department's lunch by issues statements and getting ahead of the public narrative. now look, i was prosecutor in federal government for 15 years. i support the fact that the justice department is not getting into the silly season, but, again, a lot of this is a sort of public communications and political fight. >> issue a statement. >> until tomorrow or the point at which either charges are unsealed or made public. i get it. i get it. i get it. but you know, this is a different game when you're charging a president of the with a crime. and that's what we're seeing here. >> you got to play by a different game. all right. all thank you so very much on this historic day with this breaking news, the former president of the united states, donald j. trump has been indicted on seven counts in the mar-a-lago documents case. let's hand it off now for our breaking news coverage continuing with anderson. and good evening. what has never happened before

has just happened tonight for the first time ever, former president of the united states has been indicted by a federal grand jury. donald john trump charged with seven counts in the classified documents case. this is a special edition from new york. i'm anderson cooper. >> here in washington, i'm kaitlan collins. in keeping with his reality tv roots, the former president preempted any justice department announcement of the charges against him in a series of posts on his social media network. in one just a few moments ago, he wrote, quote, i have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday at 3:00 p.m. he goes on to say he never thought it would possible that such a thing like this could happen, then drifts into boasting about how he won all the votes in the presidential election, which we know is not true. he also wrote in all caps, quote, i am an innocent man. >> kaitlan joining us now. our senior justice department department correspondent evan perez. evan, what do we know about these seven counts? >> we don't know the details of exactly what the seven counts

are, anderson. we know that the former president was on notice. he knew that he was being investigated for a couple of particular statutes. one is 793, the espionage act. that's the willful retention of national defense information. we know he was also notified that he was under investigation for 2071, which is a concealment of these documents, government documents, depriving them from the use of federal government officials. and of course obstruction of justice. the question is what other charges, possible charges? we know that there are seven charges. and, you know, again, the fact is that this has never happened before, and this is something that the jack smith, the prosecutors in that office have weighed for some time before making this decision. everything according to of course the target letter the president received only recently had to go through merrick garland. merrick garland, the attorney general would have had to review this and decide whether to allow it to go forward.

so the idea that this indictment, we don't know exactly when it was returned, if it was returned today. he is certainly -- the former president said he was notified this evening tells us that the justice department had certainly gotten to this stage very recently, that they knew they had enough evidence, they believed they had enough evidence to bring this to a jury. >> evan, also just talk about this being in florida, the change of venue. >> yeah, no, actually, anderson, this is one of the fascinating things for us. we've been following this. we've seen dozens of witnesses go to the federal courthouse here in washington. and be brought before the grand jury here that was hearing witnesses again, testimony with regard to this and the january 6th investigation, and it's only recently that we understand that this grand jury in miami started hearing testimony. what we heard from trump lawyers, including on our air was they believed there was an issue with venue. we're told that this is

something they raised with the justice department, that they believed it would be improper to bring this case in washington because any possible crimes, any accusations against a former president happened in the southern district of florida, which is of course where mar-a-lago is located. it appears, anderson, that justice department officials eventually got to that point. they clearly were at some point thought it would be better to do it here in washington. but then changed their mind and decided that miami is the place to bring these charges. again, we don't know the exact details of these charges, but clearly, you know, that's why this sudden change of venue. and now we expect the former president to appear on tuesday for his first appearance before a magistrate in miami. >> he said 3:00 p.m. evan, i'll check back in with you over the next two hours. i'm joined by maggie haberman, david axelrod, former assistant eastern elie honig and david urban, one-time investigator to

the former president. maggie, i want to start with you. what are you hearing? >> well, i think everyone is still in shock who is hearing the news, both people around the former president and frankly people across the political spectrum, because we have been hearing the drip, drip of this case for so long. his team was prepared for this to happen this week. didn't have information that it is going to. seven counts a s a lot. we don't know exactly what all of the charges are yet. we'll have to see what the complaint is. we won't know until it's unsealed. this is obviously not a good development, and it's one he was hoping to avoid. >> elie honig, from a legal perspective, what do you think the seven counts are? what do we know based on what's been presented thus far? >> the best indicator we have so far is the search warrant affidavit for mar-a-lago. when the justice department went to a judge, they said we have probable cause to believe that three different crimes are committed, willful retention, or mishandling of defense information. that's part of the espionage act. destruction or concealment of government documents, and then

third, obstruction of justice. now federal prosecutors can break this out any way they want. it's possible we see multiple counts of some of those. it's possible we see any combination of those that adds up to seven. it could be possible we see other counts. because what you put in your search warrant may not be what you indict on. bigger picture, even without seeing the specifics of this indictment, i think donald trump is in for the fight of his life. this is a man who has been sued, deposed, taken the fifth, impeached twice, tried in the senate, investigated by congress, even indicted by the state authorities here in manhattan. but being indicted by the justice department is different. this is a whole different ball game. doj has way more resources. the conduct here is going to be i think it's safe the say more significant than what he was indicted for in manhattan. and the consequences if he is convicted are going to be much more severe than what he is looking at in manhattan. >> what about there was an espionage charge. >> yeah. >> as a possibility. >> yeah, that is one of the crimes that was listed, and that

relates to mishandling of defense information. not necessarily classified information. i should note this also. one of the statutes that was listed in the search warrant application, destruction and concealment of government documents, says on the face of the law, if a person is convict odd this crime, he's disqualified from holding federal office. now big thing we need to know here. that may not be constitutional. that's never been challenged in court. i think there is a good chance that that would not hold up in court. also, i think it's likely, we don't know whether this case will be tried before the election. and even if it is, nothing is final until the appeal is over. that will not happen until after the election. >> david, david urban, you know the former president quite well. his statement on his social media, it paints the picture of how he is going to portray this. >> obviously. but we saw this kind of played out in an ad, that the would haves are coming for me, that the campaign has put together. and we've heard this over and

