Transcripts For MSNBCW The 20240704

Brought into our system, explicitly by this Maga Movement is of course not accepting the. So trumps first impeachment was about trying to cheat, what he ultimately failed to do. Beat Joe Biden Fair and square. He was abusing, according to all the evidence we heard, he was abusing his power as a commander in chief, and his power in foreign policy, to try to cheat, because he was worried he would lose to joe biden. He had reason to worry that he would lose in a free and Fair Election he did and it predates the primary. Hes so freaked out by biden that well out of the primary is trying to take him out. Thats reasonable one. We know reasonable to was the very Fast Reaction to this horrific instruction which mcconnell in that brief moment, they said this was an insurrection, this was a crime. Mcconnell said the Justice System can hold him into account. And here we are tonight, with a grand jury returning every Request Indictment in georgia, and in a journalistic caution, we dont have the names yet. We will report them when we get them. But the grand jury has returned every Request Indictment in a trump election probe to steal one of the states. He would have to steal more than one to even get close. But to steal it, thats what struck me rachel about, you covered so many things but at the end, yes, in a democracy, winning is how you take control of the government. But in an unhealthy democracy, in which we clearly have been tested in, its not enough to actually, when you need a Justice System to enforce it. And the tail for me was always that, after i mean, Hillary Clinton did lose the election to donald trump. And people dont contest that, right . Even if you think that maybe, you know, donald trump got some illegal help from russia, whatever, like still, everybody recognizes that clinton lost to trump, even when trump won that election, he said the election was stolen correct. And he commissioned to investigate the popular vote. Because it was not a Fair Election, he said in advance it would not be. He said in advance of the 2016 election that he would not commit to accepting the results. When he won, he still did not accept the results. And what does that mean . It doesnt mean hes afraid he cant win. It means he once our government to no longer be decided by elections. He wants our government to be decided by who he says is empower, based on what he believes ought to be the appropriate results, and the only result that matters is the one that he chooses. And the accomplices is what endangered democracy. Mitch mcconnell nearly cried out after losing in 2020. He never comes around. He plans january 6th. Trump won texas by a lot. Texas did not need to pass a voter integrity law, but they did. I mean, the neighbors are the ones who made that so dangerous, not just trump the republican president ial Campaign Strategy no longer includes actually getting the most votes right. You know, whenever i hear Hillary Clinton lost to donald trump, its always worth noting she got 3 million more votes, as this is a country we are 3 million more votes isnt enough. And this is the only country on the planet because the founders had this idea that made a certain sense to them, back when they were 13 states, that you would have electors do this job instead of voters. And there were very few voters anyway. Most people couldnt vote. So they are nothing but an Electoral College strategy, which means they are never going to reach over into that middle of the field appeal that they always try to get to, especially after the nomination, that nixon principle of, you run right to get the nomination, and then you run left into the middle in order to win 51 . Thats over. None of them are even dreaming about winning more votes than joe biden. They have no plan for that. Well, their base was in a frenzy to make it possible to try and attack the center. They know what works. The crowd shows them what works. And the cycle goes on. There is no chance the Republican Party ever being able to track to the reasonable middle i mean, they are happy to live at the far right end of the field. And they keep the crowd there. But to be far right on policy is one thing. You know, that is something, barry goldwater, right . That is something that we have contended with a lot over the last several generations. To the against the idea that voting is what should decide who is in power in america is something that is way more off the rails. And that is really where we are. Although, the history of, you know, people trying to disenfranchise certain votes in this country extends back yes, but that is to win the majority of the votes that remain. If voting should not decide who is in power, then we are no longer a country who we thought we are that is what the Trump Movement is about. And that is even the republicans that weve all lauded. Liz cheney had a very Important Role in the January 6th Select Committee Working With Chairman bennie thompson. She hasnt been out there attacking the republican Election Integrity laws. There are 48 states that have passed Voter Suppression laws based on the lie that she held up there and used as a cudgel against trump and her own party for many months, very effectively. But she hasnt extended that to the Voter Suppression laws that have passed in 48 states. Right now, it is just after ten pm on the east coast. And all eyes remain on Fulton County, georgia. Any minute now we could see the actual indictments that we know have been handed up tonight by a grand jury in the election interference investigation there into donald trump and his allies. We know that Fulton County District Attorney fani willis asked the grand jury to vote on ten indictments. We know the grand jury approved all ten of those indictments. We have no idea whats in those ten indictments. We do not know who was indicted, how many people were indicted, on what charges, or how many counts . About one hour ago, we saw those ten indictments delivered to the presiding judge, the Fulton County judge robert mcburney. For what its worth, he is a republican appointee to the bench in georgia, appointed in 2012 by republican governor david diehl. Judge mcburney appeared at his desk to scan through the indictments and then sign off on them. We also that live on camera because this is a state court and you can have a camera there. The documents were than hand it from the judge back to the Fulton County Clerks Office. And we hear from the Clerks Office that they are now processing those indictments. Thats important because thats the process that needs to happen tonight before those indictments are released to us and therefore to you. We are told that the processing could take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, but it was about an hour ago that the Clerks Office got those documents. Once the indictments are processed, we expect that we, and all of, will be able to see them. We also expect District Attorney fani willis to hold a Press Conference at some point after that, whether that will be tonight as this evening turns into this late evening, or whether that