contained after 1 week of burning. poppy and phil, back to you. >> mike in hawaii, we'll keep a spotlight on hawaii and the devastation there. thank you for starting your morning with us our coverage of this historic fourth indictment of president trump continues. "cnn news central" starts now. this morning, donald trump now faces his most sweeping indictment to date. the former president, current

front runner for the 2024 nomination, is accused and facing a slew of new charges for allegedly master minding a plot in georgia to stay in power. he and all the other defendants now have ten days to surrender. >> late last night, an atlanta-based grand jury voted to indictment trump and 18 other people, including mark meadows and rudy giuliani, on state criminal charges across 41 counts. all of them stemming from their alleged efforts to overturn trump's 2020 defeat. the indictment arguing that all of them, quote, refused to accept trump lost and know ingl and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election. >> so this is a racketeering case, charges brought against mobsters, alleging a widespread conspiracy to commit multiple criminal acts. trump is accused of 13 new crimes. he's now charged with 91 crimes from the four indictments.

trump calls the new charges politically inspired. the defendants face an august 25th deadline to turn themselves in. fulton county district attorney fani willis says she plans to try all 19 together and is asking for a trial date within the next six months. >> i make decisions in this office based on the facts and the law. the law is completely nonpartisan. that's how decisions are made in every case. we look at the facts. we look at the law and we bring charges. >> now there is a lot to walk through with all of this. let's start with paula reid outside the courthouse in atlanta. paula, lay out this case that has spelled out in this lengthy indictment. >> reporter: lengthy, indeed. this is the fourth criminal indictment for former president trump this year, this by far, the most sweeping. here the district attorney has

made a choice to structure this as a reco prosecution, which is most commonly associated with the mob. it's a law that was designed to dismantle organized crime. so it allows you to charge a group of people with certain crimes, even if not every person, in this case not every one of the 19 defendants, participated in every one of the crimes. now in the indictment at the top, she lays out how they allegedly engaged in this conspiracy. for example, she alleges that as part of this conspiracy, this group lied to state officials, state lawmakers. she also alleges that they tried to install slates of fake lek tors. this was part of an effort to subvert the electoral college process in favor of trump. they tried to harass at least one election worker. also she alleges the justice department, they are putting pressure on that organization to try to help trump to overturn the results of the election. as we have reported extensively,

the vice president also facing a pressure campaign. she also alleges they tried to breach voting machines in rural georgia, and then cover it all up. so by far, this is the most broad-sweeping indictment ever brought by a local prosecutor. and the former president has denied any long wrdoing. >> what happens next now? >> reporter: so the destruct attorney has given all the defendants until next friday to surrenderer. now we don't expect that the former president is going to object to that, so far he has cooperated in all the other cases negotiating a surrender, an initial appearance, going through the process of being arraigned. but then once they get past the procedure of all that, you can expect legal challenges to be filed. one of the key ones we're going to see is an effort to try to move this case from the state level to the federal level.

one of the big advantages for trump there would be that they would be pulling the jury pool not just from heavily democratic fulton county, but from a broader pool, a federal jury pool. also if there is a case, if it there's a conviction at the federal level, that would also be within the powers of former president trump if he's reelected or other republican candidates who have vowed to pardon him, or even commute a sentence. so a lot of advantages for him at the federal level. unclear if he would be successful in getting this moved though. >> that's a great point. much more to come. thank you. >> let's talk about what is new in this indictment. for that, i'm joined by cnn senior legal analyst and the founder of the law firm elie honig is here. i want to talk about what's new and different here. number one, this is a racketeering case. what does that mean? >> racketeering can be the prosecutor's best friend. it's such a powerful tool. but you have to do extra work.

