and vice president kamala harris taking on iowa s abortion ban just days after blasting florida s black history curriculum. our reporters are following all of the latest developments and we begin with new charges brought against former president trump in the mar-a-lago classified documents case. nbc s ken dilanian is reporting from the justice department, what s in this new indictment, ken? this indictment really describes a sorted obstruction of justice conspiracy between the former president of the united states and two lower level employees. now, these are allegations, these men are all presumed innocent, but what it says is that donald trump got a subpoena last june, june of 2022, demanding surveillance footage from mar-a-lago, and he immediately called this new codefendant, carlos de oliveira, who is the property manager at mar-a-lago, and then constituently, walt nauta, the other codefendant, trump s butler makes an unscheduled trip to mar-a-lago, and then he is in co
washington post that, quote, prosecutors have asked witnesses so many questions about how and why trump entities have paid for some witnesses to get lawyers. they have also asked whether that legal representation was designed in any way to shield trump from more legal exposure. but is there anything that s not legit, that isn t kosher about donald trump helping find legal representation for some of these other defendants? not really, chris. and the bottom line is that an attorney has an ethical obligation to represent his or her client in the best interest of the client, not in the best interest of who s paying the legal bills. in donald trump s case, however, he seems to have been able to use his ability to pay for lawyers in a way that most of us would not approve of. it does appear, again, there s some speculation on my part here. it does appear that s not working with respect to mr.
Tavaras, who we believe is employee number four. at the end of the day, i think jack smith may have one more card to play here, and that is if it appears the trial date is going to slip because of these lawyers that are really acting in trump s best interest, jack may agree to or move to sever trump s trial from everybody else s because some of the complications that arise may arise because it s a multidefendant case, and at the end of the day, jack smith is more interested in getting donald trump tried in front of a jury before the republican national convention. he s not so concerned about that with respect to the other two defendants. carol lamb, betsy woodruff swan, max rose, thank you all. president biden has been pushing bidenomics at a manufacturing facility, and now he s in the crowd, as you can
As a criminal defendant who is going to be exercising his rights, trump and his lawyers have an additional tool in their tool box that has former president has not had before, and it would be stunning if they didn t use it. max, right now, travel and campaign appearances, all the republicans, except for one in iowa tonight, that s child s play compared to what s coming up. we re going to start the debates. we re going to start seeing them go intensively into those early states because voters are going to start going to the polls. what is the start of this campaign season even going to look like? feels like we re in perpetual campaign season, doesn t it, these days. i truly believe that the republican primary will not change in terms of their consistent effort to kiss up to donald trump and defend him, although they ll never win a trump voter doing that. but it does really matter here, what does the biden campaign do and what do the biden surrogates do during this time?
Of course, president biden cannot and should not be commenting on this ongoing trial. it s his justice department that s at the helm of it. that s the responsible thing to do, but there s the court of law, and then there s the court of public opinion, and there are very important questions that democrats should be asking, principally, why did donald trump go to such incredible measures here to protect these documents. to hide these documents? was it the salaries? are you suggesting because the president is not going to say anything, right, but there are going to be plenty of democrats who are on the campaign trail, should they be talking about this? absolutely. but they should be talking about it through a very particular lens. they should not be talking about process. they should not be talking about high asteric philosophical principles, they should be talking about the fact that there s a chance here, it s looking more and more like it as this evidence comes out, that donald t