so that short call right on people run from every we are hoping to get close to the road and hoping to get a glimpse of donald trump. that is the the sort of the pool he has or the supporters who are here. certainly there are hundreds perhaps not doing know around a 1000. it's for the court itself. we're not expecting him to be in there for very long, perhaps just as long, but his legal team to argue that this case should be thrown out. and so now it's immediately, he is accompanied by the man who is this valley, who's also facing charges of conspiracy that according to the charges when he was asked by the f b i, if he'd move the documents, he said no one had no idea how they managed to end up in a bathroom, i'd be have video footage the see of him actually moving those documents and suddenly certainly some people have wondered why he would put himself in such a legal jeopardy of facing dozens of years in jail to support donald trump in what was something that the investigators would be very easy to prove was false,

but those arguments, perhaps for another day, at the moment everyone focused on the former president coming here to court and making history in a way that donald trump ever thought he would. of course he did do that several times while he was in the oval office, but this is perhaps something that he didn't want, but he will become the 1st phone or present to face. federal criminal charges in court are right. alan's fisher outside the miami court house. thank you so much. it is $1800.00 g m t 2 pm in miami. and if you are just joining us where you are watching history unfold with donald trump, the 45th president of the united states. now the 1st former president to face federal charges he has arrived at or near the court house. you're watching live pictures where pro trump supporters have gathered to meet the former presidents and

you're seeing in the distance depending on the camera angles that we get. the motorcade, which is now stopped near the federal court house building. so just to catch you up on what we've been saying at donald trump left his doral golf club, made his way down to miami. and you are now seeing his motorcade, which has been stopped from what we can tell at or near the court house for a 10 to 15 minutes. now we, it is unclear for us based on this angle in which vehicle the president might be, whether he is in view right now or not. donald trump's arraignment at this federal courthouse is, was set for 1900 g m t 3 p. m local time. that's an hour, that's an hour. so what happens in this, in this hour, in this intervening time between now and the time when donald trump is actually expected in court? well, number one, he's going to have to make his way to the federal court house. that's one,

and it is unclear at this stage whether he will be at any point in time in view of the cameras, or whether he will as is quite widely expected. and whether he will take a tunnel that goes from the parking lot just across the street. from the courthouse to the courthouse building itself. now we're gonna, we're going to be covering this from all angles. i want to just bring in or a guess very quickly. melanie sloan is a former federal prosecutor and joins us on the program today. you're also an attorney with expertise in government and 6. melanie, it's such a pleasure to have you with us adults. so franco is back with us. you're in washington, dc, your republican strategist and lawyer. we're going to want to tease out all the various angles of this political legal, of course, with you in just a moment. but 1st, we want to remind our viewers of how we actually got here and why federal prosecutors are after donald trump and what, what brought him to port today. laura hahn read the 49 page indictment. look at this. this is the $49.00 page indictment,

which shows the charges against donald trump. on his aid walk now to a stipend page to states during his presidency. trump kept boxes of newspapers, press clippings, unless, as in the white house, among them, hundreds of classified documents. while he was president, trump had lawful access to this information bought when it's time ended, he should have sent over the president who documents to the national archives, which is in charge of keeping the old historical presidential records. but instead, trump had them shipped to his private residence at more like a in florida. they had information on defense and weapons capabilities of the united states and other countries. the us nuclear program vulnerabilities to attack on plans for possible retaliation. if there is a for an attack, it shows trump stocked boxes in the bull run a shower room, and they would even sound scattered across the storage floor. and the indictment

stays. the majority of documents came from the c. i a, the department of defense and the national security agency page 27 in the narrative of the prosecution with the f. b i set of mar logo, the found $103.00 more classified documents in august last year. laura con, i'll just there on. all right, we've all heard of what's in the 49 page indictment, the 37 charges against donald trump. so melanie, adolfo, i'm going to ask you both the same question, which is, how strong you believe this case is against donald trump. melanie, starting with you as well. it's a very strong case. the former president made a mistake of keeping a conversation where he admitted that he had these documents and that he knew that he wasn't supposed to have these documents and he shared information in the documents. so that's obviously going to be a key piece of evidence. in the prosecution's case,

he also will have to face likely the testimony of his own former counsel, in which the conversations with mr. trump will come out that he was attempting to hide all of this evidence. so i think mr. trump has quite an uphill battle. these are very, very serious charges. violations of the espionage act and obstruction of justice. at the same time from does have some things going in his favor. first, the judge, elite o'connor, who has shown herself to be in his corner based on the earlier case when the b i and the department justice were trying to obtain the documents the 1st place and it is going to be a jury trial. and that means that really, donald trump needs just one church who refused to convict him. and donald trump is that he seems to be tough one to a lot of people. so here i think there is so much will happen before that and we'll

