america s most famou presidential statements. today, wow they are going to arrest me. can t believe this i happening. president trump, will you come speak to us the ex president surrenders he is arrested but. fingerprinted. criminally charged with 34 felonies in a manhattan courthouse. these are felony crimes i new york state no matter who you are. prosecutors say he ran a criminal scheme to conceal damaging information, unlawful activity from american voter before the 2016 election former president trump plead not guilty he is frustrated. he is upset. tonight the substance of the case. the people versus donald trump joy reid, already melbourne, alex wagner stephanie bowl all here for msnbc special coverage of the first ever criminal indictment of a forme president of the united states good evening and thank you for being with us here tonight i am rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters in new york along with lawrence o donnel and joy reid, and nicole wallace
ask not what your country ca do for you mr. gorbachev teared down this wall states criminal indictment of former president of the united states good evening and thank you for being with us here tonight i am rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters in new york along with lawrence o donnel and joy reid, and nicole wallace, and chris hayes we are going to be joined by more of our closest colleagues over the course of this evenin tonight, as part of the specia coverage we know that you have ever choice in the world tonight as to where to get your news abou this historic event. that makes us all the more grateful that you are here together with us tonight. so, here is how it works just got the transcripts we know exactly how it went. the clerk. calendar number one, indictmen 71543 of 2023, people of the state of new york versus donal j trump. appearances. prosecutor, christophe conwright for the people, your honor. and judge, with me are kathryn mccaw, matthew cullen julio, steve
York election law makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. and what prosecutors said toda is that part of the unlawful means alleged here is that thi company paid off all these people with weird sex storie about donald trump and the recorded it in their busines records like they were buyin post-it notes or something they are saying that was a crime, that is why this was an overall criminal scheme unde new york law, that is why thes false business records tha trump oversaw and insisted upo can be charged as felonies that is why at least theoretically he should be facing jail time but, back to the scheme. first, we have the payoff to keep the dormant quiet then we have the tape payoff t keep karen mcdougal quiet, prosecutors say that there was keep quiet that of course, was stormy daniels, america sweetheart. as product secures laid out by this point in the scheme, th national enquirer company wa getting sick of throwing money down this filthy well so wha
Enquirer now, that ends up bein important to all of ou understanding here into th eventual fate of donald trum because that factor ends u being important to the crimes, the alleged crimes, bein charged against trump as felonies the contention from prosecutor today, which we did not know was coming in this exact way the contention from prosecutor today is that this overall scheme was a violation of ne york election law, because new york election law makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. and what prosecutors said toda is that part of the unlawful means alleged here is that thi company paid off all these people with weird sex storie about donald trump and the