way out. bret, we kind of kicked this around with martha and andy and jonathan and trey before, but let get your thoughts on it. do you believe, whether constitutionally or otherwise, this judge would be able to impose a gag order on not just a former president, but a current presidential candidate? >> i think it's really tough to defend big picture and constitutionally. the legal minds will probably have more of a backing on this, but i think it would be tough politically to defend especially since it's a district attorney who started this whole campaign, campaigning on trying to go after former president trump. i think the gag order, if it comes down, can be pretty quickly taken to court and challenged. in this case in particular. >> gillian: bret, we know from previous cases that criminal

charges like this often have cascading effects and as you mentioned, the president's facing at least three other potential criminal investigations into his conduct right now. whichever way these charges go and hopefully we'll be privy to all of them in the next 15 minutes or so, how might this strengthen or weaken the former president's hand in those other key cases? >> i think that's a great question on the politics side of things. not on the legal side of things. you know, i don't think any of these district attorneys or the special counsel are interacting saying you go first, no, you go first, or i'm ready to go. that's not how it works behind the scenes. but it is the case that this went first and it may be the thinnest gruel of them all in

the end. by going first does it paint others with this, you know, an aura of it's all political and the answer is yes from the former president, he's going to use it to say it fits with the entire narrative of russia russia russia, and all of the things they have been trying to go after me for years and years. the problem is is that some of the substance, at least that as reported, and we believe from sources in some of these other cases, is a little bit more substantive, and potentially more problematic legally for the former president. >> john: secret service coming through the door, typically when they arrive, it means a number of moments before the protectee comes in the door. the president has been eight

floors below where this shot is being taken for the last while when he went into the courthouse being processed. that would involve fingerprinting. we were told it would not include having a mug shot taken. after that processing is complete, he'll make his way up here. looks like we still have a few minutes, nothing is imminent here, i wouldn't think, but we are getting closer to court and then make his way up here for the actual arraignment. bryan is live outside the courthouse, and we may need to put a button on you quickly if we see the former president come through, but you are out there among a crowd of media, police, supporters and protestors, what's the scene like? >> yeah, it's calm. there's a hushed silence, as much hushed silence, it's as quiet as they have been. about 200 people, i would say, bystanders, people here just to see the spectacle and pro trump and anti-trump people who have come out to see what's going on. i want to give you a sense, there is outside the courthouse

right here, the main entrance, 100 center street. the double row of new york state court officers who are sort of just protecting this flanking this entire front entrance. we don't know which way the former president is going to walk out. it's possible he could come out through the main entrance. we don't see his vehicles here, but what we have seen here, the front entrance of 100 center street, the manhattan criminal courthouse and the street started getting blocked here at the courthouse i would say probably at this point about an hour and a half ago. and there was lots of sound coming from and people, you know, hitting horns and banging on drums at the park, more of a festive atmosphere and now holding on to the park fence and looking at the courthouse behind me to see if they can get a glimpse of the former president when he exits the courthouse.

martha and bret were talking about, not the only criminal matter he's facing in new york, but he is facing an afront in two civil matters. new york state attorney general, letitia james is going after trump for, in a $250 million lawsuit for defrauding lenders and others and a defamation case to be heard in april -- said to be held in april here in new york. somebody accusing him of battery. this is the only criminal matter, but he's got some issues here. john, back to you. >> john: looked like there was some imminent activity with the number of people coming back and forth through that door, and we are getting very close. ten minutes away from the scheduled time of the arraignment. i want to make sure we did not miss anything with the former president coming through. no question that prosecutors in the state of new york seem to

definitely want to make a point of trying to bring criminal charges and a conviction against former president trump, which again is why, gillian, this idea of a gag order. when that's his only way, really, of fighting back against public officials making comments about him, about the media globally that will be covering this case, how do you take that platform away from him. >> gillian: one of the primary beefs, for lack of a better word, that president trump supporters have with the indictment is they feel that even without a gag order this limits his ability to speak open and honestly on the presidential trail, on the campaign trail about what he is facing in court. they feel that this puts an undue burden on him as martha spoke about a few minutes ago, and puts a burden on him to fight a legal battle potentially more than one legal battle at the same time while he is