will be tomorrow, we dont know. But you will learn as soon as we know. Joining us now is former fbi General Counsel and lead prosecutor under robert mueller, andrew weissmann. Andrew, what have you seen tonight that we might not have noticed yet . Well, i hate to complicate things. But it also could be the case that although there were ten indictments, which we have seen pretty clear from the cover page we saw. I am not sure it is necessarily the case that all ten are related to the trump investigation. So, again, im not saying that i know one more the other, but it is just worth mating noting that could be the case. And of course, as weve been talking about that, just because its ten indictments, or even if its one Trump Indictment does not mean that its one defendant. You could have many defendants in a case, obviously we have seen three. In florida. And one in d. C. But there could be many here as the Circuit Court indicated. But i do want to make a point, to pick up on something that nicole said about sort of the fact that this is sort of trumps worst nightmare, not just because he is facing criminal charges, which for any of us would be a nafta, it is that this is a place where the courts have really held up so far. You know, one of the things that trump could take away from something he did wrong was actually going to court to try and challenge the election because some of the best evidence in the January 6th Case would be that he lost over and over and over again. And all the court said no. And so, here, he now has four, you know, it seems like at least for criminal cases. And his strategy is to never have a sort of trial where the public gets to see the evidence, where there is a place where facts and law matter. And he is avoiding, essentially, this sort of faulty made him go into court because he operates in this world of all spin, all what i tell you is the truth. And this is a place where so far the jury system and the judges have, you know, by and large, acquitted themselves very well. But its one of the last bulwarks that we are seeing in place against, sort of the movement that trump is spearheading. Andrew, as people who work in this business, we are all very much in favor to there being cameras and reporters as much Public Access to a public proceedings. Ari was axing eloquent early on about whats great to be able to have a camera there, and watch the judge working, and process those indictments. As somebody who has been a prosecutor, a very experienced prosecutor in the federal system where there arent cameras, what should we know about both the upsides and also the downsides of having televised proceedings, how that might change or affect the way that the proceedings happen, or whether it introduces any new risks for the country . There is no question its not an unmitigated plus. Nothing is a black and white. When you are concerned about witnesses, and god knows there is enormous reason here to be concerned about witnesses. We hear the former president day in and day out attacking them. And it only takes one rogue person, actor, and unfortunately we have seen that happen. And so, that is the real downside. Now, of course, that could happen without them being televised. It could happen with just that being released. But to aris point, there are obviously huge benefits if you need to sort of try and figure out how to heal this country. If you think about what the January 6th Committee did, that is something that a public trial can accomplish in a way that just reading something i mean, to me, i think of this as the Mueller Report diversity January 6th Committee. People taking their information in different ways. I am an old, nor the guy. I can read the 400 pages. But thats not how everybody takes in their evidence. But, again, i guess they want to complicate something which although it is true that georgia has this history where it would not be unusual to have a public trial, one of the things that we are surely going to see if donald trump is indicted in georgia is that he is going to seek to remove the case to federal court. He tried to do that in manhattan. That failed. The federal judge there said no. It would be a very similar legal argument. But the facts are different. So, one of the things that could happen is if the case is removed to federal court, you will have the same prosecutors. They will go with the case. The procedure that the federal Court Follows will now be the close courtroom. So that is we we really cant bank on the facts that we know that the georgia case will be heard publicly, because that would be a real knock down drag out fight over the venue because it will change, not just the cameras in the courtroom, it will change the judge on the case, it can change the jury pool, it can have a white effect on a lot of procedural issues in the case. Andrew, one of the other complications of televising is the issue of sequestering. It joey may very well be sequestered, in these cases, or in all these cases, and televising increases the likelihood that they would bump into coverage of the trial. Bum into coverag e of the trial on television when they are back at their hotel rooms. The other bit that interests me more, which strikes me as a more challenging complication in many ways is the sequestering of witnesses which is very common in trials, and its something that jack smith, for example might want. He might want to sequester all witnesses were no witness can be in the courtroom listening to the previous testimony of other witnesses. Televising seriously, it seems to be a complicated possibility, on the effect anyway of Sequestering Witnesses, including in this georgia case. Well, i think thats true. Again, that goes into a balancing. And if you think that our democracy right now is at such a crossroads, the pluses of having a public trial do outweigh, i think, those issues. I do think for jurors, its gonna be, whether its televised or not, it is going to be extremely important that the judge has firm control over the jury and how, what kind of evidence they seek from that side of the courtroom. I think the issue of Sequestering Witnesses is one where that particular role always seemed a little bit odd to me because when the rule was basically dont be in the courtroom. There was no rule that you could be told what happened in the courtroom, when you could not read what happened in the courtroom. And obviously when you do that and you are a witness, you could be crossexamined on it. Just say we are exposed to what happened. It might be a particular issue. The remedy is you could be crossexamined on what you saw and what you heard and what whether it affected you. I would put that in the balance that would be a lesser issue. I still think, and this doesnt take legal expertise, i just think the idea of having a public forum for all of this, when you have so many people with so much distrust of the information they are getting, and the validity of it, being able to see it and here at the same way, i think, the January 6th Committee was a sea change for so many people, frankly people on the left and the right, as