he's been summoned to appear at a miami federal courthouse tuesday afternoon after being indicted on seven counts. >> why did trump take the documents, why? >> willful retention or mishandling of defense information, that's part of the espionage act. >> the weaponization of the department of justice against a former president. >> the witnesses before this grand jury are donald trump's people. >> and donald trump himself in the audio tape. >> he knows there's fundamental flaws in each one of the counts. >> i'm an innocent man. i did nothing wrong. >> sometimes he reacts a certain way initially, and his behavior changes. >> when your name is donald trump, you are going to get hit

hard. >> they believe it's a witch hunt. they call it a political garbage. >> will there be a trial before the campaign, and what other possible outcomes are there. >> donald trump is in for the fight of his life. this is a whole different ball game. well, good morning, everyone, it is the top of the hour, 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. we're so glad you're with us for a very historic morning. phil mattingly is here. glad to have you by my side. history was made when donald trump was the first president to face federal criminal charges. these are the front pages this morning after a grand jury indicted him until the special counsel's investigation of top secret documents. trump allegedly kept them, stashed them away largely at mar-a-lago after leaving office. his lawyer says he is facing a charge under the espionage act, also charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements. >> right now, the former

president is at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey, he's ordered to appear at a federal courthouse on tuesday in miami. trump announced the indictment on social media. he released a video declaring his innocence. he recorded the video before he heard from the justice department about the indictment. >> it's election interference at the highest level. there's never been anything like what's happened. i'm an innocent man, i'm an innocent person. they come after me because we're leading in the polls by a lot against biden and against the republicans a lot. >> let's start with cnn's sara murray to learn the latest in the indictment. no one has seen the indictment, including the former president's legal team. what do we know? >> reporter: that's right, this is a historic moment, the first time a former president has faced federal charges, and he broke the news of the indictment on his social media page, and trump and his legal team still

has not seen this sdindictment, the public has not seen the indictment, and we have not heard from the justice department or the special counsel. . >> former president donald trump indicted, again. the special counsel investigating his alleged mishandling of classified documents indicted trump on seven counts, including a charge under the espionage act, and charges related to obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy, and making false statements. >> they basically break out from an espionage act charge, which is ludicrous under the facts of this case, and i can certainly explain it, and several obstruction-based type charges, and then false statement charges, which are actually, again, kind of a crazy stretch just from the facts as we know it. so there's a lot to pick at eventually from the defense side. >> trump denies any wrong doing, and says the indictment is political. >> i just want to tell you, i'm an innocent man, i did nothing wrong, and we'll fight this out just like we have been fighting for seven years.

>> reporter: as biden earlier thursday denied playing any role in tipping the scales at the justice department. >> you notice, i have never once, not one single time suggested the justice department what they should do or not do relative to bringing in charges. i'm honest. >> reporter: this is the first time a former president is facing federal criminal charges. the classified documents fight began in may 2021 when the national archives and records administration started reaching out to trump aides foryers hand ov fbi obtained a warrant and searched trump's residence at mar-a-lago, where more than 100 classified records were found. in recent weeks, cnn has learned

of mounting evidence against the former president. trump's former chief of staff mark meadows testified before the grand jury, along with at least two dozen close aides and employees from trump's mar-a-lago resort. the prosecution has also viewed security footage that showed just one day before federal agents searched the property last summer, trump's body man and a maintenance worker were seen moving boxes of classified material. neither that be charged with any crime. in october, that same maintenance worker was reportedly seen draining the pool at mar-a-lago, flooding a room where surveillance footage was held, according to sources familiar with the matter. this incident raised suspicions for prosecutors, though no equipment was damaged in the flood. at the end of may, cnn was told by sources that an audio recording existed of trump speaking to at least three people with no security clearance about classified materials he has retained. a recording that could

contradict his past statements. >> if you're the president of the united states, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, by thinking about it. i have no classified documents, and by the way, they become automatically declassified when i took them. >> reporter: in april, trump was indicted on 34 felony counts for his alleged role in falsified business documents in connection with hush money payments to stormy daniels. trump has pleaded not guilty. trump is expected to appear in federal court in miami at 3:00 p.m. on tuesday: the trump team was bracing for this all day yesterday. they were getting ready for this come down. my colleagues alayna treene and kristen holmes, they had already recorded the video statement that you saw in the piece. >> we're a nation in decline.