pursuing office, something that former presidents have not had to deal with. >> john: and you know, an indication there may not be a gag order imposed here or even a request for one is that alvin bragg, the manhattan district attorney has a news conference scheduled for 3:15, not long after this arraignment wraps up. so that could always change if the judge says i don't care what you are asking for or not asking for, i think a gag order is appropriate here, bragg would have to change that or temper the announcement. as we await for the president to come through the silver doors, back to andy mccarthy on this. and andy, when we look at as bret baier was pointing out, the myriad cases against the former president. if bragg were to be successful here and get a conviction on the former president that, could really set the tone for other cases down the road. but if bragg lost or this was dismissed, it could be a blow t

the other cases. >> i don't think it will end up working that way, it will be a long time before this case goes to trial, if it goes to trial and does not get dismissed before that, and in the meantime what we have heard in the last month is that they are very close to bringing charges in fulton county, a development last week makes me think we may see that on or before may 1st and the special counsel appointed by the biden justice department is working diligently away at trying to make a case on the mar-a-lago documents and on january 6th. so that case is moving forward, too. we may have all these charges. if there are more on the table before any of these cases is resolved, and i would just point out, you know, the fact that we mention that there are political implications here doesn't mean

that every one of these prosecutors has the same political agenda or the same political motivation. you know, the democratic prosecutors in other parts of the country may have wished alvin bragg stood down because of the taint effect the case will have on their cases. but he has his own constituency. again, he ran here in manhattan promising that he would do exactly what he's done, which is hold donald trump in court and no matter how this case turns out, the people who elected him, and especially the progressive activists in new york, they are pleased with this development. what they want is trump dragged through this process. so regardless of how that implicates the perception of the other cases being worked on by other prosecutors across the country, i think bragg is answering to his own political constituency. >> gillian: i want to bring in bret for a moment.

bret, andy just mentioned the political implications here, i want to draw your attention back to the 2024 campaign cycle, the big question there is how voters feel about what they are seeing transpire today. we talked about it's a bit of a rorschach test. what you see depends a whole lot on where you sit politically. it's also true that 2024 is likely going to be decided by a few hundred thousand swing voters in a handful of states. how do the swing voters you feel perceive the charges and the case against trump? >> alvin bragg just walking through. it was -- just a quick glimpse of the district attorney, alvin bragg, sneaking out of that door, to mention that. i agree with you, gillian, that is the big question. right now it is a unifying effect. you have jeb bush coming out in support in principle of donald

trump because he thinks this is, the charges are politically based, when you have parts of the republican party not inclined to back donald trump, and unified base, you have seen polls go up and fundraising increase in the short-term, there's a clear shot in the arm as far as attention, the fact that it's wall to wall news coverage is, you know, harkens back to the 2015-2016 time frame when the president was not president and he, you know, was getting this kind of attention on the trail. i think as time goes on, and how these other cases play out, other candidates will maybe look to talk about that, about running for office without the chaos, without everything that surrounds it. asa hutchinson, the former

arkansas governor is doing that but he's alone in that. it's a lonely trail. everybody is singing from the same sheet of music, they think it's a political prosecution on the side. >> now within three minutes of the scheduled start time of this arraignment hearing, we saw alvin bragg as bret was pointing out walk in. we have seen the president's personal aide come through those doors. the former president usually not far behind, so we are expecting this is going to happen in the next little while. it is i think worthwhile as we await the arraignment here that alvin bragg has been really making a career here out of downgrading felony charges. 2023, 1972 cases, 54% of those felonies were downgraded to misdemeanors. the year before, 52% were downgraded and when you take a look at the number of felony