have so many motions. the prosecution will have to face the motion to dismiss by the defense. and we will see where all of those rulings go. okay, don't. so let's bring you into this, you told me earlier that you didn't feel actually, that there was a strong case against trump. i'm paraphrasing here. tell us why. yeah. well, i don't, i didn't expect anything different from melanie. we talked whoever's product but uh i'll tell you why. first of all you only have. ready one side of the story and people are jumping to the conclusion. i'm not suggesting melanie as but that the, the president trump is guilty before he's even had an opportunity to defend himself . and even then the reporting generally in the media suggest in the way that narrative is presented, that he has to disprove these things. of course the government has the burden of proof totally in these matters. we don't know the facts of the case. let me take one case in point that melanie brought up the phone called the audio tape by paragraph 3435 melanie referring to showing the document. so 1st of all,

there were 13000 documents involved here which only a 121 had the classifications that were retrieved by the government. think about that. so this moving of documents around and so forth. you can be moving documents are perfectly yours to move around as an example of a factual basis. secondly, this audio tape and the so called document that was not one of the documents are not 121 has been recovered. so that document, i don't think that getting brought into evidence personally. secondly, the president has to have a state of mind may spray a state of mind, criminal intent, able nefarious knowing. and so for, for all we know, says we don't have that document. the president could have been joking, could have been waiting a piece of paper around you haven't heard the other side of it. so yes, you have a lot of a lot of accusations here, but the suggestions that somehow presidents don't take documents with them. well, we've had this litigated mount when a we have the built in the case. we have president obama and we have president bush

and the rest of them taking documents. and of course, we know the vice president biden has documents, most of june all over his garage band and it has transported and then sent them to university of pennsylvania to the pen center in washington beach by so many university of delaware, the pen center. and in washington dc, so you have to put this in its entire, entire context back to the matter as the presidential records acts as a civil statute. and it's not a criminal statute. dave, again, as they did in new york, try to take things something that several minutes drive to late, some type of federal charges. obviously, obstruction is a favorite of the just as deeper, but i suggested some house here that will fall and the lease isn't 10. and was for a quarter, i don't know that for a fact the president's position has been that he's cooperated. even though legally he has no basis upon which he needs to cooperate with the authorities. so again, you have to see the entirety of this a narrative and when it's presented. uh,

i'm also chilled by the fact says melanie made a reference to, to an attorney that d. o. bama appointed a judge in washington, dc, pierce the attorney client privilege and compelled testimony. a really difficult height standard, by the way on her last day on the job. so this is smells of political persecution. this is the one it's, there's an extension of what you saw in new york city and we will, we will, we will have another indictment coming down the pipe by another democrat prosecutor in georgia. all right, quick reset. so that our viewers understand the pictures we were just looking at, did that building that you could see the aerial view of that building that was uh, that was boat shape for lack of a better description. that is the federal courthouse in downtown miami. so that is weird, trump is being arraigned and that's why your, why your success shape a close look at this particular piece of architecture in, in miami. and i think

a lot of our here is, you know, are watching this from outside the united states. so i think we need to establish a few basic fact is 1st of all, what the documents are that we're talking about and where they were found, where there were found. well, actually we can help our viewers with that because we've got the pictures taken by the investigators. they were found in the number of different rooms and locations in mara logo. trump's residents in florida and you're seeing these boxes of official us documents that the former us president took with him after he left the white house. and they were found in a storage room that's a bathroom. you see the toilet, you see the shower curtain. so a bathroom storage room ball room, one place that according to the indict, that was easily accessible from a pool and some of these rooms, again, according to the indictment, not locked easily accessible documents that were either or classified as secret or top secret, meaning that they could cause danger or even grave danger to us national security. again, not my words, words that are in the indictment against donald trump. so with all of that,

said melanie, if i can bring you back in on the espionage act, 31 of the 37 charges are for violation of the espionage act. tell us what that is as well. i think that there's an misapprehension left. the espionage act means you have to be a spite in some way that violations of the espionage act requires buying for a foreign government. and that is not true. it does not have to be the case that mr . trump handed over one of these documents to a foreign power. what simply has to have happened here is that he would have taken the documents back. he knew what was in the documents, and that he did not take adequate care of those documents. so these i, that's all that he needs to have done. so if, if the prosecution is able to prove that mr. trump knowingly took documents that were classified in this way. and that could, that,

that did include our national secrets and that he deliberately withheld those that would be sufficient for him to be found guilty of those charges. so i think he is in much higher, illegal jeopardy than your other guest wants to recognize here. of it, you've seen many republican politicians this week saying, well at least donald trump wasn't spying for a for empower me. just put that in. caught, just think about that for a minute. that either somebody was the president united states and is again running to be the president of the united states. and the way people are defending him is that he wasn't actually spying for a foreign power. is it? that is the is the floor of what we need to add for somebody to be the present united states. his behavior has been a reprehensible regarding these documents and you don't just have to take what adolfo sizes, you know, democratic words for it. there is the former attorney general of the united states bill bar who has talked about this and has said that you use very concerned it

thinks that the president trump is no victim year, and that he is facing very serious charges and may well be found guilty here and i also want to take issue with the concept that jack smith, the special counsel who's in charge of this case is a democratic prosecutor. he's not, he's an independent prosecutor. he previously his last assignment was prosecuting cases of pay. so he is in no way a partisan politician. all right, melanie, i don't so please, don't forget, you will absolutely get the right of response. don't worry. but i'd like to ask you both to stand by for just a 2nd, because i want to come back to john henry and he's in the crowd near the court house. and he's uh, standing by with a trump supporter who has come to the court house to support his candidate. don't the bench right, this is deborah. she goes from palm beach next to the for, as the former president. and as you can tell, she is a fan. so let me ask you,