>> the inevitability, certainly apparent. >> they believed that because they taped it. >> let's tanke a step back. cnn senior league analyst, elie honig, assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, former federal and new jersey state prosecutor. all right. we don't have the indictment physically, nor does the trump legal team. what do we know about the charges? >> there is an indictment. we have not seen it, but we do know quite a bit about what is in there from donald trump's legal team. first of all, we know there are seven counts in this indictment. federal indictments can be as short as one count, there can be several dozen counts. we know one of the counts in the indictment is for willful retention of defense information. that's part of the espionage act. you're going to hear references to the espionage act. that word has a broader meaning we sometimes associate with it. all it means is that donald trump intentionally retained, held on to defense information. doesn't matter under this law

whether that information was classified or declassified, as long as it relates to information relating to the defense. we also know that there is a charge relating to obstruction, any effort by donald trump, any effort ordered by donald trump to interfere with the investigation in any way will be obstruction of justice. we know there's a charge for destruction or falsification of records. let's keep in mind, this could relate to a certification that trump's team submitted to doj at the point when they served a subpoena response. they said we searched everywhere in mar-a-lago, this is what we f found. was it intentionally false? prosecutors allege it was. we have a charge of conspiracy, a meeting of two or more minds, which tells us donald trump did not act alone. there was at least one other person who knowingly agreed to commit a crime with him.

the last one is false statements. it's not a crime to make false statements to the public. it's a crime if you make false statements to the doj or fbi. i think that's where this one is going. >> what happens next? >> here is the process as it will play out. the next time in court, the first time in court in this case, will be at the arraignment, the initial appearance. that's tuesday at 3:00 p.m. down in florida. after that prosecutors will have to turn over discovery. that means as a prosecutor, you have to give over all of your information, your evidence to the defense. donald trump's defense team will bring motions, rest assured they'll bring motions. they will try to get the case dismissed. they're going to argue there's prosecutorial misconduct. at some point, we'll have a trial. query whether we'll get that in before the 2024 election or not, that's an important issue. only if there's a conviction will they move to sentencing, and if there's a conviction will we then move to appeal. >> i'm not asking in the political context, but in the

legal context, could this prevent the former president from becoming president again? >> the short answer is no, believe it or not, someone can run for or be president while under indictment. someone can run for and be president even if they have been convicted. theoretically, even from prit pri -- prison. there's one law in play, part of what got them the search warrant. if a person is convicted from this, he's disqualified from holding federal office. not sure whether that's constitutional. it would have to go through trial and appeal before that bar could be put in place. >> fascinating. elie honig, thank you very much. stay with us, actually. the former president will appear in court on tuesday in miami. that brings a slew of concerns, right, in terms of just how do you do this in florida. john miller intelligence analyst joins us, and katelyn polantz, outside the courthouse in miami. what do we know about what's

going to happen on tuesday afternoon? >> reporter: well, we're going to be watching to see just how much we're going to be able to see of donald trump himself as a criminal dflt efendant coming i this court to enter his appearance. full expectation, he would enter a plea of not guilty at that time, and whenever he does arrive here, this is a federal complex that is surrounding this miami federal courthouse here and so there is a question, do they bring him in a back door, and we never see him on camera or have video or photos of him. once he's inside the building, there's none of that. it is a very lockdown scenario in any federal court building where you have to be there in person to witness what's going on if you want to see exactly what a defendant looks like, what a judge looks like, what rooms look like. that is how federal court works. we're still waiting to see what paperwork comes out as well, as far as the indictment, and any other things that the justice department may have to say to

the court at this time. that is still a question. we also know there's a lot of provisions being put in place by federal security officers. the secret service and the u.s. marshals service were both caught off guard by this announcement yesterday, but we do know that the secret service is going to be meeting with staff today to make preparations for the former president, a person they still have in their protective custody or protection at least. >> it's going to take coordination with the secret service and the u.s. marshals. how does an arrest of a former president or this moment for a former president when it comes to the fbi, when it comes to federal law enforcement work? what are we going to see? >> i mean, we've had a little preview of that because we went through this in new york city, although that wasn't a federal arrest. first, you know, this is going to come in three parts. one is getting him there. so, you know, he's in bedminster, new jersey. they're going to have to fly

