So the idea that this indictment, we don t know exactly when it was returned, if it was returned today. he is certainly the former president said he was notified this evening tells us that the justice department had certainly gotten to this stage very recently, that they knew they had enough evidence, they believed they had enough evidence to bring this to a jury. evan, also just talk about this being in florida, the change of venue. yeah, no, actually, anderson, this is one of the fascinating things for us. we ve been following this. we ve seen dozens of witnesses go to the federal courthouse here in washington. and be brought before the grand jury here that was hearing witnesses again, testimony with regard to this and the january 6th investigation, and it s only recently that we understand that this grand jury in miami started hearing testimony. what we heard from trump lawyers, including on our air was they believed there was an issue with venue. we re told that this is
Has just happened tonight for the first time ever, former president of the united states has been indicted by a federal grand jury. donald john trump charged with seven counts in the classified documents case. this is a special edition from new york. i m anderson cooper. here in washington, i m kaitlan collins. in keeping with his reality tv roots, the former president preempted any justice department announcement of the charges against him in a series of posts on his social media network. in one just a few moments ago, he wrote, quote, i have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday at 3:00 p.m. he goes on to say he never thought it would possible that such a thing like this could happen, then drifts into boasting about how he won all the votes in the presidential election, which we know is not true. he also wrote in all caps, quote, i am an innocent man. kaitlan joining us now. our senior justice department department correspondent evan perez. evan, w
Example, the secret service, they need at least a couple of days to make sure they do an assessment and to make sure they are safe to bring the former president to that courthouse in miami. so a number of resources are now being rushed in there over the weekend. again, in time ahead of this tuesday court appearance by the former president. kaitlan? evan, that s what sticks out to me, that we should remind people trump is the one who announced this news. yep. similar to the way he announced when the search warrant was executed at mar-a-lago. also when he said he was going to be indicted in the hush money case in new york. he publicly broadcast much of this information, and now he is letting everyone know this is hatching this specific time, this specific place. so i imagine that has to do with a lot of the security as well. because the question of whether or not his supporters will show up. absolutely, kaitlan. look, everybody has learned from what happened on january 6th that t
that s a point that a bunch of lawyers have made to me close to him. i want to go back to d.c. and kaitlan collins. anderson, back with us now is our senior justice department correspondent evan perez with new information on security at the courthouse in miami which is where we expected these charges to happen. what do you know? that s right, kaitlan. we know that the justice department is scrambling to move security resource, law enforcement resources ahead of the former president making his first appearance there in miami on tuesday. just to sort of back this up a little bit, the fact is that jack smith has run a very tight ship, very little has come out from the special counsel s office. walled off even from other parts of the justice department. so it wasn t until after this indictment was handed out, it wasn t until after the former president was notified that the law enforcement folks were hold, okay, now you have to get ready to deal with security situation, a potential
When you hear officials say that it is genuine concern because they have seen this grow over the course of the last 48, 72 hours from one target to multiple targets, and let s be frank, the perpetrator or perpetrators are still at large so this manhunt under way and they want to find him or her or them before they can attempt to strike again. jim sciutto, thanks so much. i want to go straight to our senior justice department correspondent evan perez and you have some new information just coming in about these bombs. reporter: well, that s right, jake. i mean, the fbi took the extraordinary move today of publishing a picture of one of those packages, and one of the things that s already happening is that the fbi lab in quantico has been able to examine some of the initial devices,the first one, of course, showed up a couple nights ago at the home of george soros, and they ve noticed it contained a sort of sulfur material.