to how they were thinking about what happened on january 6th and what kind of accountability was needed. I think theres a hope that thats what these trials could bring. Andrew weissmann, thank you. Dont go anyway. You know youre not allowed. Im just gonna voice it here for the record. Joining us now from outside the Fulton County courthouse in atlanta is nbcs blayne alexander. Blayne, i obviously, we are awaiting the public release of these indictments. Youve been following this case since the investigation began. Whats your perception of the latest right now, your immediate expectations for this evening . Rachel, i most struck by the fact that this timeline was sped up. There were two witnesses that we know of that were set to testify tomorrow. So the fact that they were called seemingly in the middle of the day out of the blue, to say, hey, we know that we told you come on tuesday, come here right now and testify. It is striking to me. And it tells me that the d. A. , for whatever reason, wanted to get all this done in a single day. You know, the guidance that we have received all along, and what we thought, when you talk about a case that has an investigation thats been going for more than two years, is that it would take multiple days, at least two days, to present this sort of case before a grand jury. And thats apparently what was initially planned. So this time to get it all done in one day is certainly an interesting to me. Of course, i want to see what is in those indictments. You know, we dont know what that looks like. We just know when the grand jury return. But we dont know if its one long indictment, multiple indictments, as it pertains to the case against trump and his allies. We just dont know exactly what that looks like. I do think it is interesting that, you know, you heard from george chidi, he was the journalist who was subpoenaed in all of this. And he said that he never actually had to go in there and testify. So that certainly signals that the d. A. , her team, essentially thought that they had all they needed in order to go ahead and put it to a vote and get a true dilemma charge, rachel. And in terms of how this evening is likely to go obviously, blayne, it is the Clerks Office that has these indictments. And we expect that one that is from whence we receive the. That is when the office we release this indictment to the public. Weve also been told to expect that fani willis will make remarks, that you will stick to the press and therefore the public, about these indictments do we expect for sure that that would be this evening, even if its quite late when the Courts Office finished processing these documents . Office f inished processing these document i think thatse possible, rachel. Im watching two places to find out whats when is the Courts Office, but number two, any sort of release from the d. A. s office. Even if they put out some sort of Press Release or some sort of notice, those two places will be where we would possibly find out what happened. You know, georgia law is very different from what we have seen in the previous legal challenges that trump is facing, because the indictment has to be unsealed immediately as soon as it was handed out by the grand jury, you saw rather dramatically, that it was walked into the judges courtroom, he looked at it. That officially signified him on sealing it. Now that its out there, whats happening right now is that that indictment is being processed. We are waiting to see, you know, kind of refreshing the court what sight to see if its popped up there. There are people standing outside of the Clerks Office to see if we can get any further guidance there. And of course, we are watching to hear from the d. A. s team to see if they can give us any further guidance. But right now, whats happening is processing as we wait to find out what happened. Nbcs Blaine Alexander at the courthouse, blayne, weve been following your every important syllable all day long. Thank you so much. We will be back with you as this night continues to unfold. As we follow this developing story out of georgia, again, the status right now is that the Fulton County courthouse did not close at five as it usually does today. It is still a hive of activity. Around 9 00 this evening, we saw ten indictments brought from the grand jury proceedings to judge robert mcburney. He briefly and basically silently flipped through them, seemed to have signed off them. And then he handed them back to the Clerks Office. And the Clerks Office now has them. Weve been advised now that it could take from 1 to 3 hours, its now been a half hour that the Clerks Office has had that. Before that, before they are prepared to release those documents, as rain exam there was just reporting, that fani willis, the district upper attorney Fulton County all in this investigation and who led this presentment of grandeur, we are expecting to hear from her. And that very well maybe this evening. We dont know if ten indictments means ten defendants. We dont know if ten indictments means ten charges. We dont know if ten counts means ten and we dont know if any of those indictments have anything to do with trump. Its possible that the grand jury today was hearing about, you know, efforts to overthrow the u. S. Government, and then armed robbery, and then other stuff. And those are the ten indictments we will wait to see. Thats where we are right now. Watch it along with us as our friend, chris hayes, the host of all in here on msnbc joins us. Chris, whats your reaction, my free . Well, ive been watching and enjoying your coverage. And in the sort of waiting game i mean, one thing that is really striking to me about this whole thing is the sort of twisted and fascinating tale of american federalism, both in the administration of our elections and in the administration of our criminal Justice System. The reason donald trump was not able to unilaterally, you know, overthrow the election except for this sort of last gambit of mike pence. We have this incredibly distributed election system, right . Each county has Election Boards and election workers. And the countys report into the states. And then the states report in. And all of that can make for chaos, and it can also make for real problems in terms of standardizing peoples access to franchise. But it proved to be a kind of a resilient system in 2020. And it is precisely that sort of degree of federalism that comes back around to the cases that we think is now the process and about to be handed down in georgia, which is that a local prosecutor, again, empowered by local voters, is pursuing georgia law because it appears that there is a plausible case that georgia law was broken as the president tried to shake people down. So we have this strange testament to the Roof Goldberg Machine of the american constitutional government, its about the administration of our criminal Justice System and our elections, it is fairly distinct in western democracies. It has all sorts of problems. But there is a distributed resilience to it that we saw in 2020, and we are sort of seeing now, i think. Its