cases resulting in convictions, this year, year to date, 52% resulting in convictions. 50% last year, so it was a 50/50 case in 2022, you had a one in two shot of beating the rap, if you will, on the felony charge. now 48% of felonies so far this year have not resulted in convictions. that gives the former president a pretty good chance of beasting this. >> gillian: for all intents and purposes, seems the opposite according to the legal analysts are happening in this case. they say bragg is taking what is essentially usually historically treated as a misdemeanor and elevating it to a felony. also important to point out, john, last year former presidential candidate hillary clinton settled a campaign finance violation over reporting the steele dossier funding as legal services. she paid a fine for that. she was never arrested. >> john: when you take a look at

the cases of hillary clinton, the cases of bill clinton, you could make a case that a zealous prosecutor could say i don't believe the fact -- both should have walked pretty much scott free. this is a precedent-setting case in so many different ways. >> gillian: in just a few minutes we might very well finally see those charges, all of them, which will answer some of the questions, whichever way this thing goes, whether it fuels the fire of people who say this is political persecution, or redeems bragg and perhaps he has had access to information, evidence, witness testimony that those who came before him did not. we will hopefully find out in the next few minutes. >> john: overhearing some radio traffic with the nypd officers

on scene. we should be -- we are about 20 seconds away from the scheduled start time of this arraignment. so we should at any moment now see the former president walk through those doors. it will be interesting to see if he comes to the microphones, and does have a comment on the way in. i expect based on what he has been saying about alvin bragg and the judge on truth social he will probably voice his opinion what he thinks of this process and how he believes it's unfair, how he thinks the venue is unfair and he is being, in his mind, unfairly persecuted for what transpired. eric trump again was saying and martha pointed out as well that this city has gone, or this prosecutor has gone to enormous expense for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement. now, again, if you are accusing someone of a crime and prosecuting them for a crime, you don't do, you know, a balance sheet for it.

prosecution is worth whatever you believe it's worth. but you know, there are a lot of people who say this prosecution is not worth the paper that it's written on, let alone the expense the city has incurred because of it. >> gillian: let's good ahead and bring back jonathan turley now. jonathan, a few moments this will we are going to have access to those charges, we hope they will be revealed in entirety shortly after the president goes into the courtroom. we have a producer inside. he will be sending us information as soon as he gets out of there. he's not allowed to have a phone with him and communicate on it inside there. but talk to us about reporting today, confirmed to fox news, there are more than 30 charges, one of those is a felony. >> well, one very likely has to be a felony if they are going to use this boot strap argument of the new york misdemeanor. they have to bring that misdemeanor back to life and the

only way to do it to say it was committed to hide a felony. so that would be part of that theory. look, we have all known, the most obvious fact, that history is being made. the question we are going to learn in the next few minutes is what type of history. is it good or bad history. many of us have no objection to a former president being indicted. that can be a vindication of the rule of law. it can also be the degradation of the rule of law. if you proceed against a former president for political reasons, it is the very antithesis of our legal system. whatever comes out of that gate in a few minutes hopefully will be more than what we have heard if the rule of law is going to be vindicated. hopefully it will be more than just 34 versions of this rather dubious legal theory that's bantered about for weeks.

the suggestion there might be something new in the indictment. are there new crimes. are all of these related to payments around 2016. are they all based on different variations of this boot strap argument. alternatively, do they have some new crimes that might deal with business or tax fraud allegations. we are going to learn that soon. but really the call of history is weighing heavily, not just on donald trump, but i think on alvin bragg, you know. it is one thing to be the first person to indict a former president. it's another thing to do it without cause, or to do it with political reasons or motivations. so this can be his most famous or his most infamous moment as a prosecutor. >> john: again, we don't know what's in the indictment, we have not seen it. it may be he has a very thin case here that he's trying to

weld the misdemeanor to a federal felony and has failed to do it or may be, as jonathan turley suggested, things in there stronger than what's talked about here. as we await the president's arrival, and these are officers of the court, not nypd, sorry for that, they have the same badge or emblem on, i'm working off a small monitor with tired eyes, martha, we expect the president will walk through the doors and make a comment. could this be the beginning of a reboot of his campaign? >> martha: it could be. as bret noted earlier in the day, when the president announced his campaign to run again in 2024, it did not get a whole lot of hoopla. it was fairly quiet, and this has clearly created a lot of drama and a lot of attention

