directly accuses a former president of interfering with the rights of americans to vote that speaks most loudly. that's the -- i guess that's the charge that jack smith used about cleanup in a sense to bring together these allegations he's made about conduct in different states involving a number of different people. then to say to people in this country, this is what this was about. this former president was not acting in your best interest. he wanted to take away your right to vote, and today we've charged him with it. >> and joyce, i want to read from the indictment on a really key point we haven't hit yet, which goes to the violence. started discussing this matter. i'm going to have you involved as well as our lawyers here. if you could see them now, they're all just reading. law school, crash course in the evening. this is page 42, around 42 -- 41, 42 for everyone's benefit, and it deals with what happened as thins spun out of control into violence or spun into the planned chaos, the effort to storm the capitol, the effort to use people to intimidate the vice president is one of the allegations. and the new indictment against trump says that on the evening of january 6th after everything went down, trump and coconspirator one tried to exploit the violence at the capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them, based on knowingly false claims of election fraud, to delay the election. after everything went down and many republicans that night were saying this was bad, the criminal evidence here, joyce, is that smith is saying they can prove that trump and some of the coconspirators were trying to effectuate the election conspiracy. trump through white house aides attempted to reach two united states senators at 6:00 p.m., which is after he put out a statement that didn't go far enough for many, but a statement, joyce, that claimeder appeared to try to argue a little bit of both sides -- go home or be peaceful. and yet the clear criminal evidence here is that into the night, they were still trying to exploit what happened to steal the election. i mention the page numbers, but for the viewers, this is the last couple pages of the story. speaking indictment tells the story. this is according to the opening salvo, the end of this version of the story. it doesn't end with contrition. it doesn't wednesday a compromise. it ends, according to smith work evidence that trump and the coconspirators were continuing to effectuate this conspiracy into the night. does that matter? it is bad? >> it does matter. it's important. and the language about the effort to exploit the violence i think will be particularly compelling, and most importantly, you know, we talk about a speaking indictment where the government lays out the contours of the evidence it can prove. not far from the mind of prosecutors when they draft an indictment is, what evidence will i be able to offer at trial? what will a judge permit me to introduce in front a jury to help obtain a guilty verdict? some of the key evidence that smith and his team clearly compiled that will help him establish trump's state of mind, that goes back to what neal katyal was discussion earlier, the need of prosecutors to have to prove both bad acts and a state of mind that's appropriate. whether that they did it knowingly or intended outcomes. prosecutors will be able to put in evidence and argue to the jury, none of this was a mistake, none of this was done by the president without knowledge or intent of what-doing. not only did he intend to do it, he was delighted by the violence at the capitol. he kept working on his plan to interfere with the election even after he was forced to send the rioters home. i think some people will be disappointed that there's not a direct charge here involving the threat or the use of force, the insurrection charge. jack smith made a decision to sidestep that. we don't know for certain why, but very likely it's because they're defensive involving the first amendment, if you try to use trump's speak as evidence of an intent to use force. that part of the evidence would have been very weak. but it's clear that smith and his lawyers did not back away from any of those facts and that they're powerfully presented here. >> yeah, joyce, you draw several important points, including that distinction. the violence of that day is not central to one of the charges and certainly no insurrection charge. now we can report this out. we didn't know that. we had a target letter. the violence is also statement evidence. it's criminal evidence and it's integral to those other conspiracy charges, some of them any way. joyce, please stay near a camera, please stay hydrated. we'll be coming back to you throughout the evening i suspect. i want to turn to our table of lawyers. david, finishing what we started with the evening. for viewers wondering why we're reading so much, this is where the case rises or falls. we have it now. this is whether or not a jury is convinced, all this material. and whether or not a jury is convinced will determine whether donald trump is convicted, and convicts in these kind of multiprong conspiracy cases spend time in prison, or not. reading from page 41, i mentioned the 6:00 p.m. call. you go out to 7:18 p.m., and it says coconspirator one calls phi u.s. senators and one congressperson. then a different person, coconspirator six, tries to get other number for senators whom the defendant, that's