top the government out of it. but, knowing as we do here, the mountain of evidence against donald trump. the seriousness, he said it, first time in american history a former president gets a target letter. he is going to get charged, that s what target means. allegations, substantial evidence. norm, standby, we have more to talk about on the sphere important issue. i want to head down to florida, though, and get the reaction from the trump world tonight. because that s where paula reid is. paula, what are you hearing? well laura, i was in court for about two hours during this first hearing, before judge aileen cannon. and it s pretty clear from what i saw today, that this cases unlikely to go to trial in december, which is when prosecutor said they would be ready to take this case before a jury. the judge has seemed sympathetic to arguments from defense attorneys that that was just too soon. she called that timeline, quote, compressed, and said cases like this just take more time
rebuffed by police. but, now they are facing eight counts, multiple felonies, what could amount to decades in prison. it includes election law forgery. these were prominent republicans, current and former officials, school board member, a mayor. and now, they are all facing these charges. and it might not be the last. there are other investigations in other states, like arizona and georgia. laura. there might be more to come. jessica, thank you so much. speaking of charges, more broadly. i want to know, what some of the possible ones that trump might actually face, if, and of course, if he is indicted. norm eison is back with us right now. norm, we ve talked about this a great deal, in terms of, what are the potential charges that he might be facing, and others could actually face. i want to walk for them a little bit with you. we ve broken down in different categories. one of them as the obstruction of an official proceeding. talking about, obviously, certification, right? this
this was the heart of a model prosecution, memo that i wrote with an all-star, bipartisan cast of former prosecutors. but what does that, mean a model? memo meaning that, how does that? meaning that the department of justice, in order to charge donald trump, in order to generate the target letter that we now know about, there had to be a prosecution memo. what we call, in criminal law a process memo, explaining, here is the charges, here are the facts, here is the evidence, here is the law, here s who did what, okay. in the core of this analysis, i think, is 18 usc three 71, 371, a conspiracy to defraud the united states. you can charge it in various ways, laura, but the essence is simple. that s what jack smith has to do now, he s getting ready to go the trial, against donald trump. keep it simple, stupid. you had these phony electoral set terrific. it s those people were not the duly appointed electors of the
beginning, a very good place to start. we heard a lot about target letters. what does it mean to be definitely generally a target? laura, it has a technical definition. but the practical meeting is donald trump s, very shortly, going to face charges as a defendant. if you look at the definion here, the elements are, this is a person who the prosecutor or the grand jury as substantial evidence a lot of evidence that they have committed a crime. and, the pot has come up to such a high boil, that they re a putative defendant in the case. what does that term mean to people? it means they are an extremely likely to be charged, that they are currently considered as charges being imminent. so, it s a default, hey, you are going to get charged now. very rarely, laura, i practice defense law, as you know, for 30 years. before i was impeachment counsel. the lawyer will come in, and
prosecutors, in that target letter that we ve talked about, may choose to charge. this different statutes. but, the essence of the matter is, laura, that donald trump s alleged now apparently going to be charged, for a scheme to stop the certification of the electors of the rightful president, joe biden. in favor of preserving his own tenure in the white house. the official proceedings that as the january 6th meeting of congress, and there is a tremendous amount of evidence that donald trump took steps to interfere with that. we ve heard from, of course, the congon this issue. some things have happened in broad light, an open air. but then you ve got this notion of the conspiracy, right. the conspiracy, the meeting of the minds, to defraud united states government, and the officials of the people. what is this a reference to?