Our special breaking News Coverage continues now of the third, he has a third, criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump. Im laura coates. Remember. Not the news tonight, still stunning, even though people expect an indictment to come right now it is here. We have believed it sink in. The 45th president indicted by a grand jury and jack smiths investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And its not lost on anyone that, while trump is facing charges over the last election, he is, of course, in the middle of his reelection campaign, flora. This is the third time, the third time that donald trump has been criminally indicted informants at this point . Special counsel jack smith charged him in the classified documents probe in june, and the Manhattan Grand Jury charge of the former president for Business Fraud back in march and just listen to what Special Counsel jack smith had to say tonight. The attack on our nations capital, on january six 2021, was an unprecede
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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, im 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 Nations Capital on january 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. Its described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstruc
Criminalized. well, those are secretaries of state who were making those changes in those states because of the pandemic that was happening. you talk about free speech. jack smith noted trump s right to free speech and to contest the election results but what he says in this indictment is that when that did not work, the defendant, your client, pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results anna that is why he s being charged here, not because of anything related to free speech. yeah, but that s factually inaccurate because the ultimate request that mr. trump made to vice president pence was pause the vote counting, allow the states to weigh ultimately and audit or recertify and under article 2, section 1, clause 2, the actual responsibility for qualifying electors is in the state legislatures. mr. trump had the advice of counsel, mr. eastman, who was
Disagrees with president biden in terms of what he said during the election? that s why we don t criminalize political speech. political speech under the first amendment has an almost absolute protection. nobody gets to judge whether it s true or not except the american people and we do that in an election. we do that in an election and in the case of a president by impeachment but we don t indict people for speech. john, i got to stop you there. but trump is not being indicted for lying here. he is being indicted for using unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and trying to subvert the election results. well, what s the unlawful means? there was an effort to get alternate electors. that he was trying to overturn yes, fake electors who were not legitimate. that was used in 1960 by john kennedy, and it was a protocol that constitutionally accepted, so there s nothing wrong about that, in fact, in the indictment itself it doesn t allege that there was anything wrong. a