donald trump -- quote, the defendant directed coconspirator one to call in delaying the certification. there's voicemails they have here. at 7:01 p.m., while coconspirator calling on behalf of the defendant, the cocounsel was saying enough, stop, please, tries to ask trump, after all this and you put out the video and you said be peaceful and it's 7:00 p.m. on the night of january 6th, can we withdraw these formal attempts to stop the certification? he called the did. to ask him to withdraw objections. quote, the defendant refused. that lands like a damning point at the end of paragraph 120 in basically the last page of this indictment. why is that damning? >> this whole buildup to page 42 and paragraph 120 are all these facts that say nothing more than he knew all this stuff he was saying was utterly false, and he was trying to promote a lie to get his own -- get himself elected. and it's tragic. you pointed to some of these paragraphs. the thing that really hits me in the heart is this is coconspirator one, which jumps to me like rudy giuliani, the former district attorney for the southern district of new york, who i used to be proud to say hired me. i can't say that now. and it's really sad. and it's interesting, the contrast here -- i start off by saying this is a masterpiece. and this is a tragic day for, you know, rudy giuliani. but the president is indicted. but it's a glorious day for law enforcement and democracy because of the accountability that's coming here to go after these folks. >> can i ask you a simple question on that? you were a cop before you were a prosecutor. do you think when you go after this many coconspirators -- i'll be clear, this is more than many people said. when you go after this many people, does the cop, the prosecutor in you for democracy say, a lot more people are going to think twice if donald trump is the nominee or asking for this or that? does this deter certain people other than him who go, oh, i could become coconspirator seven in. >> five or six years ago i would have said yeah. i'd be resolute now, i'm not so sure. you have the gubernatorial candidate in arizona who is still promoting a lie such as this. >> look at, this andrew, american life is making david more pessimistic. >> yeah, but it -- >> same question to you, then go ahead. >> a couple things about law enforcement. i don't think that jack smith is looking at this in terms of, will it deter people, doing this, will it change votes? will it lead to certain people waing up to what happened? i think this is entirely about the thought that there have been scores of people who have been charged who are much lower level than the former president for crimes that are less serious. >> yeah. >> they've obstructed. but they were, as the january 6th described them, foot soldiers to what's charged here, which is the leader of that conspiracy. and i think that's the way jack smith looks at it. i have to say, this is a bad day for lawyers. >> yeah, it is. >> when you look at conspirator one is rudy giuliani, conspirator two is clearly john eastman. conspirator three is sidney powell. conspirator four is jeff clark. conspirator five appears to be ken chessboro. conspirator six, not sure what these. >> let me associate with my legal analysis and make a point. we have a msnbc process for confirming these matters with external reporting. so far we've done that with only eastman, his lawyer confirm he is coconspirator two, unindicted, and plan to send a memo to the special counsel to explain why he's innocent. as for every other one you said, while we haven't reached them yet, and they deserve that journalist, process -- we're dong this live. i have my notes here. my notes track with yours. you said this is a bad day. i say disgusting day. this is a high standard of proof. there's no evidence we've seen that the doj is eager or happy or gleeful about indicting a former u.s. attorney as you are, oren dieting a very recent official, and mr. clark was one of their peers recently. you talk about deep state bias. quite the opposite. it's a sad day, but a necessary one in their view. is it not disgusting that people who so recently took an oath to uphold the constitution at the justice department and others, who have bar responsibilities, can, while legally presumed innocent, can be faced with this much evidence of crimes against the u.s.? >> i'd say it's incredibly disappointing because i feel like i'm part of a profession, and there's something going ton to hold people to account in term os their law license. for people here who are in the department -- and i'm pretty sure i speak for christy and david -- it is upsetting to see people who would do that harm to the department of justice. >> yeah. >> and so -- and obviously it remains to be seen whether jeff clark is in fact coconspirator four, and even if it is, he obviously is entitled to his day in court. he has not been charged. he has not gone through that process. but by all accounts in terms of the description, that's who was described here. >> i want to tell viewers, if you didn't see all of what jack smith said or you're interested, we're about the play the key part of it as newsworthiness. we're also going the hear from a former prosecutor with experience who's my special guest on this newsworthy night because he was approached and turned down a request to represent donald trump legally in a jack smith related probe. so we have special stuff