there's more you have to prove in a normal case. if you can do that, the benefits accrue. first thing you have to prove is the existence of a criminal enterprise. traditionally, it would be a mafia family, drug trafficking organization. but it can be applied to a political organization. and the indictment makes very clear donald trump was at the head of this criminal ent enterprise. if you picture one of those charts, he would be up top. the other thing you have to prove is what we call a pattern of racketeering activity. meaning two or more acts de designed to further that enterprise. here a mere 161 acts. each of these on its own does not have to be a crime. some are on twitter. not a crime, but the point is they further the illegal purpose of the enterprise. the purpose was to steal the 2020 election. it's actually tougher than the

federal law because if someone gets convicted in georgia, five years mandatory minimum behind bars. that's very serious. >> either the president nor the governor can issue a pardon within the first five years. something else that struck me as new and different in this case. there are other charges above and beyond fake lelectors, abov and beyond a scheme to overturn the election. >> rico casts a long sha doe. there are 39 other charges. and some of them are much more straight forward. less work to do. solicitation, a violation of the oath of office, there's a bunch of charges of this. if you ask a public official to do something in viegs of the constitution, that's a crime. think of donald trump's call to brad rathens berger. they submitted documents in court proceedings claiming that

there was massive election fraud that they knew were false. computer trespass, this is the brand new story about the breach of the voting systems. if you do that, not surprisingly, that's a driem. so if they can prove that, those people will be convicted. then forgery of documents. this goes to the fake elector scheme. they got together people that claim they were trump electors. so rico is count one. >> possible these could be easerier to prove. we'll have to wait and see. at least on paper you think the standard is a little lower. the other thing here, all the defendants, it's not just trump. >> there are 19 defendants in all. here's all of them. but let's break them down into categories. trump is his own category, but mark meadows, he's not charged in jack smith's case. he's not one of the coconspirators. he is charged here in a limited capacity.

he's charged in the rico and for that call to brad eight lawyers charged in state. these are a lot of this ran through and was blessed by and designed by lawyers. jeffrey clark was a doj official. sidney powells was a former prosecutor. that's shocking to see. and let's not forget the fake electors, the campaign officials, the locals, the thing to keep in mind is 19 co-defendants. donald trump historically pays for lawyers for his co-defendants, which is not illegal, but it makes him flip. he's not going to be able to pay for all their lawyers. >> when you see 19 co-defendants here, that's a lot. how much does that raise the possibility that some of these people could flip? >> exponentially. what you want to do is get people to flip up the chain towards the boss. probably right here if we could but you're looking for people to flip up the line. we don't know if scott hall or misty hampton had direct contact with donald trump, but they can

get you to the mid-level. i would look for these people to flip. . i think prosecutors are putting a heavy hand on them. >> you prosecuted the mob. you are a mob prosecutor. you used rico cases. you prosecuted multiple people at once but 19? what are the advantages and disadvantages? >> you get to show a jury the whole picture. this is the whole crew. they all work together as one cohesive entity towards an illegal end. you have the advantage to pick off some low-hanging fruit and get them to flip. but the hard part, it's a lot of work. you're not going to be able to try all 19 at once. that's not going to happen. and you just never know how every one of these defendants, let's put aside trump. every one of these defendants, even the people we heard of is going to mount a furious defense, as their right to do. >> thank you very much. a lot more to discuss here. >> thanks, john. >> with us now is former fulton

county district attorney daryl cohen. you're in a unique position because you know this court system and how it works. you want to start with this. fan willis brought this sweeping case that involves 19 people, including the former president and a slew of lawyers. why do you think this case is far more reaching than the federal case? >> well, the federal case is the federal case. and if trump or any of his coconspirators are convicted, then if trump were to win the republican nomination and then win the president us is again, he could give himself his own pardon. or if a republican was elected, he or she could pardon donald trump. in this instance if he's convicted in georgia, even the governor of georgia is unable to pardon him. so that's really, really important. but here, fani willis, who i