over. i'm standing between you and them, that the justice department has been weaponized, the fbi has been weaponized. one of the points i think makes it tougher here is this espionage act charge. >> and we don't know if that is one of the seven counts? >> we don't know. based on the search warrant, it's the espionage act. when you paint yourself and you're a patriot and you're the president of the united states, i can't imagine a worse phrase to be used with the president of the united states than the espionage act. when you hear it, it just makes you sick to your stomach, right. and so i think people will viscerally react to it differently than anything else that he has been charged with so far. conspiracy, obstruction, i think those things the president can make go away. the people who follow the president won't pay that much attention to it. when you push somebody and say the president is alleged to have violated the espionage act. that hits differently, and i think it's going to be tougher to defend. >> go ahead. >> i still think obstruction and

other charges are still going to be problematic for him. maybe not in the republican primary. >> legally. >> but once he gets to the general election as the front-runner for the nominee that he appears to be right now, if that holds, if what happened last time he was indicted happens again and it is a political -- he still faces a problem explaining this in the general. he will use that as a cudgel against joe biden. no question about that. >> if you're standing as a republican on a debate stage, if you're being asked tomorrow and you're mike pence, you're being asked now what, now there is a violation, will you still support him in a general election? i think the answers are going to be completely different. that's my take on it. >> it may be. the one thing donald trump probably has taught us in the last eight years or so is humility in these discussions. for six years, i haven't lived inside his head like maggie has, but it seems to me there has always been this interplay between his decision to run again and the possibility that he was going to be indicted so that he could actually weaponize

his campaign against these indictments. and i think that's what we're going see, just as we did here in new york. he is going to say, as you say, you know, they're coming after us. they're trying to take our voice away. and, you know, no president's ever faced this before. they're not doing it to biden. not withstanding the fact that there is no real relationship between the two cases here. but i think it's tbd. and i'll tell you, those -- not to question the courage of those republican candidates, but i think they're going to wait and see how people react to this. and trump, he is meeting with his political advisers, not just his lawyers tonight. he is going the run a full-fledged campaign to try and use his supporters as his shield and his sword. >> maggie, his decision to run, that this may have been a part

of that calculus. >> i don't think it's the only thing. i think part of it if he doesn't run, he is not relevant. it's a huge opportunity to continue to raise a ton of money and have events at his clubs and so forth. it's absolutely the case that he believed this is something that he could use, a campaign, a political campaign could be used to say this case is political, that everything is political. >> we're getting information in drips and drabs. i want to go to kristen holmes right now. what have you learned? >> we have learned that of the seven charges, at least one of them is related to a conspiracy charge. now we don't know exactly what that means. but this is something that we believed the department of justice was trying to prove. we know they had brought in a number of lower level aides trying to prove this conspiracy theory that there had been a larger conspiracy around obstruction of justice. now, again, i want to be very clear. we do not know exactly what this con virus charge is. all we know so far is that there are seven charges, and that one of them at least is related to

conspiracy. and we also know that the department of justice had brought in multiple sources trying to prove this point of conspiracy, trying to bring in these lower level sources, essentially from these lawyers that i have talked to, trump lawyers, trying to prove that trump had instructed these lower level employees in some way, which would make for a possible conspiracy charge. again, we do not have details on this. all we know is that there are seven charges, and that at least one is related to conspiracy, anderson. >> all right, kristen, we'll obviously come back to you. elie honig, talk about conspiracy here. >> all conspiracy means is an agreement between two or more people to violate the law, a meeting of the minds. so what we know based on kristen's reporting is this was not donald trump acting alone. there were others in on it with him who knew that us this was criminal. and i think it's fair to speculate that when we see this indictment that donald trump will be cast as the head of the conspiracy. it's impossible to think -- >> so multiple actors.

>> yeah. >> in a conspiracy have to be aware that the activity sill legal? >> yes. because let's say for example donald trump told an unwitting person move that box, and that person didn't know anything about that, that's not a conspiracy. that's a crime by donald trump, not the guy moving the box. if they both knew and had a meeting of the minds, this is illegal and we're doing it, that is a conspiracy. and i also want to underscore the fact that this is being charged in florida is enormously significant. legally, i think it's the right move by doj, because they're going to avoid a messy question about venue. unques unquestionably, this crime happened in florida. had they charged in d.c., they would have had a major legal problem on their hand. donald trump got 5.4% of the vote in d.c. in 2020. he is enormously unpopular there, would have had a very unfavorable jury pool. in florida, he won florida in 2020. he is going to have a much more favorable jury pool politically. that can make a big difference.