coming up. we're not take any breaks given the nature of the news night. before i bring everyone in on that, i wanted to put the same question to christy greenberg on all of the above. >> looking at how much detail there is in this indictment about the coconspirators, it seems like there is clearly enough there to have charged them, so the question is, why were they not charged in this indictment? one reason i think is donald trump has said through his lawyers that he wants to rely on the advice of counsel defense. if you have all lawyers charge in the same indictment they're going to be pointing their fingers at each other. he's going to say he relaid on lawyers, they'll say you didn't give me all the evidence. issues with pretrial motions slow things down. >> do you think smith is going to rye to get some of these people to cooperate even if today they won't? >> i'm not sure any would be the best cooperators. they are credibility issues. they are lying throughout what is written here in this indictment. i think they will be charged separately at a later time in a separate indictment. >> that's how you read this, that it's coming. >> it's coming. it's just so damning. the one thing i will say is yes, you have those coconspirator attorneys who have acted terribly and are a disgrace to the profession, but then you have other attorneys here who are doing the right thing. you have white house counsel in the paragraph that you just mentioned, you know, saying to donald trump, please withdraw your objections. please stop this, and donald trump is refusing. and they're continuing to say his white house council, doj officials, there was no election fraud. so what does he do? there's reference here, donald trump is deliberately excluding them from meetings where he's trying to convince mike pence to go along with this. there were lawyers appointed by donald trump who were doing the right thing, who were speaking truth to power. and then he got rid of those and brought in a bunch of people to try to do his dirty work. >> i appreciate the point. andrew spoke about disappointment. i spoke about disgust. you know, close words in a scrabble game. but you're speaking about the fact that when we cover plane crashes, there still are a lot of planes that land. i think that's fair. and the january 6th committee shows others within government who did hold the line. we talked about judge ig. we're going to show you some of what jack smith said for the second time speaking in this appropriation. that was in this hour. today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. trump with conspiring to defraud the united states, conspiring to disenfranchise voter and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding. the attack on our nation's capitol on january 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it was described in the indictment and fueled by lies. . special counsel jack smith speaking within this hour about this second indictment of donald trump by his office, the first ever federal indictment of any former president for election conspiracies, to put in plain english, donald trump tonight is now indicted for his attempted coup and attempts to overthrow the democracy of the united states. we turn now to somebody with quite special knowledge here. he represented giuliani in a congressional probe into the trump and he declined a request to consider joining donald trump's legal team of the special counsel's investigation of the documents handled at mar-a-lago. it's a newsworthy night. you're a busy person. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> first, your reaction to this indictment. based on what we now know, does it look strong to you? >> when the new york county indictment was concerned, which i consider trivial, jim called me, tweeted "it's a good day." i agree with joyce vance it's not a good day, it's a solemn day. i was shocked. even though i knew it was coming. the world is watching. in the united states we don't indict and try to put in jail the opposition candidate but people have to be held accountable. so, finally, i think first the co-conspirators. i'm not sure what it means. it could mean that either one or more of them made a deal, that one or more of them could have immunity, one or more of them could be pleading guilty in a separate information or they all could be saying i'm presumed innocent. i think this gives jack smith a chance to get a trial before the election. i think adding the co-conspirator in the mar-a-lago case is going to make that trial date get put off. they have the new york county case set for march. that's a criminal case that has to be respected. i don't know what's going on with atlanta. i really think it's a lot of grandstanding there. >> i mentioned earlier we've had a lot of leaks and talks without action. to redirect you, do you think this is a strong case that could be proven in court against donald trump? >> i have a problem with speaking indictments. i know how they developed in the 80s with the mafia cases. a lot of this is educational. it's great for the public. i'm fascinated to learn some of the details. but is that really the purpose of a criminal indictment? a criminal indictment, there are certain elements to each phones, offense, knowledge and the jury has to know that. >> i would characterize some of what you're saying as procedural. you're talking about habit. it's been a longstanding habit. donald trump has