what brings you here? i'm, i'm, i'm here to support president jews to drive it's and it's not a long distance. when you do come down here, you dress the, you want to do the rest of the world. we're in support of president trump and that this is not fair and the charges against him. most of the people i talked to near say their concern is it is, is political process. yeah, i did. and i do. and why i mean, do you think that the attorney general is just doing joe biden city? do you know what the small creatures are? people that are all paid, we've got a really bad system out there in washington, and people are being paid off of this. now you've got a friend here as well. this is candace who also came down. did you also come from from the yes, i did have a little group, palm beach patriot. some are grassroots people that come to the rallies and protest

peacefully. and if you can't see it, or has it as opposed to a mega basically the, that's the kind of a job. but not really the america, the fraudulent values, traditional american values. even the people that hate to benefit from that let me ask you which of the questions? because the prosecutor says we need some pretty bad things. city without documents and maybe hidden from the us government. even when he was subpoenaed, what do you say to the same time? the last president in the car in the email then servers and i think we're seeing the

findings accepted. so you don't think this is any different than waiting til guys. we've had some documents or might been said, some diagnostics ab saving because he's representing me, the people they've had plenty of time. everybody's the what do you mean by that? they're going down, going down as in get they have to get him to get in a tight and then what happens? i mean if there is, if, if you're right and there is a 2nd jump administration, what happens then? i think they're all to be either indicted or they already have skilled indictments that i don't really know. i don't know because i'm not part of any intelligence of just the regular patriot or pod cast today. i'm gonna ask you another type question here though. isn't that what you're complaining about here though? i mean, if, if it's wrong to prosecute donald trump like that,

wouldn't it be wrong to prosecute job? i hope they would be prosecuted for things like sedition, threes in times, against humanity, crimes against children. there's different times than heightening document. alright, what can deborah? thank you very much. i really appreciate you talking to us and giving us your views and enjoy your day here. so that's a really, i think a fairly typical view of, of the trump fan is here. they almost universally think this is selective prosecution, but interestingly, many of them want to see democrats prosecuted if there is a 2nd trump administration. so there's a bit of academy there. it's on henry and fantastic job. thank you so much for bringing us that, that color from the crowd and, and john and i will address this to alan as well. something you may not have heard because it just broke that we now know donald trump has been processed ahead of his arraignment as well as his a was now to was also cited in the,

in the indictment. let me go now to alan fisher. since we're getting this news that donald trump has been processed, alan, can you help us? can you just run us through the next steps? i mean, technically what happens between now and the arraignment, and what actually does there raymond, consist of, of the well, he'll be given time to, to consult with his legal team. and he'll be given a room that will be set aside by the secret service that would have happened because he is the former president to keep them away from anyone else who is in the court. they want to continue to ensure the secure, well, nato is the gentleman i was talking about earlier. who is the steward who will, who's also being charged with conspiracy and will appear in court beside him. he will also be able to, to consult with his legal team as well. and then just before 3 o'clock, the term will be taken into the court. the prosecution will be on one side. we will

know, of course, that jack smith is the man who let the diamond who will actually lead the government's case. we're not entirely sure at this point if you will lay out the charges through the court that donald trump faces all $37.00 of them. donald trump will be asked his name, his date of birth, the 1077 tomorrow, and his address, and sometimes they ask for occupation. he of course, is businessman and former president of the united states of america. i will be asked if he wants to give a a whether he wants to plead at that point. if he does, he will say no guilty. and then we expect there will be legal arguments from his team who will suggest that if this is a case that should be thrown out, no, i there should be plugged our hearings. there's no need for further legal arguments, but this is a prosecution that has been brought for political reasons and brought only against donald trump when others are guilty of similar crimes. it's unlikely that the judge who we expect to be a trump appointee heating the case. we'll just set

a date for those legal arguments to be had at a very, a time. somewhere in the future, probably in the next 2 weeks we think. and then it will be all over and donald trump will leave. you will take his motorcade to the airport here in miami, where his plan is waiting and he will fly to is the state in new jersey a where he will deliver comments this evening. same sort of scenario that he did when he was in court in new york. you remember, he flipped from new york back to about a lot go as there he made comments criticising the, the prosecution suggesting it was a we're trying to suggest that you was political as a whole thing, of course has come out to it with the truth. social pause just in the last 20 minutes or so. what donald trump said that he was on his way to the court house. we know it probably there, and that it was a witch hunt and a game saying my make america great again. the slogan has become so closely associated with donald trump, and so many of

a supporters that you've been hearing from in the last 15 minutes or so. alan, what prison sentence or sentences do these charges carry you're gonna have to say that again. so you with a quiet there how and what present symptoms do these charges carry that are in the indictment as well? they're all pretty serious. i mean we have some bill by herself. this is attorney general who donald trump has since disavowed. he spoke to one of the political shows in the united states on sunday and said reading through the indictment of donald trump is guilty of half of these, then he's choice. if you look at the charges of obstruction of justice, because he told the national archive and the f b i that he turned all the documents. when it was clear, he hadn't accused of lying to investigators. when he told the api i the turned all the documents and he hadn't, i, he's holding documents, which you'll remember suggested where the united states was vulnerable to for an

