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
president with multiple crimes. and for the first time since this investigation began america heard directly from the man in charge, special counsel jack smith. today, and indictment was unseed. charging donald j trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the department of justice in our nation s commitment to the rule of law sits an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country, and they ve let everyone. the 38 count indictment against trump and his personal and now codefendant walt nauta accuses the former president of 30 accounts of willful retention of national defense information, three counts of withholding or concealing documents in a federal investigation, two counts of false statements, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. according to the indictment the classified documents trump stored in these boxes
machine according to their report. and the 2024 gop field got even bigger. both former vice-president mike pence and the very unpopular former new jersey governor chris christie. i think he left office with about a 14% approval rating in his case now entered the race. we have full analysis of all this straight ahead tonight but we begin with this fox news alert. sources have now confirmed to fox that the doj s special counsel investing former president trump s taking of classified documents has now convened a second grand jury, this one not in dc but in south florida. that would be the same district where mar-a-lago is. and based on what we are hearing, the special counsel is now poiseded to wrap up that probe and there are many reports that charges could, in fact, be eminent. at the very same time, we are learning that an indictment against hunter biden could also be forthcoming, but don t expect hunter s charges to implicate the big guy. this will be all about optics, not a
this after the u.s. justice department informed the former president he s a target, a target of the probe. also tonight, washington, d.c. monuments are shrouded in haze as wildfire smoke from canada drifts to the nation s capital. we re tracking this air quality emergency as it moves into the mid atlantic and threatens the health of tens of millions of americans. and the flood disaster in ukraine grows even more dangerous as the region is rocked by shelling and the kyiv government accuses russia of shooting at rescue workers. i ll acquit white house official john kirby about that devastating dam collapse and the broader state of the war right now. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin with donald trump apparently in imminent legal peril. once again, the u.s. justice department moving toward a final decision on indicting trump in the classified documents probe after alerting the for
taking trump down. today, he gets it. so will his campaign be more focused on the presidency or the former president. and the destruction of a major dam in southern ukraine floods the front lines. releasing millions of gallons of water and turning entire towns into lakes. as bad as it is, the worst may be yet to come. we ll have a live report from ukraine in just a minute. but we start with an intriging mystery surrounding the investigation into donald trump and his handling of classified documents. we re now learning that a second grand jury has been hard at work down in florida in addition to the one in d.c. according to the new york times, they already heard from one witness, with at least one more slated for later this week. but we don t know who the witnesses are, who the target might be or why that second grand jury was empanelled. and we ll still learning new details about the high stakes, highly unusual meeting between special counsel jack smith and trump s three