Latest filings around the governments request for a protective order by scheduling a hearing for friday morning at 10 am sharp that is not what the former president s attorneys were hoping for after judge chutkans initial order to set a hearing by the end of the week Trump Lawyers responded by complaining about their obligations in their other federal case, and then offering availability next Monday Or Tuesday. While the former president is not planning to appear in fridays hearing, he doubled down on the very behavior at the center of it all in New Hampshire earlier today. How can my corrupt political opponent, crooked joe biden, put me on trial during an Election Campaign that i am winning by a lot . And forced amy nevertheless to spend time and money away from the Campaign Trail in order to fight bogus, made up accusations in georgia. Thats what theyre doing. And well be able to go to iowa today, i wont be able to go to New Hampshire today because im sitting in a courtroom on bowl see it because the Attorney General charged me. I will talk about it. Theyre not taken away my First Amendment right. Allow me to point out that donald trump is making the claim that the Special Counsel has prevented him from campaigning in New Hampshire while hes at a campaign event, guess where, New Hampshire. Even while trump defies the judges orders, Special Counsel jack smiths investigation keeps rolling on. The grand jury met this morning in a d. C. Courthouse as the Special Counsel is reportedly still looking into the fundraising activities of trumps save america pact. With all of the drama in washington, fani williss investigation in georgia seems to be getting even closer to completion. One former federal Prosecutor Says that he expects an indictment soon. Were not talking about an eight month delay anymore. Were talking about an indictment that can be presented to the grand jury within a day or two. At that point will no. I expect that we will see broad, expansive indictments dealing with things like the rico charges and interference with the election, all of those things surrounding the Cell Phone Call with the secretary of state, that the former president , had all of that i think will be here. What does soon mean . It could mean next week. Right, now it seems like the only Silver Lining for trumps legal team comes out of the state of florida, where judge Aileen Cannon in charge of the classified documents case struck down to violence from the government, and criticize that the Special Counsel for using an out of sway jury. We have a lot to cover. Lets get smarter with our lead off panel. One of our favorite groups. Pulitzer prizewinning reporter for the new york times, the former fbi Assistant Director for counter intelligence, and former new york prosecutor and civil rights attorney, charles coleman. Frank, can we go to you first . The judges order, and these warnings, theyre not scaring donald trump. He is pushing further and further, attacking her, attacking jack smith. It seems like hes double dog daring her to slap a gag order on him. What do you think . Yes. I think it benefits him. He very watch wants to play the victim here, and there is some polling that suggests that maybe it does help him with the numbers. Look, he has not yet sat down in front of judge chutkan and her be admonishment that you will only talk about ex, you will not talk about why, we are going to preserve the evidence that you are going to receive in discovery. Listen, this is all about literally potential physical harm to witnesses. To prosecutors, to jurors, in that discovery, he gets everything that the prosecution has, meaning that witness statements, whos testifying against you, who are they . What are they going to say . Heres their statement under oath. All of that is usually under the grand jury secrecy. They dont want him to spell that out for, say, many months before the trial starts, where hes intimidating witnesses, et cetera. This is all in an attempt by the Trump Legal Team to turn what is routine into something ridiculous. This is a protective order, which as you pointed out earlier, its not a gag order. It does not say that you cant talk about the case at all. You cant campaign anywhere. It doesnt save that. He wants his base to say that. All it is is, i, we are agreeing that this evidence here is sensitive enough to where you should not be talking about it before the trial or during the trial. Lets let the trial play out. That is all it is. The routine part of this is becoming ridiculous because youre going to see, like anybody whos raised a teenager, stephanie knows, every single thing gets challenged. You give them an inch, they try to get an inch and a half. The judge wants this to happen on friday, they suggested next week. This is going to go on and on and on. And a judge told them to be, c cant do friday. How about Monday Or Tuesday . She said no, see you at ten a. M. What do you think of that . Its turning out to be a tale of two different judges. If you look at what is happening in d. C. Versus whats happening in florida, its very clear the judge chutkan is going to keep this show moving, regardless of the Delay Tactics that donald trump S Defense Team is trying to avoid. Shes done a very good job of a balancing in the interest of both the prosecution and defense here. If you note, they have made the argument that Donald Trumps schedule will not allow him to appear. He does not have to appear. The show is going to go on. His attorneys still have to be there. He said dont come, just send your representation. Correct. And contrast that to what we see going on in florida where judge cannon is asking legal