attack. how would they would respond to various board attacks as well that the charges that fall under uh the, the, the espionage act. and so if he's found guilty of old stuff to 7 counts, i was speaking to a lawyer the other day who said if you told them all up for the maximum tide of that can be imposed in each of these charges, it's around 876 years, so clearly donald trump is facing legal. jeff or david could mean as he ton 77 tomorrow. the rest of his life in presence, of course to bite and could always decide to partner if he is actually convicted. but we're still a long way from, from those steps he's got to get through this heating festival and then the legal hearings that will follow. but we suspect that he could go on trial as soon as 6 months time. so you're talking about just before christmas at 2023, when donald trump will go on trial here in miami. alan,

thank you so much. i want to bring back our guests and to this conversation, melanie sloane from washington dc, she's a former federal prosecutor and a duffel franco, also in washington. he's a republican strategist and lawyer adolfo. um, i wanna ask you, when you think about this as a strategist, what do you lay out as the different possible scenarios? now, i'm not asking you what you think would be fair or what you think would be warranted . but as a strategist, what do you think could happen? different scenarios swell. i'm sorry, i wasn't able to respond to some of the earlier points that melanie made. although i thought your interviews were excellent because they demonstrate how the country is divided and the rubicon has been crossed are now political persecutions like this will become the norm. unfortunately, in the future, republican or democrat, the only clarification to be clear, mr. smith is not an independent counsel. melanie, jesus special council. he was appointed by marilyn garland. of the attorney general is an appointee both the president had stage, he's a political person. so this is,

this indictment was cleared by the attorney general political appointee at biden. so any, any, just spell any notion that this has anything independent, he's not independent console is a special counsel do you has there's 2 clinical appointees. this is that by the administration's political persecution, that's a fact to your question know, and, and also just to be clear, i do want the answer to that question melanie, you'll get a right, right, a response to that because that is so important, the perception by some americans that this is political, that this is indeed a witch hunt, and also the political problem that poses for joe biden. right? because melanie door instances where, you know, joe biden, obviously running for reelection happens to be run against donald trump in it. so happens that his department of justice is now the one prosecuting his political rivals so that poses all sorts of questions. well, i promise we'll do a fax that in a 2nd, but we'll just hit pause for quick 2nd because i would like adults with the tell us what are the different scenarios he thinks okay. are are that was yeah, yeah,

absolutely. if you could get to that. yeah, yeah, you hear those scenarios and i think we're seeing it unfolding now. and this is just as a neutral republican strategists move to from the republican party sort of position . i think increasingly, you will see at 1st of all, all the major significant republican candidates that have any shot at the nomination. us continue to say fundamentally, what i've been saying, this is political persecution weapon as ation, etc. however, what you're going to start to see right now is, although we stand with president trump, now we believe this is terrible. what's happening. we cannot nominate someone who will have this cloud over him. uh and correct your report, this trial will not happen in december. this trial will not happen if it happens at all the wellness of 2024, and there are other indictments coming down the pike by the way. uh so uh, this probably will be there and that will be the strategy that will be used by

other republican presidential hopefuls. and then i think over a period of time that might begin to resonate with republican voters. you will still have a 30 to 40 percent republican voters that are die hard, trump supporters. but eventually i think a number of republicans will say we need to elect a governor to sanchez, for example, or a nikki haley or attempt scott, they will address it. they will vindicate, accelerate president trump, pardon the president, trump, whatever you want to say. but we can't risk for president press it, putting president trump on the ballot because we will not attract independence. and certainly many democrats and we can't win with just our base. that will be the intellectual argument. and i think you'll can, you will see that on a short period of time, as he gets bogged down on this process, he's going to be long, laborious things for him. this process, it will become increasingly clear to many republicans that possibly another alternative would be better, and it's a dog's trunk of interest to do so. melanie,

if you want to address that earlier point now about how yeah this is in, this is what adolfo has been saying from the beginning that this is political. it's also a donald trump says, and the fact is that joe biden, the president's department of justice, is investigating prosecuting indicting. joe biden's political opponent is certainly that's true, but you can't expect the justice department to look aside and just totally ignore the fact that a citizen of the united states has violated very, very serious criminal laws. it's not like there is some alternate department of justice that can prosecute. mr. trump for his wrong doing mister by them has had no part in this inquiry. he has studiously avoided any even suggestion that he's involved in any way. he has not talked to mary garland, he has certainly not talked to jack smith. jack smith has

a long reputation in washington dc as an independent person who is not a partisan political person. he is not a political appointee in any way. he is indeed a special council and he is doing his job of examining the facts and breeding charges as he sees fit. married, garland has not told jack smith what to do. uh, and, you know, in point of that this case is not great for president biden. in all of the polling a match up against president biden versus president trump. that is actually the best possibility for president bible because so many people have such strong feelings against president trump. should it be another republican that is actually a stronger line up for the republicans, but at so the president biden has really no interest in this except for the fact that president trump took documents, refused to hand them back over. it was asked many, many times to turn them over. he was,