think has done a comprehensive a job as anyone could possibly do, has brought in, as previously mentioned, all of the people from throughout the state, so it didn't have to happen, the c crimes did not have to happen in fulton county. they happened throughout the state. by using rico, which was designed for mobsters, she's able to put it altogether. but it's a very complicated thing. this is not easy. you have to convince 12 men and women at some point whether or not trump and any or all of his co-conspirators are guilty. she's saying that we're going to try this case in six months. i'm not a betting guy, but that's not going to happen. it is not going to happen. >> let me ask you about this. sara murray asked fani willis about how the case would be tried. this is da willis' response. listen. >> have you had any contact with

the special koum about overlap between these cases, and do you intend to try all of these defendants together? >> do i intend to try the 19 defendants in this indictment together? >> yes. >> yes. >> have you had any contact with special counsel ab the overlap? >> i'm not going to discuss our investigation at this time. >> okay. the thing to pull out of that is she says, yes, i'm going to try all 19 people at the same time. is that possible? when you're talking about 19 defendants, you also are talking about 19 lawyers, maybe more, for those defendants in a court. how will she do this? >> is it possible, yes. is it probable, no. it will be a circus of a trial. each one of those defendants is going to have his or her own attorney fighting tooth by tooth by tooth and pulling teeth is not fun, but pulling teeth with

multiple people is unbelievable. >> sorry to interrupt you. i'm curious. can a jury ingest all of this? when you have 19 people, i covered a case with the oath keepers where there were a dozen and the feds broke the case up into two because it's just a lot of information for a jury to take in. >> as a prosecutor, i always believed in the kiss method. keep it short stupid, simple stupid. . a jury is not going to be able to take all this in, but don't forget it's also political, whether we like it or not, no matter what fani has to say, it's political. if you're democratic and hate trump, you're going to hear it one way if you're republican and love trump, you'll hear it another way. so as a result of that, it's going to be complicated. it's going to be a circus. it's going to take a tremendous amount of time. right now, there's a case going on with multiple defendants in fulton county. they have not yet been able to seat a jury and this started in

january of this year. so if you multiply that and realize this is far worse, this is unpress didn'ted, it's never happened before in the united states. we don't know where we're going to be. there are going to be potholes and mines all along the way. >> i want to talk to you quickly about fani willis' history when it comes to hico. what is her experience with this rico charge? >> no one has experience in this type of rico charge. no one, not any state prosecutor in the united states because never before has a former president been charged and his having co-defendants, 18 additional and 41 counts, this is unprosecutecedented. it's going to be step by step, and it's going to be prosecution learning piece by piece because they are going to be forward and backward, and for every step

forward, there's going to be a step and a half backward. we just don't know what. what we do know is it's going to be completely fought. it's going to a kir sis and it's going to take a long time to do it. six months is not going to be what she's hopeful, it's not going to happen. >> might happen after the election. thank you so much for your insight. >> super interesting she might be hopeful for six months, and he's saying that's not going to happen. much more to come on this. former president trump speaking out this morning announcing what he calls a major news conference on the georgia indictment. when and where that will happen, we have that for you. plus you know their names. rudy giuliani, meadows, powell, but there are people other people charged with donald trump who are not such household names. we'll look at all 18

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learn more at boost.com/tv just in. we know how the former president will react to this news of the new indictment in georgia. moments ago he just announced he's going to hold what he calls a major news conference knicks monday next monday. alayna treene joins us with more. what's the plan? >> as you said, moments ago, donald trump announcing on social media that he's going to be holding this, quote, major news conference next monday at his golf club in new jersey. and he said that the point of this conference is to present a report that his team has put together regarding the false

claims that the 20 presidential election results in georgia were rife with fraud. that post reads, which took police na georgia is almost complete and will be presented by me at a major news conference at 11:00 a.m. on monday of next week in bedminster, new jersey. it goes on to say that there will be a complete exoneration. they never went after those that rigged the election. they only went after those that fought the riggers. donald trump has long been claiming that the 2020 presidential election has been rife with fraud, this he won the election. all claims that we know are not true and are false. but this is one of the ways that donald trump and his team are planning to defend him against this latest indictment. and honestly, i'm not that surprised that they will be doing this. when i spoke to his advisers yesterday in the lead up to the indictment, they told me that they expect the former president will want to make some sort of formal remarks around the latest