down to miami. is he going to be coming from palm beach or straight to the courthouse? that's going to be a secret service operation. not a thing where the fbi goes to bedminster, puts him in handcuffs. it's going to be a surrender, you know, to the fbi. he's going to be presented by his lawyers. but then there's a tried and true procedure, and this is where it gets a little interesting because normally you would be taking to the fbi office, they'd fill out the arrest form. they would take your plrints there, do your mug shot there. they would transfer you to the courthouse, the courthouse in miami is a great distance from the fbi field office. what we're going to be looking for is between the secret service, the fbi and the court, are they going to change any of these procedures. will they do the arrest processing at the courthouse by, you know, altering that? will there be a mug shot? of course procedure says there will be, but the last time in the new york indictment, they skipped that part of the

process. >> is there precedent for changing procedures in a high profile case? >> there's not precedent for any of it. >> so the idea of -- i don't remember a discuss where they said, well, we're going to skip the mug shot or finger printing or anything else in a federal case. they did that in the new york case, and then the third piece as katelyn said is going to be in the courtroom. he'll be presented to the magistrate. they'll waive the hearing for the identification that everybody will stipulate he's donald trump, and then it will get right down to, you know, have you seen the charges, will they unseal the indictment or has that been done already, you know, before that. and then the question of remand, which is going to be he's going to be released on his own recognizance. as katelyn said, he may go out through the garage of the courthouse, we may never see a picture of him. we learned from the last time, the new york case when he answered that in a public forum,

he did it on his own turf at mar-a-lago in his own forum. this is a strategy question for the trump team. >> just to add to that, one of the things that i'm looking for is when is doj going to unseal this indictment. right now it's unseal meaning the only people who have seen it are prosecutors, grand jurors and court clerks. trump's team hasn't seen it. they were given a summons, a one-page work sheet. now the decision whether to unseal is entirely up to prosecutors, it's entirely up to jack smith and his team. they have to unseal it at the arraignment, but they have the ability to unseal it today if they want. and the reasons, by the way, you typically seal an indictment, you're afraid the guy is going to take off become a fugitive, donald trump is not going to do that. you believe he's a physical danger to the community, donald trump is not that. >> what's so interesting also is that there is a potential, at least, conflict for the secret

service here because 20 secret service agents on trump's detail testified in this investigation, and now they're organizing the surrender. what do we need to know about that? >> reporter: part of the question here, we don't know exactly what the indictment is going to say, but part of the question is what actually happened on the grounds around mar-a-lago, a place where the secret service exists, and does work regularly, protecting the former president, and so whenever the investigation has moved in any direction, they have talked to every single person that you can think of around mar-a-lago. staff, aides, attorneys that work for donald trump, and, of course, many secret service agents in the grand jury that we know of. now, i have been told that much of the legal representation of the secret service is separated from any legal representation of donald trump and others who are

in that bubble of communication. so it is not totally clear how much information, because the secret service gets their own lawyers for their agents, but whether those people are part of a case, and would potentially be called as witnesses at a trial, that is a really possible question that we're just going to have to wait to see what the indictment says, to see if that's plausible, and also as it moves toward trial, the secret service will have to worry about what they're doing about that. >> thanks, guys. >> one of former president trump's previous attorneys in this case, tim palatore is going to join us live. what trump's camp is using in their defense. that's ahehead.

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his reaction was personal but it wasn't, you know, he thought about it, he said this is just a sad day. i can't believe i've been indicted. those are kind of my summary words of what he had to say, but at the same time, he immediately recognizes the historic nature of this. >> that was donald trump's

current attorney, jim trusty talking about his client's reaction to being indicted on multiple federal charges. the former president has been charged with seven counts in the special counsel's classified documents probe. he is facing a charge under the espionage act, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of justice, conspiracy and false statements. it marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges. let's bring in now one of donald trump's former attorneys in this case, until pretty recently, tim pa parlatore, thank you for your time this morning. you were skeptical charges would be brought. you made it clear you didn't think it should be brought. we have seven charges here, which do you think poses the most harm to your former client? >> obviously you focus on the first count here which is the willful retention. that is really going to be where everything rises and falls,