interesting, too, the way you are putting, that chris, part of what i was reminded by in sort of going through the timeline, trying to memorize all the names, remembering all the different blocks that were a foot here, one of the necessary consequences of the distributed system that you are talking about is that they have tons of opportunities to legally tried to overthrow the election results, right . There was a full, hand recount in every county in the state. And that produced the result that biden won and nothing changed. And then, there was another full recount demanded by the Trump Campaign that produced the result that joe biden won and nothing changed. And then, there was the signature audit, something totally unprecedented in georgias history, that they did nevertheless. They went down there. The white house Chief Of Staff went down there stood in the hallway and loomed over like equipment. He did that. And the results of it was that joe biden won, nothing changed. They did all sorts of things that were pushing they brought lawsuits to overthrow the election results. They did all these things that were, sort of, definitely lawful, but definitely pushing it in terms of the ways that you can legally contest this thing, all of which is fine. Lying to the public is fine. Its allowed. It is awful but lawful. But then, theres all these other things that they did that are allegedly criminal, which was trying to do the same thing, but well beyond the bounds of the law. And now, the law has to test to see whether or not people who crossed those bounds could be brought back across. Thats exactly right. And i think there is a sense of duty in the people that are pursuing this, exactly on those terms. But i also think its important to remember that part of the reason georgia was so egregious, and honestly, i think theres a case to be made in arizona, a similar category, just based on some of the reporting we have, the call from rusty bowers, we know trump called on doocy a place like wisconsin, pennsylvania where they had democratic statewide officials. So it was in georgia that they thought they had it wired. And you can hear that in the tone of trump on the phone call. At one point, he says, what are we doing, fellas . Like, why wont you give me these 11,000 votes . We are all on the same team here. Whats going on . So, i think what we may find in the evidence when it comes out, and it is what we think it is, it is interesting to think that there might be some evidence we havent seen, that there might be less plausible deniability then we saw in some of the communications and other places. That phone call itself is obviously extremely incriminating. But the general tenure of the communications with republican State Officials from the trump people was, hey, give it to us. We are on the same team. Chris, it is your buddy, alex wagner. When you talk about the raffensperger phone call, as you say, its a thing that a lot of people focused, on the most publicly available evidence, the smoking gun. But there are other key pieces in the trump trump Election Saga that have their roots in georgia, like the notarized Court Documents that trump and john eastman both signed, which effectively eastman says via email, we sort of no better to design this. If we sign this, im really obviously paraphrasing it is not really accurate. Which caused another federal judge in california, judge carter, to say that is evidence of criminal behavior. Thats a georgia thing that happens in december 31st, 2020. And then there is as you say when you look at evidence that we havent really the deep into, but that presumably the d. A. s office has, the figures are spot in georgia, fani willis has immunity deals with eight of the ten electors. And one can expect that that is going to provide some kind of information that would be very useful to her in making her case. Its very notable that david schaffer, who used to be the chair of the Republican Party in georgia, is one of the fake electors who apparently had direct contact with Trump Officials and does not have an immunity deal. I dont know about you. But i am looking forward to reading this indictment, of course because who doesnt want to read it in full, but also because i think were gonna get some names in addition to presumably, possibly the former president. We will find out maybe who these coconspirators are. And i think thats gonna be quite interesting, given the fact that mark meadows, Rudy Giuliani, all of them did business down in georgia. And one can expect that we will have a more fulsome picture of their actions in the next several hours. Their acyeah, and i think what. For me, when we had the federal indictment, one of the most difficult of that indictment that campaigned another of facts that we knew forwarded to the january six committee. Was device a focus on the Effect Electors plot. This is strikes me as a kind of the most granular explanation of the details of the state level plot that has happened here. Certainly there has been no investigation of this length and rigor in any of the states. We have obviously indictments in michigan on the vague electors. A much broader but i do think that we will get a better vision of the kind of granular details of how the state level part of this was operating. Probably more than we have thus far as my expectation. I feel like it is sort of the sequel to the jack smith indictment, right . Which was very much leaning on the fake electors plot as the sort of central thesis of it indictment. And here we are gonna get the local eye on that whole plot. Yeah, and i also think, look, you guys have said this tonight and it has been said before. But, you know, its not insane that to enunciate concerns about a local prosecutor indicting a National Political figure in the abstract. There is a thought experience, its not a crazy thing to worry about the abuse of. In this case, again, like the run up to january 6th, we saw all the stuff they were doing in georgia. The thing that was dominating the news coming out of the weekend before january 6th was the recording of the phone call. Like, we saw mark meadows, we had eyes on him, on the cameras when he was out there overseeing all of this stuff. So this is not a situation in which, like, some invented boot strapped cage. This was the scene of a kind of crime, and appeared so at the time in realtime contemporaneous. Chris hayes, great to have you with us, my friend. I am not going to ask where you are because i am already jealous without even knowing. I am here, three magic television, right next to you. [laughter] right next to each other. Different backgrounds. Thank you very much, chris, hayes will be back with you as the night continues to develop. There is a piece of this that i want to talk to you about that i feel like ive been really fixated on for months and nobody else cares about, we just talk about amongst ourselves and not tell anybody that. Its secret between us friends. In may, Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed a law that effectively gives republicans in the State Government in georgia the ability to