>> that's a point that a bunch of lawyers have made to me close to him. >> i want to go back to d.c. and kaitlan collins. >> anderson, back with us now is our senior justice department correspondent evan perez with new information on security at the courthouse in miami which is where we expected these charges to happen. what do you know? >> that's right, kaitlan. we know that the justice department is scrambling to move security resource, law enforcement resources ahead of the former president making his first appearance there in miami on tuesday. just to sort of back this up a little bit, the fact is that jack smith has run a very tight ship, very little has come out from the special counsel's office. walled off even from other parts of the justice department. so it wasn't until after this indictment was handed out, it wasn't until after the former president was notified that the law enforcement folks were hold, okay, now you have to get ready to deal with security situation, a potential security situation in miami. and so now we know that, for

example, the secret service, they need at least a couple of days to make sure they do an assessment and to make sure they are safe to bring the former president to that courthouse in miami. so a number of resources are now being rushed in there over the weekend. again, in time ahead of this tuesday court appearance by the former president. kaitlan? >> evan, that's what sticks out to me, that we should remind people trump is the one who announced this news. >> yep. >> similar to the way he announced when the search warrant was executed at mar-a-lago. also when he said he was going to be indicted in the hush money case in new york. he publicly broadcast much of this information, and now he is letting everyone know this is hatching this specific time, this specific place. so i imagine that has to do with a lot of the security as well. because the question of whether or not his supporters will show up. >> absolutely, kaitlan. look, everybody has learned from what happened on january 6th that the former president does have a hold on a particular set

of his base, and nobody wants to make the mistake of not being ready for a situation, you know, should it entail. nobody is saying of course there is going to be violence. but if you're law enforcement and you saw what happened on january 6th, and you saw how unprepared everybody was for january 6th, and the fact that the former president, you know, he uses -- you can see some of the language he is using on his truth social post, some of the language he is using, you know, as we speak he is posting a video about this event. those are the things that law enforcement folks worry about, again, trying to make sure he gets in there safely, make sure that it's safety for of course the prosecutors and the judges in that courthouse done there in miami. look, for months, law enforcement was getting ready for a possible indictment in washington. it's much easier to do here. there is a lot more resources here. and everybody knows exactly what to do.

what was going to be more complicated was an indictment in miami. and so that's one reason why you see everybody scrambling, even at this hour, trying to make sure that the proper resources are down there ahead of this tuesday court hearing by the former president. >> yeah. we knew the trump legal team was bracing for this. but they seemed to be caught off guard even by this timing today. >> absolutely. >> i know you'll keep tracking this. i want to go to cnn's kara scannell. she is live outside that courthouse in miami that evan was referencing there. kara, what does it look like right now? did it seem quiet before the former president posted on truth social that he has in fact been told that he has been indicted here? >> yeah, kaitlan, it is very quiet here. it is only really a handful of media that were still in place when trump made that posting. i mean, all day it was pretty quiet. well did see some of the key prosecutors who were on the special counsel's team working on the documents case, and we saw one of them going out to get lunch. we saw them going back into the cafeteria to get some snacks,

some chips and cookies. and then we also had heard at the end of the day, after everyone had gone that there were a bunch of pizza boxes back in the grand jury room. but we weren't sure if the grand jury had met or even that they had voted. but it has been a relatively tranquil scene here today. of course, if you remember back in new york after trump was indicted on the state charges by the manhattan district attorney's office, it was a similar thing. the indictment came down on a thursday. he was arraigned the following tuesday. that gave everyone time to get into place. so you can imagine the scene here will become quite busy, not only the media descending, but also potentially some trump supporter, some members of the public. as evan was just explaining, they will have to get a security programmer in place here. trump being at mar-a-lago, as you well know, they're used to having him, transporting him around. but this is certainly of a different magnitude and dimension, the first time a former president facing federal charges. there was this run-through in new york.

we saw how that worked. what's unclear here is how they will handle it internally. will they shut down the courthouse like they did in new york, freezing the building, freezing the floors that the former president was going to be on, and then creating a pretty rigorous system of who would be able to get into the courtroom to witness this because there are no cameras in court. and there are no cameras in federal court. so the public won't get a glimpse of this. it remains to be seen how they're going figure out the logistics of having this arraignment take place on tuesday. kaitlan? >> remarkable to see a second indictment in just such a short period of time. thank you, kara. more perspective now. joining me now is our senior political correspondent abby phillip, paula reid, chief national correspondent john king, and conservative lawyer and "washington post" contributing columnist john conway, who has long predicted that this moment would come to pass. but it's historic. >> it is absolutely. >> no other president has faced federal charges before. >> it is absolutely historic. this is probably the most

significant historically -- most historicalcally important criminal case since the aaron burr case at the beginning of the 19th century when he was tried for treason. it is stunning to see. it's breath taking to see, but it's not surprising at all. the fact of the matter, and donald trump is going to argue that he was mistreated, and he is being singled out and he is being abuse. but the fact of the matter is he's gotten the ben of the doubt. if you or any of us at this table had been a government official in the white house during the trump administration and we took this volume of documents home and we jerked around the national archives and records administration for a year and a half plus, and then forced the government to get to a search warrant, it wouldn't have taken a year and a half for them to get the search warrant. the fbi would have been at our doors within months. and the fact of the matter is when this search warrant came out, we saw the affidavit. we saw a redacted affidavit that the fbi used to get the search warrant executed at mar-a-lago.