because all of these other charges that they're talking about really are, you know, kind of in support or collateral to that because, you know, it's obstruction, you know, false statements, but that still all relates back to the one charge of the willful retention. i think that's going to be really where a lot of the focus is going to be. >> along those lines, do you know the substance? do you think you know the substance of the documents that are in question here, whether or not they may have contained the type of information that would have jeopardized national security? >> you know, i know what some of them are. i certainly know what was in the 15 boxes that were returned to the national archives. as to what the fbi seized during the raid, you know, that's something we never got an inventory of. we never got a readout on any of what that was. so that i don't know. and quite frankly, all of the ones that we returned in the subsequent searches, because the

subpoena was worded in a way that we weren't allowed to keep an inventory or copy of anything we returned, our team went through, and anything that said secret or any other type of marking, even if it was clear that it had already been declassified, we didn't read them, we immediately threw them in the folder and passed them over, so i do have an idea based on that first tranche, but not the other two. i would assume that they're pretty similar, though. >> what can you tell us about the conspiracy charge here because conspiracy means more than one, and again, you represented the former president up until literally days ago in this. is there any insight you can give us into the conspiracy aspect of this? >> well, one of the interesting things there is going to be which, you know, conspiracy count has to have a target offense. so is it a conspiracy to willfully retain or is it a conspiracy to obstruct? obviously those two are going to

present a different world of, you know, alleged coconspirators, and so that's i'm curious to see. they have always, you know, pushed the idea of, you know, that he, you know, conspired with walt to obstruct. i haven't seen anything indicating that walt has been indicted as well. and, you know, as jim intimated last night, they may be because there is pretty significant allegations of misconduct by jay bratt in trying to, you know, extort walt's attorney and tamper with him as a witness. i think that that may have something to do with it too. >> we heard your former colleague, jim trusty bring that up with katelyn last night, but there is no evidence brought to us. we have none of that reporting. i want to make clear that is an allegation. i want to know based on your dealings -- >> you know, though. >> go ahead. >> if i may, an indictment is an

allegation. an indictment is an allegation, and ordinarily doj would put out a press release where they say these are just allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent. because they haven't unsealed the indictment, they have kind of skipped that piece. they have made allegations, they haven't presented any evidence yet. jim trusty made an allegation. >> to be clear here, though -- >> certainly there is eyewitness testimony. >> this is different in the sense that the justice department hasn't said anything at all publicly, the president was the one who announced he was indicted. the president was the one who made the video. the president's team is the one who detailed elements of the charges. so i don't know that that's necessarily a comparison to some degree. >> well, i'm just saying, let's not, you know, simply dismiss the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct because they are allegations. >> i didn't dismiss it, just to be clear, let's move on. i asked for the evidence and told our viewers that we don't

have that because they deserve to know that. based on your dealings with the doj on trump's behalf until, again, just days ago, do you think the doj has approached your client fairly? your former client. >> no, not at all. it is something that has been stunning to me from the beginning of the manner in which this doj team has treated this case. that is a stunning departure from how doj normally handles any other case. and, you know, i'm going to go back into it, you know, there has been significant prosecutorial misconduct. i have seen it with my own eyes. i saw members of jack smith's team stand up in a sealed courtroom and lie to a federal judge. i saw a federal prosecutor in the grand jury room asking improperly questions, making improper inferences to the jury, and trying to convince them that the invocation of a constitutional right is evidence of guilt. and i've also heard, you know,

firsthand, you know, the story about what happened with jay bratt and witness tampering. that type of stuff -- >> i'm sure that's part of the meeting your former colleagues had at justice on monday, and that can be brought into the defense, but now that the president himself has made so many different defenses along the way about declassification, what is his defense going to be in court? what is the team's defense going to be now in court? >> well, the defense is going to be two-fold. it's going to be factual, and it's going to be legal. they're going to go through the presidential records act and the various laws as to what he's allowed to do, what he's not allowed to do, because a lot of this is going to come down to an interpretation of the law. also, they're going to attack the facts here. you know, certainly, was this willful? was this accidental? did he even know that these things existed, and also, do the documents themselves constitute

national defense information which is not that it relates to national defense, it has to be specifically that the disclosure of this document would be damaging to the national security of this country. so if we're talking about a lot of daily schedules and briefings that he received before phone calls and things like that, even if they were classified at the time, and even if they weren't declassified as has been argued back and forth, that type of information would not constitute national defense information under the statute. >> tim, quick, before we let you go, obviously having formerly represented the president, we were talking about the fact he was the one who sannounced the indictment. now that this is coming, do you think he will be able to help his case personally by the way he often treats these types of moments or do you think he may need to change the way he operates given that it's a federal case? >> you know, i think a lot of that's going to come down to