remove any prosecutor who they have decided they dont like for any reason. And when they brought forward this piece of legislation, there is a republican governor and a republican controlled legislature. When they brought this forward, we have gone to great pains to say that this is nothing to do with fani willis. Here is these other terrible prosecutors, terrible people, those are the people that we want to use this against. Nothing to do with phony willis whatsoever. And their best bolstering evidence for that this is has nothing to do with fani willis was thats the law that they were proposing would not go into effect, could not be used against prosecutor, until mid 2025. Okay. Then, before they passed, it they amended it. So now when it goes into effect the first time, you can use it against a prosecutor, its less than eight weeks from now. October 1st. 2023. They have passed that into law, it will be in the power of republicans in the State Government in georgia to remove a prosecutor, essentially just on their own say so. Very soon. I cant help but believe that this is going to become the fulcrum on which donald trump decides to pivot this thing. Because if republicans, again, as chris was saying, if they thought they had it wired, republican control state, hey, you guys, we are all on the same team. Lets do this they explicitly gave themselves the power to remove fani willis, and thereby proof this case right before she brought this case to this point. I cant imagine, whether or not that is what the intended, i cannot imagine that that is not going to be how he tries to make this. The question, and i made it what happens when you remove the District Attorney . I dont remember whether this law provides for the appointment of a new one, or whether the top deputies simply become the distributor any. If that is the case, it wouldnt change a thing. This would proceed smoothly. Im just not sure what happens after you do the removal. Do you have the power . Once you have any prosecutor in there who, no matter if they have just been elevated there is clearly hundreds can be removed by essentially brian kemp. There is literally hundreds of them and that, office you have to fire about 400 of them i think before you get down to finding someone to putin. I think you, on its face, given the shenanigans that happened in georgia, i think it is right to be worried. The only comment i would, given im not a great defender of brian kemp, he and President Trump has been at walk heads before. Brian kemp cannot pardon trump on this, so he is not necessarily in the same sort of Pressure Cooker that other governors might be because of how georgia pardons work. And thus far, and i am not saying terrible things didnt happen in the aftermath of the 2020 election in georgia in terms of Voter Suppression, and voter disenfranchisement. But the republicans, weather is gabe sterling, or whether it is brian, camp or whether it is Brad Raffensperger, you know, the people that could have capitulated to Donald Trumps very, very precise Pressure Campaign did not. And for them to remove fani willis would be such a miscarriage of justice. And so transparently partisan. I mean, i just wonder theyd never do. That , listen i said, i lead a long line up about how they often disappoint. But on this front, in particular, i dont know, particularly because trump has been so forthright in criticizing brian kemp. He has opposed this law, really energetically. She was in their testifying against, saying that it was an outrage. Georgia had gotten through a couple of centuries of government without it. Why do we suddenly need this . And for democratic use of journeys have sued to try to block this law from going into effect. But theres i think youre right, im Gonna Stand With You and filling the fire alarm, and i think it has been nationalized. Desantis is carrying this out in florida. Desantiss plan to get to the fbi is the National Version of this, your conversation with secretary clintons about, you know, what you two were talking, about the weaponization of law enforcement. This is something that they have wanted to do, and they have never had the sort of Reckless Disregard for public opinion. Because they have never operationalized the Information Ecosystem so completely. There would be no political consequences for them flipping on their previously held belief. I dont know well see. They cant do hard things. Republicans cant and wont do hard things. If they testify about 20, willis they were subpoenaed. John bolton wanted to testify on the tune patrons, but he wanted to be subpoenaed. They all want to do, none of them want to do the right thing if it is hard. They will do if it they are subpoenaed they can hide behind that. But none of them will fight to protect fani willis. If this bowler starts rolling down. I mean, have you seen republicans lightly . The bolder starts rolling down the hill. If the law goes into effect and we can get rid of, her and that the republicans are gonna defend her or protect her, or protect your case. But i think rachels right, also, look at the precedent. Which has been an open war on everything from Law And Order to crime and punishment, to Blue Lives Matter at the insurrection. All of these things giveaway when there is the right trump partisan energy. So there is a record of that complete contradiction. I agree with lawrence this query, if you will, that how they replacement checking twitter for the answer. Always a good idea. I have a better person to check, with former solicitor of the united states, has looked into this a little bit. I believe, neil, thanks very much for being here, we are talking about a matter of law in georgia that has never been used before. But we are expecting the worst from it. Have republicans in georgia given themselves the ability to essentially shoot a Lightning Bolt out of their finger and smoke this investigation once it starts going in a direction that they dont like . So, rachel, i think you are absolutely right to draw attention to this bill. And i think it is something that we should very much worry about, as it has now been passed into law. But i do think that there is three kind of countervailing things to think about as we evaluate whether this could do anything, first, its true that it can come into effect very soon. But it is not the governor alone, as i understand, it requires an eighth Member Commission to review the actions of a District Attorney and find them agree just in order to remove someone. So that setup is something called the Prosecuting Attorneys Statewide Qualifications commission. So it is different than just one governor signing off, it is more than that, im not sure we even know who is on that commission. Well they havent even fully fleshed out the commission, governor kemp, hasnt even made his appointees to the commission. I just, given the reason this commission is coming into an existence, i dont have a lot of faith on what it is designed for. Yes, and that brings me to the second point, you know, obviously desantis has congress in florida, recently as last week, i think it is a different