and the amount of information in there was absolutely stunning at the time. i mean, it was shocking at the time. that they had such a powerful case already. simply by virtue of the fact they found the stolen property in his office and at his home. so the fact of the matter is he could have been indicted months ago. and again, if it was one of us, he would have been indicted months ago. he has gotten special treatment in his favor. and that is not a criticism of the justice department. it's a statement of fact that the justice department has to be extra careful and extra cautious and make sure that it has all its ducks in a row before bringing a charge against the former president, a presidential candidate. but these charges could have been brought long ago. and one other point. on the venue, there has been the suggestions that somehow this was a sudden change in venue. the fact of the matter is we knew back in august that there was going to be a potential

venue issue, and people were discussing it, legalers were discussing it, not in the cafes, not in the coffee shops of america. but there was legals. because so much of the illegal conduct that was described in the fbi affidavit took place at mar-a-lago, in palm beach, florida. and the constitution, the sixth amendment provides that a criminal defendant, here donald trump, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a jury in the district and the state in which he committed the crime. >> you mention the justice department. we haven't heard anything from them yet, paula. do you expect that we will? how does the special counsel's office handle this? >> yeah, our reporting right now, kaitlan is we will not hear anything from special counsel jack smith or his office. that is a deliberate choice. they must have known when they offered the courtesy of informing he had been indicted, that's standard, that's what you would do with most defendants you knew this was very likely to

wind up on social media, which is exactly what happened. they're not going to offer any statements, any additional details or unseal the indictment tonight that is her choice. but we have to look at how this worked out with past special counsels in interpreterms of le other people craft the narrative. the justice department and fbi have been under siege. criticism about political bias from both sides of the aisle for the past seven or eight years, since the investigation into hillary clinton's use of a private email server. one of the reasons we have a special counsel is because the attorney general is trying to protect the integrity, right, the public's view of the justice department. so tonight the fact that the special counsel is not going say anything, that we're getting most of the breaking news from the former president who has just been indicted, that is something that history will ultimately judge. it's unclear, though, if this is the correct decision. >> although i think we can probably say regardless of what they said something or not, accusations of bias would always be there. because this was the plan all along. trump and his allies have been

trying to sow the seeds of doubt about whether this case was significant or not. and notably, even the people who are running against him are sort of accepting this narrative that because he is a former president, and because he is running for president again, that that ought to subject him to some other kind of standard. and that i think is what will be tested here once we know the details of it. the significance of the reporting that you and the rest of the team reported about that tape in which he is talking about a specific document, we don't know whether that document is involved in this. we don't know whether that was all. even if it were alone, i think it really opens the door to a really serious set of issues about national security, about trump trying to utilize the documents in a way, in any kind of way, frankly. not just to peruse them, but to prove a point about general mark

milley. those are really serious issues. and the ones that cannot really be spun once we know the details. >> that's national defense information. >> we have not heard one word publicly from the special counsel since he took this job. which if you're talking about the grafify of the case, investigating a former president, the gravity of the issues, the you can understand that. but if you study the lessons of the mueller report, if you study the lessons of two impeachments, you also understand what donald trump is going to do and has been doing. what he has been doing for weeks and weeks before this moment and he has put it on steroids tonight. he is telling his people don't listen to this man. the deep state is corrupt. they're after me again. don't listen to them. smart is cynical, but smart. if you read the mueller report, it id prove collusion? no. did it say a lot of bad things about donald trump? yes. he poisoned the well beforehand and said do not listen to anything these people say. i'm not a lawyer. jack smith's biggest job is going to be to prove his case in court.

we're in never never land. we have never had a candidate of the united states who is an active candidate indicted on federal charges that are incredibly serious. this is is not shoplifting. this is not stealing a car, running a bad business. this is taking the most top secret secrets when he begrudgingly left the white house, mad that heed that to leave, after he tried to fight so he wouldn't have to leave. so the biggest challenges in court, but the first words jack and his team do say, first on paper when we see it, and if they speak to this publicly are going to be critical to determine whether donald trump's argument gets out of his base. if that's the only argument, he may win the republican nomination off it. but he is a former president, because the rest of america stopped listening to him. we'll see what happens. >> within an hour he was already fundraising off of this. maggie, i understand you're learning new details about these charges. we know there are about seven. what are you learning? >> kaitlan, we've been told there are seven counts, that none of the counts is the same. one is a willful retention of

the of the documents, one is to obstruct involves more than one person. and another is false statements. there are others that we're not aware of. a lot so going to matter when this indictment is unsealed, when we goat to look at it, when we got see the criminal complaint, we will know much more. but this tracks can everything that you and i both know about this investigation over the last however many months it's been, more than a year. >> yeah, it has been over a year. but when it comes to these counts, even though the former president was bracing for this, he is in new jersey right now. he is going to have to go to miami, as he's said himself on truth social on tuesday for this. what's your reporting on how his mind-set is? i know he has been making a lot of phone calls to republicans, asking them to attack jack smith, to be out there defending him more voice svociferously. >> defying. he and his team have been

preparing for this for a while. he has been telling people for many days he expected to get indicted, and frankly, he thought it happened long before this meeting his lawyers had with the doj on monday. but kaitlan, as you and i both know, sometimes he reacts a certain way initially. and then as the event sinks in or the facts sinks in, his behavior changes. so i'm not quite sure what this is going to look like. we know he has two political events planned for saturday. those are going to be pretty significant to watch, and obviously whatever happens in miami on tuesday outside of the courtroom will be significant too. and does he do another press conference as he did at mar-a-lago after he was indicted in manhattan. >> yeah, he is supposed to be in georgia at the state's republican convention over the weekend. we'll see what that looks like. maggie, thank you. i want to go to cnn's kristen holmes now. we're waiting to see more about what exactly the charges look like. what are you learning about when they could be unvealed? >> so right now i am told by members of the trump team that they do believe there is one conspiracy charge, that it is seven charges all together, but