around the former president. he has said it is not this form of attention that he wanted, he said this is sad what's happening here, i would point out or reiterate this is very unusual. we don't do it in the united states. i was looking at information on prime minister benjamin netanyahu who you know, came back to office with an indictment hanging over his head. that's generally not the way we do things here in the united states. but that precedent has now been broken with this case, john, and we'll see if we hear from the former president here. he doesn't like to walk by cameras and not say something, so we'll see if he's in that mood today. we do expect it will get underway very shortly, john. >> gillian: let's go ahead and bring in harold ford, jr., co-host of "the five," harold, interestingly, adam kinzinger said this, america faces great

political polarization and the indictment will not help but upholding the rule of law is imperative to the nation's long-term success. what do you say about that? >> he could be right. i like you am waiting to see what's in the indictment, what the facts are that support it. i think jonathan has said professor turley has said well and i have urged everyone to show some restraint here. some of the speculation could be right, some could be wrong, we'll know here in a few minutes. i think the great gift we all as americans have, we are presumed innocent until and unless we are proven guilty and must all remember former president trump who has been indicted is presumed innocent until facts are presented and evidence presented that prove otherwise. and hopefully we learn in this indictment what the skeletal claims are. and most district attorneys are

elected, so they all run on a platform. i don't take the idea he ran on the platform of prosecuting former president trump as anything other than something d.a.s do they run across the country. having said that, he best have a case. if the d.a. does not have a case here, you will hear republicans and some democrats encourage that this case be dismissed or be denied a trial. >> john: what you said there, harold ford, jr., innocent until proven guilty, in stark contradiction to the way nancy pelosi put it, she said the former president will have a chance to prove his innocence, and chuck schumer said i believe that donald trump will have a fair trial that follows the facts and the law. there's no place in our justice system for any outside influence or intimidation in the legal process. harold ford, jr., given the president's prominence as a

public figure, can that happen in america? >> of course it can. i think anyone that tries to besmirk the idea we have one system does not understand the judicial system. we have checks and balances. something happen in a lower court people believe, lawyers right was a violation of rights, they can appeal. appeal up to the state level or the federal level. i'm not one who believes anyone is above the law or should be targeted by the law. i'm not a believer that no one is so important, and no one is so supercedes humanity the legal system can't treat them fairly. if d.a. bragg does not have the evidence, does not have the facts, president trump will, if he goes to trial will be acquitted. and if there's not evidence to support the kinds of claims that we are all speculating might be in this indictment, then a judge will likely dismiss this. but like many, i'm going to wait to see what's in the indictment

before i comment much more on what may happen or what may not happen. >> gillian: let's bring back in bret baier for a moment here. as this is unfolding, bret, last night we learned special counsel jack smith, managing the classified documents case discovered new evidence pointing to trump's obstruction. they report he has new witness statements, security camera footage and other documentary evidence that speaks to the idea that trump himself tampered with classified documents in his home in mar-a-lago after the archives requested that he return those documents to them. >> right, and that's the reporting after the subpoena. we also at fox reported that jack smith, special counsel, is compelling the testimony of secret service agents to the grand jury this week as well. those cases are moving forward. the documents case, the january 6th case, and the

election interference case overall are moving forward in different ways, and the court of appeals saying that former white house chief of staff mark meadows and other aides need to testify to the grand jury, and there was an effort to prevent that from the trump legal team. they lost in court, lost on appeal, a now they have to move forward. not likely they will go to the supreme court on that one. i want to bring this up as we wait for the former president to possibly come through the doors. the white house briefing moments ago, interesting exchange between karine jean-pierre and the "new york times," and a number of reporters had been asking her to comment on this indictment and what it means, big picture, reaction and she, as you noted earlier, kind of punted as the white house has done. but he was essentially saying wait a second, you were saying you can't comment on the trump indictment because it's an active case, but you and the president can discuss at no --