matter to do this here in a prosecution like this. With so much visibility and attention drawn to it. It will look like basically they are afraid of having a trial. After all, if there is this indictment today as we are expecting, it is an indictment by the grand jury. A jury of one spears. Signing off on this. As well as than the District Attorney bringing the charges, that is the orderly process in america. Place after, place i dont disagree with you. The Republican Party has had all sorts of shenanigans. But its the difference in kind, not just a degree, between doing it in this case in georgia. And doing it in these minor cases before. And the third thing is just to not underestimate the power of this indictment, which looks like it is gonna throw in detail. Indictments sometimes, with that amount of detail, with this kind of gravity of charges, they only may just get some more complicated and difficult for the governor and the members of that commission to try to squelch this. Im not all saying it wont happen, im just saying that there are at least some countervailing considerations. But thank you so much for raising this issue. Because everyone thinks about or does the pardon power, and why, you know, the torch is different than other states. The governor doesnt have the ability to pardon, that is also given to a five Member Commission. And you have to wait five years, five years from your status before being pardoned. But this, the ability to possibly remove the prosecutor and then force a new prosecutor and will drop the charges is something very much to worry about. Yes, and i actually wonder how the political contours may change on that if this turns out to be an indictment of a whole lot of people tonight. And not just donald trump. But you are describing in terms of the highprofile nature of this, the appearance that they are trying to avoid a trial, but they are trying to protect a political leader. I dont know if that dynamic could get aggravated or mitigated if it turns out that it is not just trump that is indicted, it is trump and giuliani and eastman and, you know, the chair of the party and blah, blah, blah. If its ten people or 15 people or 20 people, if that creates more or less political pressure for republicans to kind of bluntly, you know, take over this process, and quash it with political power. Certainly that is one reaction, to the other way maybe the very fact that there are so many people, they are just so many people involved in this plot. Trying to subvert our democracy. And launch, basically, a coup. I would hope that the power of an indictment if it is detailed and has specifics will be such that, you know, people will look at themselves and say, you know, we cant just scooch this thing. Pope hope springs eternal when it comes to the Republican Party, i got. But its only hope, given their track record. I do think it is a different thing here. So lets wait and see what this indictment says. But i think it will be tough. Neil, thank you for that. Again, we are still waiting on the substance of these indictments, to find what they are. My fever back story and all of this, forgive me, the reason that the georgia governor doesnt pardon, power do you know why that is . There was a klansmen, a guy theres always a clans when if you go back for enough. He was in the klan, he was elected to the state house. Elected to the state senate and then he got elected governor. And he, was like, thats not, bad not that unusual, but he was a really governor. He actually, once he became georgia governor, he went to the imperial was, or the head of the national claude cox clan. And made him an honorary member of the national big state contractor, so he was eventually finding the national clan with the resources of the State Of Georgia. People in the State Of Georgia were totally fine with this. The thing they were not fine with was that this guy was fundamentally and fantastically corrupt. And he left office in 1941, and right after, his name was deede reverse. And right after he left office, they changed the State Constitution so that nobody else could be corrupt and exactly the same way that this gland i had. He used to send his driver to the prison yards in various persons around Fulton County. And they would preprint pardons and bring them down to the prisons, and then his driver, his chauffeur would walk around the prison yard and say, how much money you got . I have got pardons right here, i will give them to the highest bidder. Linda is how they run the Pardon System under that plan the government. 1943, Georgia State legislature decided to amend the State Constitution so that no governor would be allowed to hand out pardons ever again, because the klan guy had been selling them using his chauffeur on the prison yards of Fulton County prisons. And so thats why georgia Governor Brian Kemp cant screw this up in a particular way. Because in 1943, we had to fix that particular problem. Its always a bad idea to make corruption too efficient. Yes. Like thats just too efficient. You have to set up some more smoke and mirrors. We need five people or eight people to do it all at once, not just one guy in his driver. I think what is going to be interesting to see, because this is something that jack smith was more subtle about if you will, is the doj piece. Very . Does phony look at, because that was specifically about georgia. Jeffrey clark becomes, and i remember sitting, where Jeffrey Clark becomes the Attorney General for, what, three hours . In part because of his work in georgia. And we know that fani willis looked at that, you know, to what you and chris were talking about, so much of the georgia stuff happens in public. Its not just the call, its rudy and eastman testifying for the legislator. Those were all via zoom and we have all the videos all of our show now for many, many months. The doj piece was flushed out by the congressional investigation. The role of countries for whose absolute dropping to doj. The role of Jeffrey Clark who was sentenced to Attorney General for a few hours before they all threatened to quit en masse. The, night the night after the same night as the raffensperger thing. I, mean it will be interesting to see what she charges, and how much information is in the indictment. And if it encompasses and includes these people and this conduct. Yes, and a lot of the possible charges you have, if used a conspiracy to regrow then you can battle things in there. If you want to say charges beyond, that can go into all the State Officials who were targeted. And we all watched has this two page document went up and down on the Court Website today, which was interesting, we were all very careful in our reporting, we havent obtained it otherwise and we have no idea whether it is a draft or a discarded draft or unrelated. But i can say that we can take a good look at it, and it includes Georgia State laws that one couldnt imagine being charged, including going after soliciting a state official, soliciting a conspiracy to basically impersonate an official or submit fraud. So that is, again, to nicoles point, and what