you have many opportunities to return the material before we got to a place where he was finally indicted. well, and melanie, after, you know, just a moment ago i heard from trump's attorney outside the court room. i'd like us all to listen to that. this is what she had to say. as we are witnessing today is the blatant and unapologetic weapon ization of the criminal justice system. the bite in a point appointed special council has thought fit to bring $37.00 federal charges against president trump. the leading front runner less than a year and a half before an election. countless other individuals. hillary clinton, joe biden himself retained possession of classified documents that have not been prosecuted. and none of them came into possession of those documents while they

were president. none of them were president who as the head and so member of the executive branch, has the power to summarily declassified documents. the decision to for su charges against president trump while turning a blind eye to others is in emblematic of the corruption that we have here. you just heard from donald trump, the attorney outside the court room, there were going to be joining john, henry and john, look you did a fantastic job of really establishing a direct line between us, our viewers and the po, trump supporters that were gathered outside the courthouse, earlier this hour i understand you have now been speaking to an antique trump. protestors tell us about that. that's right. there is a small group of people who want to see trump prosecuted for it is one of them. here is maurice. you can see is sign which says locking up and boy is what brings

you here. well, i just wanted to create a little bit of awareness as to this man poses to our country in our community. and uh, you know, the factors is a bit of a sociopath that has a lot of people has been a timer their whole life the most. and the newest people just like any demo dogs. just like the job is it in venezuela is like fidel castro, data in cuba. so fortunately, a lot of people in this community think that opposes dictatorship. it is bad for creative, but the exact opposite. just to myers dictate, the myers to get myers to myself through north korea. so i wish

our community was in a stable. i wish they would get wake up a little bit. realize this guy stats for exactly. yeah. you know, if it's something you've been jealous mistakes that he's doing the work of god, it's not. well, let me ask you, janet trump has a pretty long history of getting out of every jam he gets. and you think this one is going to be different? yeah, i just like this one job to have him dead to rights is inside business environment is based on his own words and the testimony of his closes the bars and lawyers. so basically slam dunk usually that federal federal prosecutors. they don't, they don't pursue it changed unless they have slam dunk and this is it 99 percent. you know, the only thing that could throw my kids are rich is this is

a judge who will be appointed, but even that they're gonna save him. he's going to go to jail, or fortunately you want to in, in the prison because it's got the secret service. will that have to give them a special jail, but it better not be more lago, i'm not paying for it. let me ask you what i talked to terms of orders here. basically this is selected for isaac using joe biden was found with some documents secret documents. mike pants was fabulous. i'm secret documents. why is this different? well, you know, i mean that's a, that's a whole line that he's been saying the whole time, you know, for the time as a major investigative here that it was a weird john muller was appointed by jeff searches, who was a republican and then transferred supporter in the senate, so i'm going to send me the republican department suggested that that'd be

the same for all right, thank you maurice. you really appreciate talking to you from democrats or be worn down after 2 engagements after another. each time thinking that donald trump was going to suffer some consequences as a result of that, you can hear this a 4 by 4 prosecuting but this is small group here and the lady back to point to that there are 2 side baseboard out. we'll see what happens john henry and giving us a live look at the crowds outside miami's federal courthouse. and as john just

mentioned to indictments to impeachment. uh, i still actually stole that line from alan fisher so out, and i'm going to give you credit and go back to you. you're also outside the courthouse. so for what? 25 minutes away. now from the, the big moments in air quotes where donald trump is going to be a rain, he has been processed. what happens, tell us again, what happens in about 2025 minutes as well. we should take a 2nd just to realize exactly what has happened me. a former president of the united states has now been formally charged with a federal criminal offense. in fact, $77.00 of the and the former president of the united states is now in the official custody of the government that he once ride. so in a very short time, he will move into the court house. now it's up to donald trump, whether or not he wanted to the court room. rather the court house. it's up to

donald trump whether he wants all $37.00 charges right. in a lot of cases, the defendant say that they will boulder because it simply speeds the process up. time tables will then be set we expect to hear from him to say that he's not guilty . his legal team are expected to argue that this case should not be dismissed. the judge in the case is jonathan goodman, a former newspaper journalist, and someone who's been a magistrate in the court for probably about 10 years or so. now, you will hear the case and then you will arrange a time table. the reason is there has to be a time table is that the government has to handle the everything that it has on the case to donald trump's defense lawyers that's called discovery. and because there are classified documents involved, that become slightly more complicated than your normal criminal case. that means that someone may have to be appointed to essentially filter through the documents about what can be seen by people who don't have security clearance. but a,

here's the hope of jack smith, who of course, was the special prosecutor that this could be a speedy trial. a total company want to try and drag it out a bit, taking it to appeal courts with various things that he, what his team will argue. and if they lose, they will take it there. but there is a thought is that this case could make it to court before december 2023, which clicked donald trump on trial then. but as i say, an incredible moment of as to when you think that donald trump once run the government that know has him officially under custody. yeah, absolutely. thank you for that context now. and i want to bring back in our guess live from washington dc. both of you, we have got melanie sloan, former federal prosecutor, adolfo franco, republican strategist, and lawyer, adolfo, i'm mindful of the fact that at some point, you're going to have to leave us as well. so do you know, to let us know,