charges if they were trfiled. the indictment dropped last night. they want to get ahead of this and message these charges on their own terms. as we have seen them do with the past three indictments that he's faced in the past several months. this is exactly one of the ways they are going to be trying to do it. >> it's interesting. this is a political argument, obviously, whether or not they take this message in the courtroom, that's a discussion for another time. alayna treene, keep us posted. >> joining us for more is ben jones, former obama administration official, and senior political commentator scott jennings is here as well. major news conference. scott, do you want to be hearing from donald trump in this moment as a republican? >> he has every right to counter message this. until a jury get this is thing in the eyes of donald trump and his supporters, it's a political document any way. they are going to cast it as part of the campaign to keep him out of the white house. er they are going to counter message that. this thing may never go to trial

before people cast their votes either in the republican primary or the november 2024 election. so he has every right to counter message it. most of his supporters want him to counter message it. i would gist say this. if i were a strategic voter, do i want the election next year to be a referendum on donald trump's claims about the 2020 election, or the state of america under joe biden. you nominate someone under the age of 70 who is not indicted and you get the referendum on biden. >> real quick, republican reaction so far, not surprising, kevin mccarthy saying radical da in georgia is following biden's lead by attacking president trump and using it to fundraise her political career. jim jordan calling it a witch hunt against president trump and saying he did nothing wrong. but what do you see in this republican reaction? >> the same thichk i have seen in all the reaction.

they have cast their lot with trump. he has expectations of them. if they don't meet those expectations, they know what happens to them. >> they get a mean tweet. >> it's not just that. it's him telling their constituents this person can't be trusted anymore and casting them out basically, so they have been riding along in this car for this long and they are going to jump out of the window now. they are pretty far down the road at this point. >> this has me thinking this morning. hearing about a press conference coming from donald trump about something he said earlier this month right after his federal indictment over the 2020 election fraud claims. let me play this. this is from a campaign event in alabama. will listen to this. >> every time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls. we need one more indictment to close out this election, one more indictment, and this

election is close d out. nobody has even a chance. >> he got that indictment. >> every now and again donald trump tells the truth. >> do you think that's really -- we have a long way to go, but do you think that's what has happened? >> i don't think donald trump is crying. what do you want in an election? you want to dominate every news psychal and shut your opponents out. that's what he's doing. you have vivek out there pretending he's eminem. that's nuts. you want to raise money. every time this happens, people send in $5. so this is the campaign. you have never seen it before, but this is the campaign. donald trump presenting himself as a victim, some kind of a martyr, when the victims are people like mrs. freeman, who is trying to do her job helping her neighbors vote and have her life

destroyed. i'm glad we have a prosecutor that's willing to stick up for people. the true defenders of democracy are the ordinary people who stood in long lines to vote, the everyday people who listen to podcasts and got educated on issues and did the best they could to participate and almost had their votes nullified by this criminal conspiracy. those are the true defenders of democracy. i'm glad that somebody is sticking up for them. but through the looking glass, donald trump thinks he's the victim. >> let's go back to indiana and kentucky. do you think this becomes with a fourth indictment white noise in a pylon, or does this become a last straw when it comes to public attention and perspective on this? you raised some interesting questions this morning. will republicans vote for a convicted felon for president. >> i think there's a cohort that won't, but the question about white noise, i have a lot of friends i talk to who i consider to be plugged into the news.