spilled out in the open is, yes, you can publicly like. Yes, you can make all kinds of zany arguments in court, and even sometimes in certain ways, to a legislative body, if they are, you know, hypothetical or about policy. You cannot submit fraud to a state, Government Entity pursuing to overthrow an election. You cannot conspire, if someone turns on the tv and says, hes been offered ten years theyre like, why does he have to remind us of that . So those are actually different things. And, again, theres a lot of room for free speech. I used to practice Free Speech Law on the daily. Theres no Free Speech Defense to fraud. All fraud involves speech. If i say to you, rachel, i want to tell you this bmw. And you pay me good money for that bmw. Im not gonna go back later to say, i have the right to talk about cars i have the right to talk about votes. Yeah, and so those could be or not, those could be very specific Georgia State official targets that are different than jack smiths probe. Also also, i think we are remembering in georgia, and chris hayes has made a very good point about this, they thought they had it wired in georgia, because it was a republicancontrolled state, republican legislature, republican governor. Same thing in arizona. That meant they went farther in those states. That individual call from the president to the governor to the legislature, what they were trying to get those states specifically to do . They wanted the State Legislature to be called to a Special Session to reject the real election result, the fake result in which trump won. And they way they thought they could get the legislature to do that was by jamming up a pretext, fake, fake, fake factual basis for doing that. And i mean rudy goes, we dont have any evidence yet. But to your point, they think theyre all in the same trans together fighting the same so they are more forthcoming about the fact that its all billboards favorite, was diaz. They tried to come up with 1 million different ways. There was all lies told to the State Legislatures about all these things that never happened. But then there was this pressure on ruby freeman and shaye moss. What was that about . It was about creating the Public Perception that they were the bad actors, they were the people who created the fraud. And there was pressure on them to confess. We have this random publicist who Convinces Ruby Freeman to go meet with her. And he only agreed to meet with her at a Police Station. Which breaks my heart because she thought but that by going to a Police Station that she would be safe. They were trying to get her, that she made that fraud. And they used that video they have those while stories out of pennsylvania, remember ballots found in a ditch, and we are gonna announce this. And then there was the Justice Department letter, that eastman ladder, where we get, you know, some guy who was like a legal analyst drafting some letter for Jeffrey Clark. Hes going to send it to georgia, saying well, the u. S. Justice department knows about all the fraud. Therefore, we advised the State Legislature to call themselves back to Special Session and undo this election. It seems like a complicated series of plots but its all for one purpose. It is a republicancontrolled state, using the legislature to throughout the results, claiming trump the winner. If you need some sort of pretext for doing that, we will give you 40 of them. Theyre all made up. And we dont care who we are running over on to do that. And we dont care how wacky they get. Those space lasers and the Vote Flipping and this is where the satellites and this is where you start losing people on the team along the way. The first to fall is chris krebs. He was like, no, i wasnt in charge of that space laser portfolio. In fact, it was the most secure election in u. S. History. So, the problem for trump, and the problem is becoming most exposed committing crimes that are catchable, prosecutable, is when the republicans start to fall. That is because the pretext theyre trying to create is something they are careening out of interestingly, ari, youve seen in the court of public opinion, trump allies saying, we believe this space laser stuff. So therefore, it is a First Amendment case. We believed all this crazy stuff. Jack smith asserts in his indictment that trump and his allies new excuse me, that trump knew these things in alliance. If trump and allies are tried in georgia, we will see whether they set themselves up to the challenge of proving whether those guys were pushing that and if you got that meadows text, eric herschmann, his son in georgia. And theyre talking about the obituary show he says, lol, maybe we will help rudy find the other 10,000. They are laughing about how bogus the because they know it doesnt matter whether there was any fraud. You just need to be able to say that to justify throwing out the results. Considering right raffensperger, new years, january 2nd i guess it was, he gets this phone call from donald trump. And you can obviously tell that this was in effect a criminal conspiracy to try to get me personally to overturn the georgia election. Remember, Brad Raffensperger has been watching every single thing theyve done publicly on television. Hes seen Rudy Giuliani with his hair dye, pouring down his face in a Press Conference. He seen all of that. And you are asking him to join in a criminal conspiracy with a group of already proven public clowns, or clowns. And that was going on all the way through. And so i dont think any of these people, raffensperger, i dont think there is the slightest indication they were going along with any version of this. But if you are a politician, and you are trying to get someone to life for you, and youve already seen them on tv, and they all look insane, youre not gonna lean over for them what we are looking at here, that is not fani willis. But as you can see, this is a plan judicially circuit, fani willis District Attorney, and the seal of the judiciary this is the podium at which we believe willis is due to make her remarks. As you see, the time stamp on your screen there, this is live. We are less than ten minutes to 11 pm on the east coast right now, as we are looking at this live shot, where we believe they have set up this scene and this podium and these microphones because District Attorney fani willis is due to speak this evening. Its possible they have set this up now and shes gonna get there first thing in the morning. But i think what we are looking at is a delay to continue the developing story. For those of you who may be joining us, what we are waiting on right now is not news of an indictment in Fulton County, georgia. That news has happened. We know that ten indictments have been certified by the presiding judge. We just dont know whats in the indictments at all. Those indictments now after leaving the judge, the judges courtroom, theyve gone back to the Clerks Office. And the clerks processing those ten indictments in some way for public release. We dont know exactly when that will be. The advice that we got was that it could be anywhere from 1 to 3 hours after