2 1/2 years after a mob of his supporters attacked the u.s. capitol, donald j. trump has been charged in the effort to overturn the election he lost which culminated in such violence to people, property and democracy that day. if you are just joining us, i m here in new york alongside jake tapper in washington and kaitlin collins outside the d.c. federal courthouse where the former president will be arraigned thursday afternoon. anderson, we just heard from the d.c. metro police, the department saying they are working with federal law enforcement in preparation for the arraignment on thursday. as for special counsel jack smith from whom we last heard after the first of now two federal indictments in the documents case, he spoke again briefly this evening. take a listen. the attack on our nation s capital on january 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it s described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. lies by the defendant, t
Over that. we have the discussion but it matters if those things actually occurred or not, john. not under the first it matters not at all fraud no, the first amendment let me stop you there. if he s saying that there were fraud, the first amendment doesn t allow the president of the united states to go and claim there was fraud when he was told there was no fraud and then try to subvert the election by overturning legitimate electors. i mean, it says it right here in the actual indictment absolutely, the first amendment protects all speech. if we re going to have i if we have a situation where they indict politicians for political speech and whether or not they re factually accurate then this country will shut down politically, because it s a never ending cycle of tit for tat and that s the risk of injecting politics into the criminal justice system. so right now people disagree with president trump. what s going to happen four years from now if somebody
she sacrificed her political career to make that argument before the american people. one of the most conservative republicans in the house of representatives. and what she said is echoed in various ways in this indictment. even goes a little further. she s saying that he was involved, and what this indictment is saying is that he directed it that s what she said, he oversaw or directed. and this gives a little bit more meat on the bone to the directing it, because they had access to documents and witnesses that the january 6th committee didn t have, and just to sort of add to that, particularly what you were talking about, jamie, about donald trump, using this and will use this to once again try to relitigate the election lies, the fact that we have seen republican presidential candidate after candidate after candidate come out this evening, his opponents, people who want to beat him in the race to be the republican nominee totally
the attack on our nation s capital on january 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it s described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the u.s. government, the nation s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. since the attack on our capitol, the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. this case has brought consistent with that quitment and our investigation of others continues. now, special counsel smith singled out members of law enforcement who had been defending the capitol on january 6th. they are patriots, he said, and they re the very best of us.
There are other charges laid out today against two other individuals. how critical do you think what happened in michigan is to this federal case? when we were the eye of the storm, in michigan, as well as georgia and other states that were mentioned in the indictment, but what we went through in michigan, although we were the first day to go through the certification process really was an attempt to set the ball the tone for what would be attempted in the other states. there is a rich collection of facts in individuals behind those facts, attempts that were made and the levers that were pulled to try to block the will of the people. it was abundantly clear throughout the postelection process. so i m not surprised that michigan continues to be a centerpiece of this investigation, because as we lived through it in the post election era of 2020, we certainly know that our work in michigan to protect the election results was going to, in many ways, set the tone for what happened in othe