they do not expect all the charges to be unsealed tonight. they are waiting to understand what exactly those charges were. now obviously maggie has a source that is telling her some of these charges. the trump people that i am speaking to do not know what these charges are. other than this potential conspiracy charge which is one of the seven charges they believe he has been charged with, or they have been told that he has been charged with. that is something that they are watching closely right now. and as maggie said, they have been preparing for this for many days. trump has been saying they believe he is going to be indicted. and i have talked to at least half a dozen people who have spoken to him in the last three days who say he is not agitated, that he has actually been remarkably calm, a very different demeanor than what they saw with that manhattan indictment. now this could likely be because he believed that he was going to be indicted multiple times during this campaign season. the other one being in georgia during that probe. he believes he'll be indicted

there. but right now his team is trying to figure out what exactly this. you mentioned those two campaign events on saturday. there is no indication that that will be canceled. he is still scheduled to appear in georgia and north carolina. they believe this could happen. they said this is likely going to happen, and they were still going to do those campaign events. so that is something to watch. the other thing is we talked about that speaking. trump and his team right now are weighing whether or not he wants to actually give remarks after his trip there, after his court appearance on tuesday. so right now this is all in the works. his team is figuring this out. even though they expected this, they paipted it, they are trying to work out what it means in realtime. >> kristen holmes, thank you. paula, one of the things that struck out to me today as we pointed out what trump is doing at bedminster is one of the aides that was at the center of

this, walt nauta was with him in bedminster. what tuesday is going to look like, it raises a question about what the legal team will look like on tuesday. who goes in with him. >> that's a great question. off the top of my head i believe only one of his attorneys is barred in florida. depending on which legal team is taking this week, one or two people barred in florida. but they will likely be looking, and i know some folks who have even volunteered to potentially be on the case down there, thinking it would be interesting. hey, it could even be an adventure to join this case. i said you have no idea. they will absolutely likely need to bring in additional counsel in florida, people with expertise in this matter who are barred down there, who know the judges. so it will be interesting to see. as we know, he has had a little bit of difficulty retaining lawyers. there are a lot of law firms who won't take him on. they're worried their bills won't get paid. but there are some interesting constitutional questions here.

but he will absolutely have to recruit likely one or two more lawyers, because i don't think he has the right team to bring this in florida. >> not only he has had difficulty -- not only has he had difficulty obtaining and retaining lawyers, the lawyers that he has are mostly witnesses against him. >> yes. >> so they can't. they can't. there is a lawyer advocacy rule that you cannot be an advocate and a witness in the same trial. so these guys are conflicted out. >> multiple lawyers have been witnesses in this case alone. >> it's a great legal point, and it's also a very important political point, because trump is doing it again. we have all lived this. he is saying it's the same people who are after me, it's a witch hunt. it's biden, it's garland, anybody else. just like in the january 6th hearings. i think it's very critically important to follow the facts and information. the witnesses before the grand jury who have done this include trump's lawyer, include senior officials in the trump white house, junior officials in the trump white house. his staff at mar-a-lago, these are people who work for donald

trump, who get checks from donald trump, who have been loyal to donald trump, who have eyes on donald trump, who donald trump asked to move documents, so on and so forth. the witnesses before this grand jury are donald trump's people. he is saying -- >> and donald trump himself in the audiotape, he is the one talking. >> donald trump is standing as close to you as i am now saying three times in 30 seconds, i took the documents. so it's he constantly says that he is a victim that he is under attack. he is innocent until proven guilty. he has every right to make his case in court. he has every right to get the right lawyers. but what he is saying publicly about what he knew about the classification rules, who are behind this are simply lies. >> and the other thing is, what we know about this case has come as the result of donald trump. that affidavit was unsealed because donald trump asked for it to be unsealed back in march. correct. but where is the reporting coming from? the reporting isn't coming from jack smith.

the reporting is coming from the fact this investigation has been going on so long, that you have all these witnesses, all these lawyers, all these lawyers to all these witnesses who know what is going on in the investigation. and after a certain point, it pours out into the public domain, as it has over the last couple of weeks. >> this is obviously legal significance. we'll wait to see what the bail arrangements look like. this also just injected this into the 2024 race we had three candidates announce they're running against donald trump this week. but now this is about to be the story. >> look, short-term and long-term. we always have to keep that in mind. trump and his legal troubles of which there are many are often been used as both a sword and a shield for him. he uses the fact that he is a candidate in order to try to make a case that he is being treated unfairly. and that he also uses the fact that he has been charged in cases, indicted or under investigation to raise money to rally support.

but in the long-term, this is going to be a negative thing. this is a bad moment for the country, of course, but certainly for donald trump. and as you guys were talking about the attorneys, it just strikes me the fact that, you know, the crime fraud exception was found to be to meet that bar, and then on top of that, i don't know that doj would move a case to a less optimal venue if they didn't think that they had a very strong case. so it really raises the trump team, they've been saying well, you guys did all of these things because your case is so weak. i don't think that's what this evidence shows. >> instead they can avoid them trying to move the venue later on once they already had the ball rolling. anderson, back to you. >> kaitlan, thanks. joining us van jones and alice stewart from the lefted ed respectively. and robert ray, who served as counsel to the former trump

impeachment. i want to show a clip just posted on truth social. >> it's called election interference. they're trying to destroy a reputation so they can win an election. that's just as bad as doing any of the other things that have been done over the last number of years. i'm an innocent man. i did nothing wrong. i'm innocent. and we will prove that very, very soundly. and hopefully very quickly. >> i want to talk more about the possibility charges. elie honig, maggie haberman was reporting conspiracy to obstruct, false statements. >> a few important indicators in maggie's reporting she just gave us on air. first of all, maggie report there is a document retention charge. this is not all obstruction. there had been some question is this only going to be an obstruction case? no. according to maggie's reporting there is a document retention charges and secondly an obstruction angle.