the clerk office got it. The Clerks Office got these things well over one hour ago. So we are still in that timeframe. And then, we expect that d. A. Willis will at least make a statement. Im asking you guys here in the desk do we know have they described this as a Press Conference, implying that she was going to take questions . Or are they just saying that this was going to be just public what jack smith does as a Press Conference. And he comes out and he does about 45 seconds of straight ahead, and takes note of the questions, and leaves. So i think fani willis has more experience doing, answering questions under these circumstances. I think she can probably answer a few without going too far. Well see. She has had Birth Conferences after other indictments. She is also been so cognizant of the public piece of this. And i was thinking about her earlier in the evening, on my journey from my remote location to this studio to join all of you thank you. She has done everything that she publicly said she would do, her timing, in a way that i imagine what we know about criminal investigations from all what weve had to covered is difficult. Her Security Precautions around the timing have held, and they looked like they were executed according to plan. And i think that she has been as transparent as she can, without jeopardizing her cases. I think reporters have had, big journalists, have had access to her office. And the degree to was a plot twist, and they ferried out some of these witnesses, there was real time reporting from our journalists on the ground, from vaughn, from blayne, they did acknowledge that publicly piece was part of her excessive or. While finishing those remarks, we just had official word that the docket has been updated. That is the publicly facing portion of the official docket. This is the Court Website. And i can tell you now officially that former president Donald J Trump has been criminally indicted in the State Of Georgia. Can a prosecution brought by the Fulton County District Attorney fani willis. In terms of the number of defendants here, we are still accessing this information, as it is just been posted in the docket. But it is former President Donald Trump along with several others who have been criminally indicted this evening. We are accessing the documents themselves right now as we can get our hands on them. I think printers are rolling. And we expect to hear from District Attorney fani willis essentially any moment, now that those things have been released now. Wow okay, all right so this is from the docket. The State Of Georgia versus donald john trump, rudolph william luis giuliani, john charles eastman, mark randall meadows, kenneth john chesebro, Jeffrey Bossert clark, jenna lynn ellis, race smith the third, robert david chidi, michael a roman, david james schaffer, sean still, stephen lifeguard lee, harrison william, prescott floyd, sydney kathryn powell, kathleen alston latham, scott graham hall, Misty Hampton aka emily misty hayes. It is a 40 count felony indictment. And, rachel, should we touched on some of the crimes listed . Yes. It begins with the rico act. That is the big one and it is broad in the State Of Georgia. So you have the alleged violation of the georgia racketeering influencing the current practices act. We have something that you discussed moments ago, Solicitation A violation of oath of office, that is we believe is connected to Donald Trumps personal involvement and recorded calls to State Officials. We have several false statement charges that echo something weve seen in other cases. Weve seen a lot of evidence from that here coming out of georgia. We have solicitation of violation of oath of a public officer, again, those are the kind of state crimes in regard to State Officials. So this is related to trumps wider reference to overthrow a federal election. But the theory of the case here is the state crime committed. I see Impersonating A public officer, that is interesting. I want to learn more about that. And a conspiracy to the same effect. I see forgery, and a conspiracy related to forgery. Filing false documents, forgery in the first degree. So a lot of lying those are state laws about lying. A criminal attempt to commit influencing of witnesses. Some have seen donald trump coming very close to another investigations, but this is now a State Indictment on that count. False statements in writings. I will tell you, rachel, as well, this is a lot of charges that me just say, are. I said this was a 40 count felony indictment. It is a 41 count felony indictment. Again, there are a number of defendants here charged alongside donald trump. But his name is first on the indictment. Correct me, you are leading along with me. You are all reading along with me. We are all reading of a very tiny print, while we are doing this, lets just talk specifically about the counts facing donald trump, former president of the united states. Count one, violation of the georgia rico act. Count five again, these are the charges that trump is facing solicitation of violation of oath by public officer. Count nine, conspiracy to commit Impersonating A public officer. Count 11, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. Count 13, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings. Count 15, conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Count 17, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. Again, these are all charges that trump is facing. Charge 19, conspiracy to commit false statements in writing. 27 through 29, that would be filing false documents, solicitation, a violation of both by a public officer, and false statements in writings. Hes also facing counts 38 and 39. Those are solicitation of violation of both by public officer, and again false statements and writings. And, rachel, we are looking at 90 plus pages, as we make our way through it, i see ruby freeman cited in here. We were just discussing that. I see a charge relating to some members of the alleged rico conspiracy trying to corrupt the presidency of the united states. Its very broad. When it starts with the enterprise, at all times relevant to this got indictment, the defendants, it lists trump and all 19. And it describes them as carrying out related criminal activities, including, but not limited to false statements in writing, Impersonating A public officer, forgery, filing false documents, computer theft, influencing witnesses, computer trespassed, something weve talked about in recent days computer invasion of privacy, Conspiracy To Defraud the state, acts involving perjury, and that talks about Criminal Organization that constituted an enterprise. It is a question that has loomed over all of this whether she would use this case, strong rico laws to prosecute the crime. That is actually, i think, the most important part of it is that after the list all these names, they constituted a Criminal Organization right president of the united states, his lawyer, his other lawyer, his Chief Of Staff i mean, Justice Department officials, other lawyers, a group of people constituted a Criminal Organization. I me