have no issue discussing january 6th and there are 500 active cases in that situation, and they went back and forth and it was kind of a heated exchange. the reporter saying don't lecture me. in other words, the lack of response from the white house on this front from weighing in and yet weighing in on something that the special counsel is specifically looking into is quite a dichotomy as we wait for the former president to address these charges after this arraignment. >> john: i want to ask andy mccarthy something about a topic bret brought up, and that is the documents and this new reporting that the president after the subpoena was issued may have looked through the documents. he was on sean hannity's show a few days ago, apparently the former president is heading up to the courtroom now i've been told.

andy, why don't we delay that request for just a second. i'll just say that the former president was on hannity's show, and said i can't see you doing that, and donald trump said i had the right to do it, and i'm not quite clear, i wanted to ask andy whether he does have the right after being president to look through potential classified documents unless he has previously declassified them but he maintained he had previously declassified them, so that's an argument we can take up in a few moments. again, i was advised the former president is heading up to the courtroom now, so any moment now, gillian, should see him come through those doors. >> gillian: and if he stops to speak to cameras and the american public we'll see him there. if he doesn't, a few steps from the door into the courtroom, we'll have to wait from the former president until after he is arraigned. we will hopefully hear him. he has expressed to his team as recently as this morning that he

wanted to address the events of the day himself personally and directly, john. >> john: here comes his legal team right now. they are on the way in. which means he will be right behind them, i would imagine. so let's not forget that alvin bragg not only is setting precedent bringing criminal charges for the first time in the nation's history against a former president but taking a case, and this is the hush money that was paid to stormy daniels back in 2016 just before the election, he's taking a case that the feds said they would not prosecute. here comes the former president. let's just listen in to this. >> president trump, will you come speak to us? president trump? >> john: and he went right into the courtroom. we thought he was going to come up to the camera, but change of

plans to what we had been advised, and he just walked straight in there. again, we are told there is a still photographer who is in the courtroom, who will be allowed to publish one photograph of the president there before the judge, juan merchan, and we will not see anything live from inside the courtroom. it is state court and typically the cameras are allowed in state court but the trump legal team made a request to the court that live cameras not cover the proceeding because it would create a circus-like environment. martha, you are astute politically. you would think on the one hand that former president trump, loves to do literally everything in front of a camera, would want the nation to see what was going on to bolster his position that he's been unfairly persecuted. at the same time, if you see him say not guilty, that is an image for the ages his opponents would

likely try to exploit. >> martha: indeed it is, john. i thought the former president looked very somber, very serious when he walked out that door. no underestimating the significance of what he has just been through, somebody who has been the president of the united states of america was just fingerprinted and booked and processed to head into a courtroom to be arraigned. i mean, this is a moment that no doubt is having a heavy weight on him. he feels unjustly arrested in this case and he will have his moment to speak. he's going to speak tonight at 8:00 from mar-a-lago, as andy mccarthy made clear, released on his own recognizance after this process underway now, and we are about to find out the indictments part of this case and how many are felonies. but i think the weight of this moment appeared to be on the former president in a very significant way as we just saw

him walk through that hallway, john. >> gillian: and bret, we are in a bit of unchartered territory now. the next time we might conceivably hear from the former president, when he comes out of the courtroom should be around 3:00 in the early, or in the early part of that hour. he declined to speak right now, which we thought he may. the reality here is that if a gag order does come down during this arraignment, the president might not be able to speak at all from inside the courtroom. >> yeah, gillian, that's a good question. i think it's something that we have not heard yet, and there's no indication yet that the judge is going to install that gag order. we'll know shortly. i just want to go back to that image of former president trump walking out and kind of glaring at the reporters as they said will you come talk to us. and that moment of walking into the courtroom, you know, he is standing across from the district attorney, alvin bragg,