what is in the indictment because, you know, you obviously want to always present a coherent, you know, message about a case. in other circumstances, you always want the client to not be speaking about the case. i've only had one other client that i couldn't stop from going on twitter to talk about their case. and a lot of that's going to depend, you know, very fact specific, but certainly when you do have a case that has a lot of, you know, political aura to it, when there is a lot of talk about that and, you know, unfortunately for doj, they have given a lot of fodder through the conduct of this team. i think that a lot of that publicity from him having the largest podium in the country will also potentially go to his benefit. so i think it's a double-edged

sword. >> quick yes or no before we let you go. given these charges have been brought, do you expect charges to be brought based on the d.c. grand jury in washington, d.c. given this? >> on mar-a-lago? >> no. >> and i don't think it affects the january 6th investigation at all. >> tim parlatore, thank you for your time this morning. >> donald trump is the republican presidential front runner for 2024, how will this indictment impact that race? how his rivals are reacting to the news coming up next. or more. thatat's why farmers new car replacement pays to replace it withth a new one of the same make and m model. get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. ♪ farmers m mnemonic ♪

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coverage. donald trump charged with seven counts in the special counsel's classified documents probe, and at this moment, the same moment, he's leading the republican primary, leading to be the republican presidential nominee for 2024. so how will this actually impact the race? will it impact the race? joining us now are cnn political commentator, and anchor for spectrum news errol louis, and

shane goldmacher. you turned out a piece detailing these dynamics in a remarkably short period of time, which as a fellow journalist is frustrating and a little bit annoying, but i want you to kind of dive in on that. contextually, i thought you laid things out in a smart way. what were you seeing and picking up on your reporting? >> a lot of rivals of president trump saw this former president first president to face former criminal charges. they were not looking forward to this moment because it puts them in a place where they could be against the autoimmune response of republican primary voters to defend donald trump, and so instead of getting to argue their own case why they should be president, why they would make a better president, why they're more electable as president, they're stuck defending, them, talking about the department of justice, which is the statement ron desantis

said, that puts them in line with the candidate they're trailing in the polls. >> it's about where it leaves them as candidates with the voters. phil was making the good point earlier in the show, it's like, you know, they could just come out, the republican contenders and say like asa hutchinson said, this guy should be disqualified because it's too much of a distraction. the power of them banding together would be significant, but the big caveat is so many republican voters in america are on trump's train. >> that's right. you could imagine all of them, other than asa hutchinson getting together and saying, maybe we should all get together, and i can imagine each of them saying, you know, you go first. right? >> it happened in 2016 at various points. >> we did see this in 2015, 2016, they all got up on stage, and said we can't have this, he's a chaos candidate. isn't that what jeb push bush c him.

picked them off one at a time, the way he's attacking ron desantis and nobody else, and ignoring the rest of them. asa hutchinson, it almost sounds quaint, a voice from another era saying this is just not right, this is at best a distraction, at a time when we have to make a case to the country that we as the republican party should be leading the country. that voice is not going to be heard. that's not the political dynamic right now. >> shane, to kind of take this all the way through, and this is what i have been stuck on all morning, one, because this feels very familiar despite the fact that this isn't, and it's not being hyperbolic to say -- >> he was indicted only a couple of months ago. this is the second time. >> particularly on the political dynamics, every element of this feels like some element of something we have gone through over the course of the last seven years. if you can't attack your opponent who's leading the polls by 30 points when he's federally indicted on seven counts where when you look at the evidence that we've seen, it's pretty damming, and when you see the indictment, i imagine it's going to be more so.

obviously innocent until proven guilty. there's no way to win this race if you're another republican candidate. like, i don't understand, if you can't attack him for that, and you're going to have to fall in line with him for that, and you're already down by 30 points, tell me how anyone beats donald trump in this race. >> i mean, i think that the hope is there's an accumulation of issues that he has. >> how is that going for people over the last seven years. >> it's not going well for them, and it's the reason he's the republican front runner. i think it's important to listen to how he talked about the indictment both in the video and the statement he put out on truth social. he puts this in a long line of accusations that he has faced that he says and that most republican voters have dismissed over time. right, so when he says boxes hoax, that resonates with people because he's talked about the mueller hoax and all of these things, and i had a conversation two weeks ago with the current governor of new hampshire who decided not to run for president, chris sununu, and he said, look, he wasn't talking