they are consuming all this information. every single day one of them says, which indictment is this? which jurisdiction is that? which case is this? and these are people i would consider to be news consumers. now apply that to the average nonveracious news cob sconsumer or the casual voter who only shows up when donald trump issen the ballot who trusts nothing that they hear from the news or any institution. of course, this becomes white noise. i think in a lot of people's minds, it's all just part of the same trap. they laid a trap for trump. until somebody convinces me otherwise, i will not see it any differently. i think the white noise factor is a real thing. >> you think cameras in a courtroom in georgia could change any of this? >> i think it helps because at least people watching the same show. people are watching the same stuff. there were cameras for o.j. simpson and people had very different opinions about what

was going on even then. >> if these ballots don't fit? >> we are not going there right now. sara, we're going to wrap this. >> absolute ly not. it's not happening in my courtroom. >> thanks, good to see you. there are 18 others indicted in georgia besides former president trump. ahead, we break down who they are and what charges they are facing. also what top republican lawmakers are saying about donald trump in the wake of the sweeping indictment out of georgia. the fourth indictment against him. more on what they are saying, ahead. but the real mystery was her irritated skin. so, we switched to tide pods free & gentle. it cleans better, and doesn't leave behind irritating residues. and it's gentle on her skin tide free & gentle is epa safer choice certified. it's got to be tide chevy silverado has what it takes to do itll.

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aside from donald trump, 18 other people are facing criminal charges. let's walk through who they are. mark meadows was trump's white house chief of staff. by definition, he was the president's right-hand man. meadows was involved in the effort to contact state election official, including the infamous call where trump asked georgia's secretary of state to find those votes that he said he needed. then there is jeffrey clark. he's a justice department official and one of the few officials willing to go along with trump's baseless election fraud claims. even urging the acting attorney general to sign documents that made false fraud claims. underneath those two, there's a slew of other people. there was an entire legal team pushing those false claims as well.

chief among them, rudy giuliani, but also john eastman, who wrote the memo that mike pence could reject the vote certification. kenneth chooez bro, who wrote his own memo. not only because of her wild quotes and conspiracy she is threw around, but central to some of the meetings with the bogus legal theories were being pushed. according to the indictment, these three other attorneys, as you see here, were also intimately involved in pressuring georgia officials to subvert the true outcome of the election. >> so on the so-called fake elector scheme, david schaffer, who was the former republican state chair, allege dle rezeserd the room for the electors to meet. shawn still encouraged others to sign.

kat live lei man, scott hall and missy hampton are accused of giving access to billion lots, computer systems and voting machines. the indictment alleges that the leader of black voices for trump, who used to work for kanye west and steven lee were all involved in the effort to intimidate two georgia election wor workers, who were wrongly awe accused of tampering with ballots. >> the defendants in the case have to turn themselves in by august 25th. fani willis wants to try all the defendants together and while it will be up to the judge to set a date for the case, she's proposing a trial date within the next six months. here with me is legal analyst and former prosecutor jennifer rogers. thank you for being here. we want to look at the details, but from your perspective as a former federal prosecutor, when you saw this indictment, what was your initial reaction to it?

>> it was wow. what detail, the number of defendants, the number of lawyers, it's really a blockbuster indictment. it's really zeroing in on one state. we know these election interference actions were take nbc a bunch of states, but when you drill down on what happened in georgia, all the different strands of that conspiracy come out in this indictment. it's pretty overwhelming. >> we heard from fani willis that she's going to do this hopefully within six months and with all 19 defendants. i covered the oath keepers trial. that had 12 people. they broke it into two different cases. can yshe do this? >> it won't be 19 defendants, because what will start to happen is we'll see movement. people will plead out because they will be given good deals. people will flip and plead guilty and become cooperating witnesses. so people will start out of the case, but it's still impossible it can happen within six months.