questions that Neither Party has put on the table. It is really turning out to be a very sharp contrast between how these different judges are going about the prosecution of the former president. Frank, this is not the only delay the trumps team wants. They want another delay in setting a trial date. How do you think that will go . This judge is going to move swiftly. A Speedy Trial Act will apply here. There will be delays and motions, even appeals. This is not going to work out for him at the end of the day he will turn it into something positive. He will say that this judge is giving me nothing. Everything that we suggest is getting tonight. Let me tell you something. If he continues on his promise, and hes true to his word at the New Hampshire rally, that he is going to talk about the case. If that means talking about whatever evidence is restricted and agreed upon in the protection order, we will have a president ial candidate who is campaigning from behind bars because he is being held on contempt of court. Thats where this slowmoving train is now speeding up and heading. Which might get his base extra excited, but as far as the general election, come on. Katie, tell us about a different angle, this secret memo on the fake electors that was revealed by this indictment. What can you tell us about this . The secret memo was written by a lawyer named ken chesbrough. One of trumps several lawyers trying to help him find ways to overturn the election. One of the interesting things about the memo, and this doesnt necessarily shed new light on the fact that donald trump and his team were trying to use the panel of fake electors to delay certain votes, and by time, but it really fills in some blanks as to the publics awareness and knowledge of just how detailed this plan was. A couple of things struck me. Number one, the lawyer, ken chesbrough, he says that there is a really good chance that this isnt going to hold up in court. It might not even hold up in the Supreme Court. But we need to try anyway. Hes already got doubts about what theyre doing, whether or not there is legal efficacy. But clearly, this is the second thing, he understands theres a real political efficacy. Theres a real political reason to try and delay the certification. And to continue to raise false beliefs in the idea that the election was stolen, there is voter fraud. He talks about counting the votes in such a way that donald trump is always ahead. He really wants to convince as Many Americans as possible that donald trump could have won so that everything is sorted out by the Supreme Court. It doesnt matter. The entire validity of the election, the Election Process is lost. Nobody will know what to believe, and it really helped donald trump to remain in power. Charles, donald trump wants to forget this court of law, and focus on the court of Public Opinion. I need you to explain for our audience. We understand how in the classified documents case, how sensitive that information is. Explain to us why it is so crucial that the material in the 2020 election, why that content also stays secret. Somebody who doesnt, realize they can, say didnt we learned about that in the January 6th Hearing . What trump is doing here, he wants it all out there before he sits trial. One of the biggest things that donald trump is doing to go on the offensive is basically try to expose as much information about rhinos and other people that were cooperating as much as possible. Why . He does not want those people to come forward. Ultimately, its a matter of keeping these witnesses from coming forward at trial because you have created a situation where with the environment and climate, Public Pressure is so high that they do not want to participate. Stephanie, in sports, there is a metaphor called putting the pressure on the refs. Make the refs do their job. That is what donald trump just trying to do because he is pushing the limits over and over. There are three primary reasons hes doing this. Number, one it plays well to his base. It helps them to raise money. It helps them raise, money as its going on, as hes doing this, because it creates a narrative in the court of Public Opinion that he is the victim, he is being persecuted. Number two, in the long, run it makes it more difficult to discipline him, because if you start early disciplining him, and you continue to do so throughout the course of this prosecution, later on, it gives life to the potential argument that this judge is biased, i dont know if i can get a fair trial, i want to make the appeal. Number three, even if neither of those things work, it helps them successfully delay. This is why, as frank already said, youre going to see them continue to push the envelope because he wants to put the pressure on the judge to try to make that decision. He is handling it very well so far. Lets talk about raising money, katie, trumps 2020 save america pact, it originally meant to investigate to investigate election fraud. Guess what . 