the. i am ari melber. i will be joining you now for the next two hours of a special holiday edition of the bee tonight on this friday december 29th. donald trump s criminal trial several looming in 24. that s where we begin tonight, and we ll do it a little different tonight here for the holidays. i have former federal prosecutor joyce vance, already with me to start the show. we are looking at this legal heat coming up. i want to get into this with the, joyce, but first show you and every something we put together to consider the historic indictments on the road that donald trump has already been on. donald trump has been indicted under seal of the new york grand jury. 34 felony counts of falsified business records. we have one set of laws in the country that we apply to everyone. this will now be months if not the next year of our lives. the former president was placed under arrest on charges brought by the government he once led. the guy running for president
standard, and i used to be deputy chief of the criminal division in the southern district of new york, i wouldn t have touched a guy like michael cohen, especially if he s a convicted perjurer. that s robert costello after testifying in manhattan yesterday, and he could be the last witness the grand jury hears from before voting on an indictment for the former president. we ll break down what s next in the case in just a moment. meanwhile, more members of the oath keepers are held accountable for the violence on january 6th. and also ahead, what we re learning about the first face-to-face meeting between chinese president xi jinping and russia s vladimir putin since the invasion began. began good morning, and welcome to way too early on this tuesday, march 21st. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ve got a lot to get to. we ll begin this morning in new york city, and the manhattan district attorney s office ahead of a possible criminal indict
right now we re watching the manhattan d.a. s office where we believe a grand jury will hear today from robert costello, a former legal adviser to michael cohen, and heightening the interest today, he s potentially the final act before a decision is made about whether to issue an indictment against donald trump. costello was called in at the request of trump s attorneys, leading many to believe his testimony will be aimed at undermining cohen s credibility. cohen himself is also there, he says, as a rebuttal witness. i want to bring in nbc s garrett haake outside the d.a. s office. legal analyst glenn kirschner joins us as well. garrett, what have you seen or heard today, if anything, of the comings and goings? what s the very latest? reporter: chris, we re all operating on the same scraps of information. no signs of costello or cohen yet. that shouldn t be a surprise. the grand jury typically meets in the afternoon. we would expect to potentially see them sometime here in
i m ari melber in for nicolle and i ll anchor for the next three hours right now with a lot of news breaking out of new york as the d.a. alvin bragg moves forward with two witnesses who faced this grand jury today, robert costello a legal adviser to that key witness we all know about, michael cohen. he s testified today at the request of trump s legal team. under new york law a person who is expected to be indicted which in this case may or may not be donald trump but in an abundance of fairness, that individual can request a witness appear for them before this grand jury finishes its work. so that s part of what we re following on this big breaking news day. today cohen also on hand, this weekend he said he would be back today to address what costello says making him the rebuttal witness and this, today, is his third appearance before the grand jury. so, that alone makes all of this a major day and probe that is quite near deciding whether or not to indict donald trump. so,
this is unprecedented and it is historic. the first time a former president has ever been criminally charged and therefor we don t have any real roadmap for how it will now play out. we do know former president donald trump will be arraigned next week in manhattan courtroo surrounded by extraordinary security fear also surrounded b security tonight the manhattan da alvin bragg leaving his office after grand jury decided he had to demonstrate probable cause in the case he has pursue against trump, alleging campaign-finance laws were broken but was so-called hush payments to stormy daniels she claims she had an affair with trump before he ran for president for the immediate question is how exactly the former president will be processed and charged to move surrendering to authorities. it is a process, and arraignment, just like anyone else. and then you go from there. trump himself responded with fury tonight saying in part, quote, the democrats have lied and cheated and s