so it's not all about obstruction. it's documents and obstruction. maggie also reported she just told us that none of the charges are the same. you can have in a federal indictment multiple counts of the same crime, four counts of obstruction, et cetera. this tells us that there are, again, according to maggie's reporting, seven different counts. with know one of them is conspiracy from prior reporting. a and the last thing that maggie tells us there is an obstruction count and a false statements count. meaning somebody in trump's camp or somebody donald trump knew about made or authorized the false statement presumably either to archives or doj. so we're getting indicators from maggie's reporting. >> robert ray, you were former whitewater independent counsel. what do you make so far? >> i think the venue is probably one that the department of justice felt they were stuck with because i think there are charges contained in this indictment that could only have been brought in the southern district of florida. so i think that's sort of the first significant thing. >> what would that be? >> probably the obstruction, things that happened in mar-a-lago that only could have

happened in mar-a-lago, that they are charging those things that happened in mar-a-lago. and if that's the gravamen of a particular charge, that's the only place that charge could be brought. and then i think related to that is because it is in the southern district of florida, and although there is a court appearance scheduled in miami, i think for administrative reasons, you would expect this case, if it is centered around mar-a-lago, to be one that would draw from a palm beach county jury pool and a judge assigned to that particular. >> why is that? >> because that's where the alleged crime is alleged to have taken place. and you would expect therefore for the case under the constitution, the case is brought in the district nearest to where the charges is located and filed and where the facts are. so the defendant has a right to a jury pool from that location. and that location happens to be palm beach county.

>> well, i think the jurisdiction, as you say, is critical to this. the jury pool is critical. the charges are critical. and as maggie has reported, seven charges, including conspiracy to obstruct, obstruction of justice, false statements. this is not just one charge of alleged witch hunt by prosecutors. this is quite serious. but here is the thing. we have a jury of law that is going after him, which is quite serious. but donald trump is trying to make his case whether it's on truth social or with his people. i have a friend that met with him yesterday in bedminster. he is not worried about this whatsoever. he is relaxed. he is resolute. he is telling his people he has done nothing wrong. he is innocent. this is a witch hunt. and here is the thing. there is going to be two competing factions here. there is the court of law, which

is quite serious and is going to come down heavy and hard on donald trump in the next few days. and then what donald trump thinks he is going to get away with, the court of public opinion and the political spectrum. and his base and his supporters are going to support him. whatever he says, they're going to believe him, and they are doubling down, and he will be more emboldened with his base on this. but these are serious charges, and when this comes down, the heavy arm of the law is going to be swift and firm on donald trump. >> in terms -- >> it's not going to be so swift. >> the historic nature of this, what do you -- how do you see this? >> look, i will believe it when i see it. but i find it hard to imagine how there is going to be a trial of these charges which is what one would ordinarily expect some time next year, which happens to be 2024 and an election cycle. the charges are serious enough, and the evidence seems to be voluminous enough that i wouldn't think this would be a

two or three-day trial. this is likely to be a two or three-week or longer trial. and i cannot imagine under the constitution where the defendant is required and has the obligation to be present, and has a right to be present, that he is going to be afforded two to three weeks to sit in a courtroom trying this case in 2024, on top of which the manhattan's d.a.'s case is another probably two or three-week trial. i just don't see how we are going to have two trials next year -- former president. i don't think that's possible. >> eli, do you agree with it? >> i do agree with that. we have to think about this practically. we have a trial date in the manhattan case late march, march 25th. that's going take you into april. you have to build in some time to prep for each case. no way that i can see that this federal case gets tried before that. you would have to start in january or february. that's not going to be enough time. trump is going to fight this. he is going to bring motions. there is going to be voluminous

discovery. now we're saying if the manhattan d.a. case case holds march into april, you can't just have back-to-back trials as robert said. you have a constitutional right to prepare your defense, to participate in your defense. so you have to build in even more time. now we're where? a year from now, the summer of 2024 when we're right upon conventions, when we're months away from an actual presidential election? i don't think a judge is going to do that. if i'm a prosecutor, i don't want to try this case consistent with doj policy, but also as a strategic matter in let's say august, september 2024. >> can i just ask a question? what if donald trump were elected president, then what happens? this is gone because first of all, he would control the justice department. so if you're talking about this case, he controls the justice department. he just dismisses the -- if it's still pending, he dismisses the case. it's gone. >> couldn't he pardon himself? >> well, there is a debate about

that. but if it's a pending case, he basically withdraws the authority of the united states behind the prosecution. and he has the absolute right to do that. >> the conversation we just heard is a conversation that lawyers had with donald trump months ago. >> oh, i'm sure that right. >> which explains why he threw his hat in the ring. he is gaming this thing out, and he thinks he is going to get away with it. what i would say to everybody who is watching this, nobody has seen this indictment. we don't know what's in it. republicans are jumping out there saying this is all about joe biden. joe biden had nothing to do with this. this is the special prosecutor. this is not a porn star thing. this isn't robbing the piggy bank of your charity. this is the federal government talking about possible espionage. and a presidential candidate that has gamed this thing out to get away with it by running for office. if that's what's happening here, we should take this very, very seriously. >> and i think people do. people around this table do, and a lot of people in america do. but alice and myself and others on the republican side have been