been summoned to appear in court on thursday on the more serious election conspiracy charges to occur on thursday, courtesy of special counsel smith. and i mentioned watergate. a lot of what's happening here is active in a way that watergate was sort of slow moving, a kind of molasses set of conspiracies. here the speaking indictment, notwithstanding your criticisms, tells a story, as we mentioned, that goes up and past the violent insurrection that night, them still trying to overthrow the election. do you think that is strong evidence against trump or not strong evidence? >> i think it's very strong if it can be proven. i don't think that jack smith can say, really emphasize the presumption of innocence. he threw that in at the end. everybody's presumed innocent. the very constitution that donald trump said we should suspend is going to protect him. i think the tactic of trying to delay, which in all fairness most of us do on behalf of criminal clients, i think that's his strongest strategy if he can delay this case past the election. this man still could be elected president. and do i think the case is strong? i think it's very strong. do i think he should be held accountable? you bet i do. >> emily, we heard from mr. sale who says he does see strong criminal evidence if provable in court. your reaction tonight. >> i think this might be one of many examples in which donald trump's extraordinary behavior makes prosecutors also behave in an unusual way. what we've seen in the case is the details help ground legal proceedings here. so the more there are facts to back up what the prosecutors are doing, the more it seems like the american people are going to understand, and i think that educational component of this indictment is crucial. >> thank you. stay with me. i want to add some of the new reporting to the point you raised, john, because one of the co-conspirators who is speaking through lawyers tonight is john eastman, and they say that it's, quote, easy to name anyone as a co-conspirator but they plan to show prosecutors why eastman should not and will not be charged. that sound like an individual who not only is not cooperating but thinks they still have some route to forestall indictment. >> we don't know the status of the co-conspirators they're not charged. so in fairness, let each play out whatever their right is. donald trump told a crowd over the weekend, they're not indicting me, they're indicting you and i'm just standing between you and then and an indictment is a badge of honor. well, it's not a badge of honor. i think what governor christie said, donald trump is scared of going to jail. i just hope when he's arraigned that it's not a circus. i don't think there's going to be a big crowd. i think peter navarro's prediction of civil war is dangerous but we're not going to see anything like that. >> emily, we've been packed with lawyers and details here tonight. i have a simple question for you here tonight. we have a lot more coverage with joy coming up and rachel maddow at 8:00 eastern but why should non-lawyers and people read the whole indictment, if you think they should, which the special counsel and attorney general in remarks made reference to tonight? >> i think it would be great if everybody read the indictment. there's so many moving parts. there's this initial wave of lawsuits and mounting proof that donald trump understood that the allegations in those lawsuits, many of them are false. there is the scheme for fake electors which also seems to be taking place against this backdrop of knowing that the real electors needed to do their jobs. then there are the events leading up to january th, this pressure on mike pence in every kind of drip and drop of detail, and it is the kind of indictment that i think the sum is greater than its part. one other part that jumped out at me, on january 3rd as trump is pressuring trump, he has a meeting with the joint chiefs of staff and they're saying to him don't do anything about this because inauguration day is days away, we're going to be turning over power. he says, yeah, you're right, it's too late for us. that just sounds like proof he understood he was not the next elected president of the united states. >> and yet acted under power of law and abuse of power allegedly and allegedly exploiting violence, as smith put it. you're reminding folks that that kind of damning evidence of his mentality. emily, thank you so much. john, i have 20 seconds. do you regret not representing trump in this special counsel case? >> i think it's the biggest case in the world. so a little bit of me misses it. but, no, i have no regrets. >> i appreciate the candor. lawyers do like hard cases sometimes, yeah? >> absolutely. >> you don't regret it? >> no, i do not. it wasn't more me. >> david? >> i definitely would not want to represent him. you stay with lots of clients who you don't agree with what they do but this is a bridge too far. >> i want to thank all of our guests tonight on what is still an historic night for america. however you're taking it in, i want to remind everyone, as mentioned, rachel maddow will are heading up coverage at 8:00 eastern with the whole gang. the reidout with joy reid starts now. hey, ari. this is an historic date in our job. i did learn something from you, a new term, "a shouting indictment." >> it's a legal term yet, joy. >> yet. but ari melber has bed

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