do raise or half when test the case? okay, that is at the center of all of this is the accusation. adolfo that donald trump improperly kept classified documents, which, if they had been revealed, could have jeopardize seriously jeopardize us national security. as a republican strategist, does that give you pause a well, considering that the facility is protected by the secret service? and the presidents have all kinds of secret documents. farmer presidents and confidential things they do, we know the bindings do and here's, here's where in a garage. does that give anybody pause? they are classified secret documents of some sort. we don't know they're the same level, but they were there in a garage of people that actually those are top secret science by an artist couple and there. and a couple universities. a couple universities funded by, by china, which all kinds of connections have to be made. so we're going to your question on this is at that more level of having these documents, again, it's

a small amount of documents. i go back to what mister call me said 7 years ago when he found that hillary clinton, who had absolutely no right to documents are given to, you'll give me good. you're going to see arguments made the present. it had right to these documents. a sheet that those documents were indeed compromised. mister companies, words that you have to assume that form sources saw top secret documents out of hillary clinton surgery which he community later bleached, broke and destroyed evidence and nothing happened. the reason i bring this up is because ultimately you've seen it in this program, which is an excellent, this is going to be a question for the american people of fairness and where there's a 2 tier justice system. now melanie is a great lawyer, but she mentioned there is no alter alternate department of justice. 2 things mr. call me said that no prosecutor and his right mind would bring charges against hillary clinton. not because it wasn't a crime because she was a presidential candidate. so that's called prosecutorial discretion,

and that's what should have been exercised here, mr. smith, and that one he has a very poor record. he was reversed 9 to 0 by the nice day supreme court on a similar case against the former governor of virginia. and i had a disastrous case against the former senator edwards. now i want some amount and he made some references here that mister barton hasn't spoken to mister garland. i don't know that melanie, how you have firsthand knowledge of that mister bite has said he has and you have no idea what his that's happened or not. and importantly, and i want to underscore it. mister garland made this decision. as i'm speaking facts, not speculation. here you are speculating, melanie, whether there were conversations or not, i'm telling you mister garland controls this indictment. he's signed off on it. is he a political appointee? the answer is yes. this is a slam dunk case of political persecution. and precisely why mister colby's

decision actually 7 years ago was the right decision is just this has been a radical departure and the interviews that you had here. and how does your, with the people in the crowd or the democrat or republican demonstrate what vice president pencil said this persecution or prosecution, depending on your perspective, is only going just or to divide this country further. and i think that is a travesty for the united states. melanie, you want to address that? sure. um. well, there's so many things that adolfo said that were incorrect. it's, it's sort of hard to know where to begin. and really i one small point is that i think adolfo is referring to the case that was brought against as then governor of virginia, governor mcdonald. and he was charged with something called on his services fraud, which is an entirely different a different statute that is not at issue here in any way. so that's

a different case. as was the john edwards case here, the case we're talking about, you know, mr. trouble could have avoided prosecution if he had just returned the documents he was ask, have you been had he returned the documents on the many, many occasions that he was given to return those documents. we would not be in the position that were in today. mr. trump, in fact, is the architect of his own indictment by flat out refusing to return the documents and then the sliding documents saying that he had returned documents, but he did not. in fact return. i'm in fact asking his attorney to destroy documents. it is and these are all things that were written within mister trump's control. so he had options. he chose to take the very worst option. why it's in comprehensible when we're talking about the biden and pens. um, they returned documents, they looked for the documents and they returned them. when you're talking about political persecution, if that was true,

then you'd think mister pens would also be prosecuted. but mister protest has been cleared. mister pence returned the documents. only mister trump insisted on holding the documents and sharing them widely. mar logo is hardly a secure facility. documents in washington, dc are maintained in very secure facilities when they have top secret markings, and they are not kept in bathrooms in hotel ball and in hotel ball rooms, where thousands and thousands of people come every day for things like weddings and other celebratory functions. this was not a secure facility, a theme, the previous cases where like there was a chinese spy who was going in and out tomorrow i'll go. so there have been definitely it is, it would be foolish for americans to think that other countries have not sent their spies in tomorrow. i'll go with you so easily access. when mr. trump has so frequently demonstrated that assistance on maintaining documents, simply because he believes they're his mean. that's really the problem. mr. trump

believes that whenever he talk from the white, however, he was titled to because he was once the president edits his and then he really just wanted to show up the documents. this. this is, this is a situation where this is melanie has made the case here for the of why this is political persecution weapon ization mets. she's talking about security of documents. people don't have a right to be with documents. mister vines, documents are in his garage next door corvette is that a secure facility. he's had documents for decades. here's the difference. he stole documents when he was a senator from a school. now when sandy berger, the national security advisor under president clinton did that, and the 19 ninety's, he was personally prosecuted under the espionage act and found guilty for doing exactly what then senator biden did. he was a senator and he's had these were decades. he's set them to penn center and the sentence university has ties to china. that isn't