talking to our friends. and the ride or die trumpers, right, they want to abolish the fbi. they don't trust the fbi. they don't trust any of this stuff. this is deep state coming after the president. so this -- it is not going to matter. he is going to have a big rally on saturday. he is going to have a big rally in georgia, north carolina. i promise when he shows up on tuesday, it will look like a trump rally outside miami-dade. remember the brooks brothers riot in 2000? that will look like a boy scout camp comparing to what's going to happen on tuesday. >> this is to me when constitutional conservatives need to stand up. at a certain point, people have o20 be clear. we have a system of laws. there is a reason for the special prosecutor. this was not the normal -- listen, if this is a normal thing handled in an inappropriate way, they took a very long time to do this. and i don't understand how you can be a patriot and then at the same time stand by while people are running into the ground law enforcement, running into the ground our society. >> but van, donald trump's whole

political project has been to disqualify rules, laws, norms and institutions, to disqualify the media, to disqualify the fbi, to disqualify the justice department for the express purpose of being able to make the case when these things come that this is a corrupt system. and the question is how much takeup will they have? i suspect among his base that's going to happen. minutes -- minutes, i guess, after this indictment was announced, jim jordan was already tweeting this is a sad day for america. and we'll see what happens tomorrow. but i expect to see a lot of house republicans sort of galvanized here and attacking the justice department. >> look, this is espionage, potential espionage here. this is absolutely serious. but we can all remember back before january 6th, steve bannon telling the world hell will break out on january 6th. i'm not convinced that the exact thing is not going to happen

when all of this becomes public and all of those people that were at the capitol on january 6th will have hell breaking loose, whether it is in south florida or washington, d.c. ten times more. >> i know it may not be sufficient for many, but understand the former president also has limits. the public doesn't seem to recognize that. but he will obey process. he will appear at 3:00 p.m. in a miami courthouse to answer the federal charges next week. he is not ignoring the process. he didn't ignore the process before the manhattan d.a.'s office. he has the right to dispute the merits of a prosecution, which he is fully going do. is he going take advantage of the political process? you bet. and you would expect him to do so. i don't think the country is going to fall to pieces as a result of the fact that he is going to contest these charges. and it's also -- it's also a reality that he is the leading presidential candidate on the republican side. he is likely to be the nominee.

and he is likely to run for president in an environment where his poll numbers far surpass everybody. so in that context, i think we need also sort of afford a bit of a time-out to say how are we as a country going to get through this in 2024, okay, in the best interests of the country? i'm not sure how we're going to do that. but i think we all should be able to on both sides of this to try to sort that out, talk about it and figure it out. i don't know the answer to that question. but it raises some serious questions and we all need to think about that for the future. >> -- did not indict the president. >> and we're going to rue the day, if we don't get the right, we're going the rue the day we ever traveled down this path. that's all i'm asking people to think about. >> i hear you. one of the interesting things, though, as the president tries the case outside the courtroom, he is already making arguments that his lawyers won't make inside the courtroom, like what

his ability to declassify documents were, you know, by fiat. >> right. >> and so -- >> but david, that's a factor. because i'm sure the discussion on monday by his lawyers with the justice department was something along the lines, elie will tell you this. you understand justice department prosecutors. you're going to have to prove that donald trump did not have inherent authority to declassify material, and that he was bound, not withstanding the fact that he is the commander in chief, to follow the procedure, and that he knew that. and by failing to follow that procedure, he violated the espionage act. let me tell you something. i think there is a lot of questions in just that little discussion there that raises some questions about whether or not the president is the commander in chief has inherent authority that congress cannot disturb relative to classified information. i think it's an open question. a and the justice department is now going to have to stand behind the position as an absolute that a president doesn't have that authority. >> there will be for sure, as david says, a disconnect between

what we hear donald trump saying publicly, what we see him saying on truth social and what his lawyers are saying in the courtroom. however, know that those statements that donald trump is making outside the courtroom can be used against him in the courtroom. >> and they can catch up to you. absolutely right. >> and he's already made statements including at our town hall to kaitlan that i assure you will be used against him. >> part of what i think we should deal with and want the deal with the political implications is why? why did trump take the documents? why? why did he keep them? why? why is he lying about it? why? there is a potential serious national security issue here, and that is something that he's trying desperately to make sure we don't talk about. >> we don't know what that's going to be, and that may well come out at trial. >> again, all the people are jumping on the bandwagon, saying this is all deep state. you don't know what's coming. you don't know what this department of justice has found

and discovered. there is no reason in the world to think that a special prosecutor would risk his career and all the things that we're talking about for nothing. there is something here, something is going on. this president took these documents and he lied about them, and he hid them. and we need to find out why. >> my first reaction to hearing that this was coming, van's right. that's a legitimate point, and the first thing that my head went around, okay, there is seven counts and it's an indictment is okay, was there harm to the united states? as an american, i would like to know the answer. that's a relevant question, not only for the criminal justice process, which is what you're suggesting. >> yep. >> it's also a relevant question in the best interests of the country and the fate of the republic. of the public. you're right about that. but i'm not going to speculate. i don't know. but it's the first question in my mind when i saw this. okay. what are we doing here? if we're about something serious and there was harm to the

country, that's one thing. the bottom line is, if it's a documents case, the president of the united states has all of that information in his head. what are you going to do? take it out of his head? really if that's all this is about is a bunch of misplaced documents, that's not really a reason to bring a prosecution. there is a reason if it involves harm to the united states. >> exception to what you said, van, throughout the allegations of the last elections were fraudulent and yet two-thirds of republican voters still believe that the last election was illegitimate. so, you can't underestimate the power of this man to command his base. and i think he's going to try and invoke all of it to navigate his way through this legal thicket he's in. >> i want to go back to kaitlan in washington. >> two new guests have joined us on our panel, laura coates, and tim parlatore, a former attorney for former president trump.

