bring ryan riley, i want to thank him as well, and everyone who was here tonight. i want to throw to another big gun, chris hayes. i toss it to you, my friend. this is one of the biggest nights i think for any of us who are in this business. it is a night of pathos not joy in the sense that the american republic is having to witness this integration of the presidency or the former presidency in the form of the apparently now confirmed indictment of donald trump. now c there is something so different about the manhattan district attorney indicting donald trump for actions that he took in the run up to him becoming the president in in that hush money payment scheme. we have a multi jurisdictional form of justice. they re from different jurisdictions for different crimes. the united states department of justice, this is the sort of republic at its, defending itself against itself in some senses here. it does feel like we are at the, you talk about all the clichés we is about g
expectation this would happen all seeming indicators of it happening, always the question about this institutional test, whether the department of justice would go wobbly for lack of a better word at the moment. when they do the thing that has never been done by the department of justice in this country s history, in the department s history? what do you think? i think this is the first day of the rest of don trump s life and it s going to get a lot worse from here. he has never faced a prosecutor like jack smith. he s never faced an in powered prosecutor, and special counsel. we know now tonight, as you said, reporting this news, we know a few things. one, they are doing it by the book. they re not forum shopping for what might be a potentially friendlier place. by the book, based on the case of the facts they have there in florida. we know now christi attorney general merrick guard garland has approved rather than disagreed with what was the recommendation, the plan target indictme
me down. so you want somebody who s going to push the country on covid, push the country on rule of law, challenge article two of the constitution which rhonda santas has already said, i will do that. but i don t have indictments. we don t know how that would play with republican primary voters. obviously this is much more likely. i m just not sure more diamonds are good for him in an election based on what. there is a weight to this and whether or not people want to make the bet on that. that will be an interesting thing to watch and a bit unpredictable. i think it s a really good point. jen psaki, melissa murray, andrew weizmann, thank you all for joining. a cinematic scramble as we do this breaking news. thank you so much. all right, harry lippman, harry, where are you. former deputy assistant. i m here. now legal affairs columnist for the los angeles times.
but presidents are being singled out. in fact it would be quite the reverse. if you weren t charged under the circumstances you made illusions to an air force lieutenant colonel, that was the case where somebody was charged just a few months ago, pled guilty, and was sentenced last week to three years in jail in a crime that looks violence egregious then with the former president did. so we re either a country of laws, where everyone is held to account or not. so this really is a defining moment for this country in understanding the rule of law. to your point about that, just remember to take a step back here. i don t think you need to have a law degree to think, boy, if the fbi shouldn t my house and found 100 classified documents all over the place, i would probably be in trouble. that s obviously the case for
i can t imagine anyone who would have more insight into what is going on inside that building, inside the minds of jack smith and merrick garland on a night like tonight. it s interesting, i think the finding of what s going on now will be interesting, but i think probably more interest interesting is what happened in the days and weeks ahead preceded this evening. there has clearly been a determination made that there is a basis to being to bring charges against former president of united states. i think people need to pause. this is donald trump, and he is different and he is not like anyone else, but for the first time in the history of this country, a former president united states has been indicted on federal charges. something also want to make clear, we should not in any way denigrate or devalue what happened in manhattan. that was a serious charge. that is a serious charge and was consequential as well.