it's too many players, too much evidence, and too many other criminal cases for the former president. she's not even thinking about the fact that the calendar is pretty much full at this point. >> i want to ask you about the potential to flip some of these defendants. would you start with the fewest number of charges against them, those, some of the people that are in georgia that were having to do with the elections. where would you start to try to flip? or do you start high up? >> when you're flipping opposed to just trying to get people to exit the case, you want to see what they know and how they can help you. so flipping the people at the bottom may not be that helpful if aawl they know if the person right above them told them to do it you need people that have the evidence who are most likely to end up in the courtroom for trial. so you have to assess that. who knows the most, who can they give us, and then you're thinking about are the lawyers likely to flip, because they will lose their law licenses,

although many of them are under the processes already in the states where they are barred. so all of these things go into the mix. they will just kind of set out feelers. how does your client feel about coming in and talking to us. >> i want to talk about mark meadows. he was a surprise because people thought he might be cooperate ing with federal prosecutors in the other case that is similar to this that's being tried by the special counsel. now here he is, he is now indicted in the state case. what do you think happened here? is it possible he's cooperating on one sand not the other? >> it's possible. ufs surprised as well because i thought it was likely he was cooperating. and his lawyer would have required that all jurisdictions that could charge him will sign off on that cooperation. it's possible given that fani willis said she wasn't coordinating with jack smith that they were on separate charges and now that he's charged, he will be involved in

crafting a deal to allow cooperation across all cases or could be that he's really not cooperate ing, although now tha he's been criminally charged, you have to think that possibility will be moving up the ranks in terms of his thought process. >> it's fascinating to try to feel pooel apart the layers of this indictment. i lastly want to ask about fani willis and her experience with rico. back in 2022 just last year, she brought a case against a rapper and otseveral others. what does that tell you about the timing of this case and how quickly or slowly it might be able to come to trial? >> so fani willis has a lot of experience with rico, so she knows what she's doing in this regard, but going back to the claim she's going to try this case in six months, the young thug case is still in jury selection. months and months just in sjury selection. picking a jury for the former president and the other high-ranking former officials and lawyers and so on is going to be even more complicated than

picking a jury for the young thug case. that underscores that six months is an unrealistic goal. >> there's a lot of people, there's a lot of lawyers that will be involved and a lot of lawyers that are charged. we'll all be watching this case. it's incredible to see how unprecedented this is. jennifer rodgers, thank you for coming on. coming up, cnn has learned hunter biden's top attorney has asked to withdraw from his client's case. why? we have that next. with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensusure® high protein. boosost® high protein. now available e in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv

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this morning authorities in hawaii are expected to begin releasing more names of those who died in the maui wildfires.

the death toll is now at 9, but officials warn that number could even double. crews have only been able to search quarter of the burn area. officials are also scrambling to find housing for people who lost their homes. hawaii's governor says of the more than 2,200 structures that were destroyed, 86% were homes. mike joins us maui this morning with the latest. what's happening now? >> reporter: i think that what we saw yesterday is a good snapshot, a good illustration of what's happening. we made it to lahaina yesterday. as soon as you get downtown, you look out immediately towards the beautiful pacific ocean. you see these amazing waves and coastline out in the distance that is blooming with life. and you turn in the other direction, and you see the complete opposite. you see just what looks like a

high tide that sprung from hell, that swallowed up the entire town and did not let go and did not care what happened afterwards. and it's just charcoal, ash, and it's in this context that we have dozens of emergency workers, recovery specialists, utility workers, police and residents who are sifting through the rubble of their lives. this is the environment in which they are working. and it was so moving yesterday to hear fema's administrator recognize that. this is going to be the atmosphere of recovery. here's what she said late yesterday. >> as residents continue to mourn the loss of their friends, their loved one, their neighbors, the loss of their homes and their way of life, we know we are mourning with them.