about this indictment, it hadn't come yet, but there's this intuitive, distinctive response to defend donald trump, democrats are the boy who cried wolf. this has happened so many times, and chris sununu doesn't want donald trump to be the nominee. he says republican voters are going to side with him right away. >> shane points out in his piece that trump raised 4 million bucks in the 24 hours after his last indictment. it's like, what, 12 hours after this one, probably going to raise a lot of money. >> let's say he raises 5 million, i think probably the lawyers are going to charge him at least 5 million, so. >> but it speaks to how people who support him feel. >> and it speaks to his ability to sort of master the moment, right, i mean, everyone is talking about him and not the other candidates, and so there's a certain amount of buzz, you know, if he can sort of convert that into rallying his followers to give him another $24 or whatever the ask is. fine, that's what works out.

on the other hand, the bill is going to come down, not just the legal bill i was mockingly referring to, but the political bill comes due when it's time to talk to independent voters, when it's time to get past the nomination, if he does get the nomination, and you know, i understand in politics you got to fight the battle that's right in front of you, and worry about the long term later, but the long term is fast approaching and the bill will come due. >> the long term is the whole ball game if you want to be president. >> exactly right. and that's the case his rivals have tried here and there to make. look, it didn't work in 2015, 2016, probably not going to work this time. >> or hold the house or win back the senate. we've got like ten seconds left. >> how you going to make a guy answer in ten seconds. >> we're on tv, that's how we roll, man. shouting in your ear. that's what producers do, by the way, haven't heard much from the white house, never really expected to. do you expect to hear anything from the white house, the biden team? >> i bet they're disappointed

that joe biden was on tape talking about this issue at all yesterday. they don't want to be involved in this. they like this is happening on the republican side. they want to keep him as far away from him as possible. >> ten seconds, thank you. >> which is as it should be. >> and another four seconds. >> thanks, guys, appreciate it. >> good to have you both. we heard how trump's 2024 rivals responded to the federal indictment, let's talk a little bit more ahead about voters and how they feel. that's next.

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situation. if there's one number you should focus on, it's this one, should trump be criminally charged over his handling of classified documents, look, overall, 54% of the american public say yes, he should be criminally charged, but here's the key number, just 17% of republicans feel that same way. 75% of them say, no, he should not be criminally charged over his handling of classified documents, and i want to give you an indication about how feelings on whether or not trump should be charged for his handling of classified documents line up perfectly with how voters and americans and republicans feel overall. so should trump be charged? look, again, 54% overall say yes. 17% of republicans say yes. but look at viewing trump unfavorably, just 18% of republicans say yes. and 57% overall say yes. how do you feel about trump overall dictates very strongly about whether you think he

should be criminally charged over his handling of classified documents. >> i know it's too early to know polling on how republicans feel about this indictment versus the last one, but we do have a sense about how republican voters felt knowing a lot more about this mar-a-lago documents case and if they thought he should be charged, right, versus the last case in new york state? >> yeah. i think this sort of gives it away. republicans who think trump should be charged federally for his handling of classified documents, 17%. look how perfectly close that lines up with the 15% of republicans who felt that trump should be criminally charged in new york for allegedly falsifying business records. how you feel about one dictates how you felt about the other one and we were saying how trump's polling actually went up after he got charged in new york. look at this, pre-new york indictment for allegedly falsifying business records, trump was at 47% nationally in the republican primary polls. guess where he stands today. he's at 53%. his lead over ron desantis, which was about 20 points, is

now over 30 points. now, we'll see what happens going forward here, but the fact is, there's no real history of trump's numbers going down after he gets charged, at least among republicans. >> says a lot. thank you, harry, appreciate it very much. sources tell cnn federal prosecutors are investigating conservative-backed efforts in wyoming to infiltrate the democratic national committee ahead of the 2020 election, that that happened. we have the details on that reporting ahead. and also coming up, we have brand new reporting on the historic federal indictment of donald trump. you don't want to miss this. stay tuned.