a security threat. these are classified documents that had been shown to all kinds of people, including potential spies. now you were saying in drawing all these conclusions to say that the president trump, for all i know since there were 13000 documents in play and we're talking about a 121. he quoted a thought they were all retired. you'll only see the accusations, but the lord are here on the other side. she might be a great prosecutor. she's not the jury, she's not the fact finder here. she's just taking allegations on their face to be accurate and they're not. what was the state of mind? what do you know, but with these advisors all about, is there any, if you apply melanie standard, then mr. bind, it's headed to prison. as charlie, mr. mrs. clinton, they had documents and when they were president and they have top secret documents, and there's a right, is that secure? melanie? is that a secure facility? so that's what i usually do, is that mr. john are not asked to standards of justice in america. it measures

exactly why this ultimately could play very favorably to president trump. there's just a smile test here that isn't, doesn't seem right to the american people, and you cannot have a person that is running and, and i hadn't opposed to mr biden. and many polls, and certainly the republican nominate, be persecuted this way. you have to apply the economies standard. melanie, that was the only out here, guys, adolfo melanie. i mean, thank you for this period in conversation i, i want to turn to our correspondent, i want to think also adults will franco washington, dc. he's a republican strategist and lawyer because adults i understand that you've got to run and we really appreciate your time today. your insights and you share in your own thing is as well and your legal expertise with that, and that would be, i appreciate it. melanie's do appreciate a melanie snow and we all do, and we all appreciate the conversation. melanie, you're staying with us, and we're also thankful for that. but i am going to go to houses here as a allen fisher right now, who's outside the, the federal courthouse in miami. alan,

we are about 1013 minutes if things happened on the schedule uh from trump being around, am i right with the timing of the that's right. i mean it could be it, he's in a, in, in less than 30 minutes. i mean, it could be that quick, it just depends on whether or not he waves the reading of the charges, which we suspect he might well do. because he's well aware. and certainly his legal team are well aware of the details of the 37 charges and the people here at the beginning to wonder what to do next became near the voice to their support for donald trump. most of them, the majority of them. there's a few anti trump voices in the crowd. i know they don't quite know what to do. i mean, bill, obviously how you're on the exits, hoping to get a glimpse of the president as he leaves heading for miami and then on to to new jersey. it'll be interesting to see if the, the, the, the judge in the case decides if there's any sort of orders he wants to attach to.

you'll know that donald trump has in the past the type, the prosecutors. but the difficulty of course, stays, and everything is made slightly more difficult, but the fact that he is running for president it by the fact that that would possibly interfere with his 1st amendment rights to submit to plank of his campaign, etc, etc. so we'll wait to see what the judge actually says. so while there is no cameras in court that of course, members of the public who queued up from about this time yesterday hoping to get a seat in the court. and also general is who will report on what is happening in the court room itself. but as i said earlier, it really is incredible that here we have donald trump, who is now officially under federal arrest. and elena, i have to ask you the big political question. i know you don't have a crystal ball, but if we look at the last few days here, the question being of course, how does this affect his political campaign?

his run for the republican nomination and ultimately has run his bid for the white house the last few days i feel have yielded some clues. he, donald trump, appears to have embraced this indictment and everything that goes with its ellen of the well, i think if you look back to the fact that he a launch this campaign in november, which is well ahead of what do you normally wait in in the election cycle i, many people suggested that the reason we did it was because he knew there were charges coming. he knew he was in legal difficulties. and then you'd be able to use this as a political prosecutor should as a defense i, i but since then he has been the front runner and we've seen others coming to the race. i but donald trump almost and kind of just the others because they're more at the trump voices that are the fewer trump voices. there are. so he's the only one exposing his brand to pull it takes the others are to a degree on to trump, and that split the vote for those who would vote for someone other than trump. and

we've also seen run desantis who, of course, for many people thought we'd actually challenge donald trump much more closely than he has, has failed with the launch of his campaign. it didn't go a toll well, he hasn't been able to get any traction. others have seen that he isn't the force that many thought they would, so they've decided to jump in as well. but here's the thing about donald trump from very early on in this campaign of 2016. how many times were there moments where we said, well that's the end of donald trump's campaign. i know i covered that campaign when he attacked john mccain. seeing that water heater was with people that didn't get captured when there was the infamous tape on nbc, about sexual assaulting women just a couple of weeks before the election. all of that felt as if he was going to be defeated. don't have to pull out the race. and then on the night of the election itself as we walked into the ball room, that was a room for a concession speech. and despite what they say, no one in the trump campaign,

no one thought they were going to win the election. even the most generous polls gave him a no chance of winning. but he won on, he has been political powerful, and he used to colorado rigging the excellent president donald trump, has invented a whole new synthetic because they've not been able to tag anything to him. so will this impact? probably not. as we've seen, his numbers have actually gone up since the a don't. an indictment was a nodes on thursday. and fisher reporting from outside the court house, the federal courthouse in downtown miami, really appreciate all that context, all the reporting, allen from you this hour and we'll be hearing a lot more from you over the coming hours. thank you very much. i want to remind our audience also that we heard just moments ago from trump's attorney outside the court room. this is what she had to say. we are witnessing today is the blatant and unapologetic weapon is ation of the criminal justice system. the bite in a point appointed special council has thought fit to bring $37.00 federal charges