tim, you were his attorney not that long ago. you said, also not that long ago, you didn't think he was going to be indicted in this case nouchlt he has been. what do you think changed? >> i never thought there should be an indictment. obviously there's always a possibility of it. i'm very interested to see what's in it, to see what the theory is. you know, this is the kind of thing where obviously they've been investigating for a long time. they have, you know, a lot of evidence that they could show to a jury. but then there's the other side of it. so, i'm really curious to see how it goes. i'm also curious to see how a lot of the more recent revelations of prosecutorial misconduct play into it. when they were talking about how this can be used to rile up the base, unfortunately, the prosecutors assigned to this team have given them a lot of red meat on that. >> we've seen those allegations. we haven't heard a lot of substance on the trump team. i should note we'll have a trump attorney join us in a little

bit. when it comes to what maggie haberman is reporting, some of these charges are conspiracy to obstruct, willful -- unsealed. >> ultimately, that comes down to it's a document retention case and an allegation of obstruction. so, those two things -- you know, prosecutors will take that and they'll put it in multiple different ways. you have conspiracy to obstruct, obstruct, conspiracy to retain documents, retention of documents. and then they can split things up, perhaps different counts for the documents that are in the storage room versus in the office, things like that. so, you know, the number of counts itself doesn't necessarily mean as much as what is the substance of those counts. what is the range of conduct that is alleged? >> if it's conspiracy, do you expect that other people either have been indicted or will be indicted? >> that'll be interesting to see. you know, we've only really considered up until now that

there are certain individuals, the employees who could be part of an obstruction count. but as far as a larger document retention co-defendants, that's not something that i've seen yet, but certainly something i would be interested to see. >> you, since leaving the legal team -- and i want to hear what laura has to ask you of this as well -- have criticized who the current legal team is. do you think the current legal team he has right now is prepared to handle this documents investigation out of florida? >> so, when you said the current legal team, john rowley, jim trusty, lindsey hal gann, i have nothing to criticize them about. and i do think that they are capable of handling this. jim and john are both very experienced attorneys. they both spent a lot of years at dodge doj. so, i do think they'd be capable of handling this. >> i want to be clear when we're talking about these document

retentions, and no one's being dismissive. when i hear that phrase, document retention, that you heard on the other panel, about this being something relegated to a minor thing. these are current laws on the books involving the presidential records act, involving congressional legislation to say, we as a society do not want documents that are classified or of national security interest or otherwise or defense information to be out and about, retained, released, disclosed, in some way. so, when you're talking about the document retention aspect of it, do you think that people see it as minimized based on the fact that these are documents and the fact that the information itself, yes, it's in trump's head. but if you disclose the information, there is validity and gravitas about what that means for our national security and our way of legislative life, don't you think? >> no, absolutely. it's not to minimize, again, by calling it document retention. it's really going to come down

to what's in those documents. classification is not something that's part of the elements here. it's whether it constitutes national defense information, meaning the content of these documents if disclosed would be damaging to the security of the united states or evade to the enemy. so, really it is definitely going to come down to which documents are we talking about, what are the severity of these? and simply being classified is not going to be enough. for example, one potential document here is daily schedules, the one saying tomorrow we're going to fly to afghanistan to have thanksgiving dinner with the troops. that was highly classified at the time because you don't want the taliban to know that the biggest, juiciest target in the world is about to fly over. but as soon as he walks into the dining hall and there's all the cameras there, it's no longer classified. i believe one of the documents potentially at play here would be that schedule. so, if that's what we're talking about is a lot of those types of documents, then it does become a much less severe case. >> i would be surprised -- i'm sure you would be -- to have the

special counsel emphasize and focus on something of, as you're talking about, relative minor consequence. but really in the long run, lawyer to lawyer, thinking about this, the fact that the information is no longer lawfully in the lawful possession of a person who's no longer the president, that carries a great deal of weight, whether we want to discuss. i don't know what the documents, nor do you fully about those things. but i know there has been a lot of talking points that have been raised about what jack smith is looking at and the actual substance of the documents. but the fact they no longer belong to him, that is significant in and of itself and his refusal to return them, right? >> the issue -- by the way, i separate out whrks we talk about the refusal to return them. i separate out the first year they're talking with nara, year and a half, versus when the subpoena gets involved. those are kind of two different standards. under the presidential records act, a president is supposed to take the next two years after they leave office to go through

the documents to figure out what's personal and what's presidential. one of the issues we got into when we looked at how did the documents get out of the white house? how did they get down there to begin with? which is a legitimate question. the reason we were able to discern is upon the change of administration, the national archives ordinarily rents a facility in the town where the president is moving to, and then they move all the boxes from the white house directly to that facility where they remain under national archives control. they're locked. they're secured. there's a guard there. they have a skiff in the building so if there's any classified documents, they put them in the scif. for whatever reason, nara chose not to do that with donald trump. >> i want to note, national archives has pushed back on that. we'll get back to this discussion because i have more questions for you about the audio tape you listened to. everyone stand by because we have much more ahead on this historic night, including one of

the former president's current attorneys, jim trusty, is going to join us here. it'll be his first interview since the news of the indictment of his client, the former president, broke. inspiring. always there foror you. so make father's dayay extra special withth gifts he'll love from weatathertech. floorliners... cacargo liner... seat protector... sunshade... ready-to-wash system and cupfone. or our newest product, the golf cart mat. order these american made gifts or a gift card at weathertech.com have a very happy father's day.