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♪ brand-new reporting into cnn. federal prosecutors are

investigating conservative backed efforts in wyoming to infiltrate the democratic national convention before the election. prosecutors are looking into whether any campaign finance laws were violated. richard cetin and susan for have been subpoenaed. "the new york times" says cetin secured funding from for to train two operatives from project veritas. the they made up to $10,000, some which gained entry to fundraisers and even a democratic primary debate in vegas. no one has been accused of any wrongdoing. it's not clear where the operatives got the money. it is illegal to use another person's name to make little donations. china announcing plans for another round of joint military drills with russia after the top generals of both militaries held a meeting. they alsohold joint air force drills tuesday over the sea of japan for the sixth time since

2019. beijing and moscow's joint patrols are part of what has been deemed a no machin-limits partnership. air quality conditions are expected to improve after smoke from hundreds of canadian wildfires drifted south. new york city should start to see significant improvement after saw some of the worst air quality in the world over the course of the last several days, but schools in new york and philadelphia will use remote learning today just to be safe. washington, d.c., schools will continue to suspend outdoor activities. roughly 50 million people from the midwest to the east coast have been under air quality alerts. >> hoping it gets a whole lot better after a week of this. >> yeah. it feels like it's starting to change. you are looking at washington, d.c., now. you can see some of the pictures, that's where my family has been, kind of drifted it. it's been a lot and jarring and recognition for those of you out west who deal with this

regularly. hey, it's about time, east coasters, pay attention. this a serious issue. the federal indictment of donald trump. cnn continues right now. >> this is cnn brn. >> good morning, everyone. we are so glad you are with us. we begin this hour with really significant breaking news and brand-new reporting in the federal indictment of donald trump. last week cnn exclusively reported the prosecutors had an audio recording of trump admitting he kept a classified pentagon document about a potential attack on iran. now we are learning what former president trump said during that private meeting in 2021. >> according to a transcript of that recording, trump acknowledged he hadn't declassified the document and didn't have the power to do so. he told people in the room, quote, as president, i could have declassified but now i can't. that goes completely against what the former president has been take publicly.

>> do you still have any classified documents in your possession? >> no. i don't have anything. i have no classified documents. and by the way, they become automatically declassified when i took them. >> if you are the president of the united states you declassify by saying it's declassified even by thinking about it. because you are sending it to mar-a-lago or to wherever you are sending it. when you send it, it's declassified. i declassified everything. >> cnn's paula reid broke this story. she joins us now. paula, big, big developments. walk us through the transcript. >> good morning, phil. this exclusive of course building on our bombshell report last week with kaitlan collins and katelyn polantz about this recording where the former president claims to retained classified information and acknowledges the elements of his power to do so. now we have the transcript of the relevant portion and i will

read parts of that. it's clear he acknowledges or claims that he kept secret information. now, in this recording this was back in july of 2021 he is speaking to some visitors at his new jersey golf club. among the people in the room two peerp working on mark meadows' autobiography as well as trump aides. he referring to general mark milley. quote, with milley, i will show youon example. he said that he wanted to attack iran. isn't that amazing? i have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up, on the tame we are told you can hear him rustling the paper. look, this was him. they presented me this. this is off the record but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense department and him. we looked at some -- this was him. this wasn't done by me. this was him. i'll keep reading but you can tell four times he emphasizes this was milley.

he goes on to say all sorts of stuff, pages long. look, wait a minute, i just found -- isn't this amazing? this totally wins my case. i want to note his case he referring to this is this dispute with milley, not the current pending investigation. it's highly confidential, secret. this is secret information. look, look at this. i'll note that secret and confidential are of course levels of classification and then, arguably, the most damning quote he says, he asks that someone in the room if he can declassify it and then he says as president i could have declassified but now i can't. of course, that last quote undercutting all of the public arguments that he, his allies and attorneys made about how he was able to declassify things once he left office or may have had a sanding declassification order. but in terms of the

investigation, prosecutors are likely going to be most interested in the fact that he is claiming to have retained secret information and is appearing to try to share that with a room full of people, none of whom had security clearances. this is a key piece of evidence in this ongoing investigation. >> reading your reporting this morning, it was a genuine jaw-drop moment for a minute because of how many things it rebut about what the president said publicly. what is your sense of how this will factor into things going forward or into the indictments that we haven't seen yet? >> when we were doing our reporting on the existence of this audio recording last week a source close to the legal team told me this audio recording, this is a problem. and the former president's legal team only learned about this a few months ago in march when a witness was asked about it before the grand jury. i also want to note that prosecutors subpoenaed the document that he refers to and they still don't have it. it's unclear, one, what this document was, if it wa