against president trump. the leading front runner less than a year and a half before an election. countless other individuals. hillary clinton, joe biden himself retained possession of classified documents that have not been prosecuted. and none of them came into possession of those documents while they were president. none of them were president who as the head and so member of the executive branch, has the power to summarily declassified documents. the decision to pursue charges against president trump while turning a blind eye to others is an emblematic of the corruption that we have here. i want to go back to mentally slow and former federal prosecutor. she's been with us uh,

throughout this our looking at this historic event. melanie, i want to ask you and just briefly, if you could, how do you think as a former federal prosecutor, how do you actually think deep down this plays out? i think it's impossible to see right now. there are so many variables and you have to remember this is not the only case. it may be that jack smith also brings other charges. their suggestion that mr. trump brought other documents to bed minister, his resort in new jersey. and there may be charges that are filed there. mr. smith is also examining january 6th the insurrection, and there may be other charges there. and of course, we also have georgia prosecutors who have said that they too are going to be bringing charges later this summer. so mr. trump's legal jeopardy is at bass, and yet he constantly pains himself as the victim that there is absolutely nothing he ever does. that has uh that that makes it realistic for him to be charged. and i,

and yet somehow many of his supporters will buy that. it seems like mr. trump one said he could choose someone on 5th avenue in new york city and get away with that . and for many people that seems to be true. so i think given today is a little bit anti climactic cause of course he's going to be indicted the case. well, he's going to be officially charge. he's going to plead not guilty and then the case will proceed. and we'll have to see as so many things depend on how judge cannon decides to handle the case. i think there's some really big questions there are given concerns about whether she can really be impartial. but while some people have talked about her being accused, i think that's very unlikely. she's judges do not generally take themselves off cases. so there's just so much that remains to be seen. we're really just at the beginning today. melanie sloane, former federal prosecutor, i wanna thank you for your time, this our and sharing your expertise with us. and i want to turn now to john henry and also in miami, near the court. you've been speaking to supporters, giving us the sites and sounds of the crowds and really from both sides of the

political divide. since this all began, john floor is yours. 0. i just want to take you on a little drawer. craziness that is outside it as good as it's a circus atmosphere. the road in front of the courthouse is open. these cars are passing by halting their horns, taking pictures, they are largely fans of the president, the former president who is about to be arranged here. and if you look through the crowd, i'm just going to lead our camera through here. fortunately, william is an agile camera man because it's tied in here. you can see people are waving trouble flags. they're mirroring their hearts on their shirts. and there are people with megaphones, seemingly randomly walking around talking to strangers en

route. so there are the, i'm gonna say over a 1000 people here, but that's a wild guess. the vision camera just dozens and dozens of them. local, national, international like ours. and these are people who are taking time out of their day, in some cases traveling hundreds of miles and border to come and make their make their support of the bread anymore. they're opposition to the number of residents heard as he goes through this 1st ever, federal indictment, just one more. it slipped around before i headed back to 0. over here you got to, to crowds changing back and forth at each other. if we can make it through, we're going to try to so you can get a little idea of just what happens when the crowd gets a little antipathy between 2 groups. all right, we're going to have to wrap it up with that, but i want you to just get

a look. this is the passion on display in front of the board as president, rosie donald trump, president phase in federal indictment 0. hey, john, just before i let you go, i want to ask you a real quick question about the crowd because we just have this news line across to donald trump has entered the court room for raymond, for his, the hearing in this case. and the very latest that the hearing has now begun in the classified documents case, i wonder whether people are able to follow this minute by minute. are they watching on their phones are not quite aware of what's going on as they are protesting. well i have to tell you, i wasn't aware of that because being out here, this is not being televised inside the arrangement room. and so people here may be getting good or bad news in there, but they're not able to watch it on their television to others. and just see people report that that is happening. so perhaps the people watching you now know that and

we may see these frag didn't even more wild up in the short term. as you say, this is ongoing and it will continue as the president speaks later on today in his own response and betterments their new jersey. absolutely don't, engine fantastic job throughout this hour during this is historic event to bring us the side sounds. the feelings also from this crowd of both trump, mostly trump supporters, but also some anti trump protesters that we've been seeing. and we will continue to bring you these live pictures here, analysis 0 of the arraignment of donald trump. now, as our correspondence said, do not expect to see pictures from the court room that is not being televised. so what you are going to see are these aerial shots of outside the court room, where there are protesters pro and anti trump. and after that, the president, the former president, 45th president of the united states will be leaving. eventually he will be making

his way to bed mister bed minutes to new jersey. and that is probably when we are going to be hearing from donald trump next about this case, which of course is going to heavily impact his bid for the republican nomination. his bid also for the white house. it is worth noting he is currently still and by quite a margin the front runner in the race for the republican nomination of what happens in the court house. now in the coming months may may or may not, as our correspondence were saying, impact that. so do stay with alpha 0 as we continue or ongoing coverage of this historic event. and that does it from me. several venue for this news our i'm handing back now to my colleague julie mcdonald, who picks up our coverage from our london broadcasting center.