36 million of it has ended up in his lawyers pockets. Jack smith has a lot of questions. What can you tell us . Heres what we do know. For everybody that says, why would anybody represent donald trump . Now we know there are 36 million reasons why. I was going to say, its very unusual in the past for Donald Trumps lawyers to be paid. It is interesting that its suddenly so much money. One thing that weve seen the Justice Department do in the past is say that if you say you are going to spend money one way when youre raising funds for a pack, or youre raising funds for political purposes, if you dont spend that money in the way that you said you will, you could get in trouble. We saw that with steve bannon and billed as you recall, he was going to raise money to build a wall, and thats not how it was spent. He got in trouble with the Justice Department. This is not something hes done before, so its interesting theyre keeping eyes on this pack. Also, keep in mind, that he was not appointed to prosecute donald trump for any specific crime. He was appointed to look at behavior related to a variety of issues, including the documents held back at maralago, including the swirl of activity around january 6th. Jack smith vowed to do this as quickly as possible, to Rundown Everything as possible. But as were seeing, donald trump is throwing up a lot of leads to be investigated. This could go on for a little bit. Ultimately, which act smith is going to do is when all the dust settles, hell indict what he can indict, and what he cant, you will probably delineate in his final report to the Attorney General. What were the consequences look like . I think back to when donald trump and his family misused funds in the family foundation. Do you know what the punishment was . They werent allowed they had to shut down their foundation, none of his immediate family was even allowed to sit on a Charity Board for a decade. Lets say he gets found guilty. The super pac is found guilty of misusing the funds. What are the consequences . Meanwhile, hes out there raising more money every day. Yes, and lets expand on what katy raised, which is to let me add orient hans the saying, you dont just have to misuse the money by pocketing it, as they did with the build a wall, the founder of the build a Wall Foundation had to pay back 25 million in restitution to the donors who fought that they were really going to build a wall. You dont have to just put it somewhere where you told me youre not. You could be committing fraud by simply asserting an unknown falsehood young if they can prove the pack and trump knew the election was rigged, which is whats already asserted in the indictment, and they defrauded people, then those donations become the proceeds of a crime, fraud, and then the government could seize or forfeit those. Its very common in fraud cases. Last year alone, doj seized or forfeited over a billion and a half dollars, just last year. Mark much of it in fraud cases. So it could be that eventually trump or the pack has to pay that money back. Well be watching. Lets talk about georgia. I mentioned earlier, charles, the trump could face charges as soon as next week. And what is you doing today . Attacking fani willis. The Fulton County d. A. Earlier in his remarks today he called her racist, he implied that she had some sort of improper relationship with a gang member. Absolute nonsense. Once a judge is chosen here, could he face any sort of punishment, any sanctions for this kind of behavior . He could, but he wont. At least not officially. I think thats part of the problem. But lets zero in on this point very quickly. He has attacked everyone who has been a part of these prosecutions in separate jurisdictions. But the label of racist he has reserved for certain people. Alvin bragg, fani willis let me think about what they have in common, let me think, let me think, let me think. Oh, theyre all black. There you go. And what it does, stephanie, it gives Talking Points directly to a White Nationalist base that is looking to try to justify donald trump as some sort of political martyr. And i think its important that people understand in terms of why he is selecting those people to use that language with. Hes not talking about jack smith using those terms. Hes not talking about other people using those terms. And it is something that is speaking directly to that base, very much so on purpose. Katie, lets talk about trumps former attorney, john eastman. He is facing disbarment for his part in these alleged schemes. Was this about proximity to power, or were Something Else going on here . I want you to remind our audience, john eastman wasnt some joker, wasnt some crack pot who was just lucky to have a seat at the paint the table. He was four years, i mean, he clerk for Supreme Court justices. He was dean of his law school and he could be disbarred or indicted here. Youre right. John eastman was a very respected lawyer in many arenas. He did very well. He certainly was not considered a crack part until some of the speeches he gave around january sticks. But what is interesting in general is a lot of people want to dismiss trump and trumpism as crazy in an aberration. But someone like john eastman shows us is that donald trump really did take over the republican establishment. He has managed to harness that power. I was speaking with professor the other day and i said what makes trump different from some other political radicals or political fringe movements . He said its because its not the fringe. He is the Republican Party. And that we have never seen before. To somebody like john eastman joining in with donald trump, i think its just a really big and important signifier, which is why we can to dismiss donald trump out of hand or what he stands for. And we can just dismiss it as something crazy. We really have to try to better understand it, because no matter what happens to donald trump, theres a good chance that much of what he stands for will remain active in our political life in the united states. As i said, there is a lot going on. Katie benner, charles coleman, thank you all for starting us off this evening. When we come back, if republicans werent listening before, they got the message loud and clear tonight. The huge statement from ohio voters on Abortion Rights. Later, my dear friend kara