nothing can prepare you for what i saw, nothing could prepare them for the emotional toll of the impact this event has taken on them. >> reporter: the next few days moving forward in terms of what we should be looking at with the recovery, with trying to get into the next chapter for life at the epicenter of the disaster zone, hawaii's governor said that he expects that 85 to 90% of the burn zone could be searched by the end of the week. that was a surprising figure that was thrown out to all of us, who have been here since the very beginning. alt also 20 cadaver dogs are working on site compared to 3, who could only work for the first few days because of the high temperatures. they can only work in the morning and late afternoon. also i thought it was striking when we were in the disaster zone to see the number of

national guard troops that were deployed within the heart of lahaina. there were about three dozen troops, who were directing traffic, assisting police, police want to make sure that only residents are getting back in to the heart of the community, that there aren't tourists or reports of potential looters anywhere near the heart of downtown. so there are also two national guard helicopters that where we are right now on the foothills of the highest peak of maui, these helicopters have been dropping water. so a huge effort, as we move into what is a new phase of recovery and movering forward here on maui. >> mike virginia letter yo, thank you very much. kooming up for us, a big development when it comes to a

case involving hunter biden. his top attorney has asked to withdraw from his case. why, we have the details, next. ♪ hit it ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a thing go right ♪ ♪ it takes two to make it outta sight ♪ ♪ one, two, get loose now ♪ ♪ it takes two toto make a... ♪ stay two nights and get a $ 50 best western gift card. book now at bestwewestern.com. wayfair has nice prices, so you can have nice things. um kelly? we have champagne taste... on a hard seltzer budget... wayfair's got just what you nd! what... y'all this is nice. lad plates? kelly clarkson? i'm fancy now! i have always waed statement lighting. get nice things at nice prices at wayfair! ♪ wayfair, you've got just what i need ♪

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david: as we start a new school year, there's something new happening in california's public schools. they're called community schools. leslie: it really is shared leadership with families, students, educators, and communities. jessie: i feel like we're really valued as partners. david: it's a more innovative, holistic approach. grant: in addition to academic services, we look at serving the whole family. narrator: wellness centers, food pantries, and parental education. jessie: they're already making a difference. david: california's community schools: reimagining public education.

this just in, the lead attorney representing hunter biden now wpts to withdraw from handling his case. we have the details. what's behind this request? >> this request just hit the docket. this attorney has been hunter bidens's criminal attorney and he's represented him in the negotiations with the justice department. so in this filing, he says he needs to withdraw from the case because the plea deals are at the center of this dispute. so he's a witness to this, so he can no longer advocate for hunter biden, because he will be someone that will be a fact witness as they obviously are on different pages about what was covered in that plea agreement and the nature conversation of it. he's moving out of this case right now. there has been some tension on the legal team. i think it's an open question of where this goes from here, but at this moment, he's now off the

case because he's a potential witness as they try to figure out their next steps. today is a deadline in this case for the prosecution to weigh in on hunter biden's team saying that the gun part of the deal, that was the gundy version agreement, hunter biden's team said it's still valid and binding. prosecutors have until noon today to weigh in. the judge is asking the team to weigh in by the end of the day about where their view is on the tax plea agreement and where they go from here. all this in the backdrop of merrick garland giving sglsh that was my next question. these can be separate and happening at the same time, but david weiss was just given special counsel status. does that factor into this? >> so he was given special counsel status. he asked for that on the tuesday telling the attorney general he thought they were at this moment in the case where that was necessary to give him these different authorities.

but this is still going on and still is the front issue before this judge. so obviously, he will continue with special counsel, but they have this issue that still has to be worked out. >> quite a nauty issue, but well done walking us through this. thank you so much. coming up, donaldth 18 othee face ing a new reality today an 41 criminal counts in georgia. we have the indictment by the numbers, stay with "cnn news central." not flossing well? then add the whoa! of listerine to your routine. new science shows listerine is 5x more effectiveve than floss at reducing plaqaque above the gumline. for a cleaner, healthier mouth. ahhhhh. listerine. feel thehe whoa!

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this morning, donald trump is facing the most sweeping criminal case against him yet. he and some of his closest allies all indicted on multiple charges in georgia for trying to unlawfully change th