bringing forward this indictment, and these charges. and you know, this is a surreal moment, surreal image that we'll see from inside the courtroom in the still photographs as john mentioned. politically, we talk a lot about politics, but this is, you know, personal, and this is dealing with and the photographers are now coming out after having what's called a spray of a photograph we assume they got a couple of shots of the beginning of that proceeding. and you know, it is personal for this president who has not faced this. he's been probably 4 or 5 decades under investigation or attack in one way or another before when he was a businessman and then when he was president. now he faces a number of serious investigations and as we have been talking about, we just don't know because we have not seen the indictment. this seems the least serious of the possible charges, but it is still in a courtroom and does

face a criminal penalty. so this is a surreal moment and one that politically in the short-term is probably beneficial for stirring up his base, but a lot of people question how much this benefits him in the long-term unless everything can turn around and he can wipe it all clean. >> john: so let's bring in the constitutional law expert to deal with a state court issue here, jonathan turley, how long do you expect that this arraignment will last? i've seen them be very short, i've seen them take, you know, 20 minutes or more. >> this should be very short, and the question is, are they going to read all 34 counts, it could take time but you can also waive that and it could be extremely short. he could come out at any time. what happens then is going to get pretty intense. we can expect motions from the

defense for a change of venue, maybe a change of judge, maybe a challenge to bragg himself as being part of the prosecution. but the most important motion will be the motion to dismiss. we are going to look at what these counts say. if they are based on the long debated boot strap theory of taking a misdemeanor and essentially charging a federal election offense, then this is ripe for challenge and if it's based on that, i believe it should be dismissed. so that's really the question that is so intriguing. you have people like lanny davis, who represents michael cohen saying that he believes there are other crimes here and a lot of new evidence people don't know of. we also have a leak that occurred which is a very serious matter saying that these are 34 counts, including at least one

felony. but we really -- the key here and the devil is always is in the details. what are those counts? are they all 2016 payments dealing with mcdougall and daniels? or did they find other business or tax-related issues that they can charge? that's going to be the test of history for both trump and bragg as we look at the weight of this prosecution. now, he obviously has three torpedos in the water. one hit, this manhattan charge. he also has georgia coming out of fulton county. i have some question about that case, if it's based entirely on a conversation he had to "find additional votes." if it's based entirely on that, i'm somewhat -- i find it somewhat dubious, but that's a fact question and so those questions tend to go to trial and may be difficult to dismiss

that case, as opposed to this one that has the threshold legal questions that can be challenged up front. and finally you've got the third torpedo, the one most serious, that's coming out of mar-a-lago. i don't see a strong case yet out of january 6th, but mar-a-lago, the fbi has said from the earliest filings, they believe they have evidence of could be construction, that there was an effort to obstruct their effort to collect those classified documents. that is a very-well trod area of law for the department of justice. i think that's the one that representatives the most serious threat. >> let's circle back to politics once again, bret. the president, the former president is in the middle of a primary campaign right now. do you think that registered republicans are going to be focused on the treatment of trump or the perceived mistreatment of trump in a few months when they head to the

polls or is this going to be a distant memory? >> this may stretch out for some time. and jonathan and andy and others will tell you some of these cases may take a while. others will fast track. but we are looking at probably a first debate in august of this year. you know, you are looking toe polls now where the president is up 30 points in most polls over his nearest challenger, someone not yet in the race, florida governor ron desantis, others are well below that. so, there's not a sense that you know, he's seeing any detriment from these moments and these charges and we'll see, you know, what happens after -- what goes forward with january 6th and the trump documents case in mar-a-lago and the election interference case in georgia. but i will say that it will be an issue if it's still a big

part of what he has to deal with once you get into the heart of the campaign. he will say it's all political and he will likely get some support, a lot of support for that. but there will be other people who run against him saying the country needs to turn the page and we'll see how powerful that is at that point. >> john: all right, and let me circle back now that the former president has gone into the courtroom with andy mccarthy on this issue of the documents and whether the former president had the legal right to look through documents after the subpoena had been issued or look through documents that had classified markings on them regardsless whether a somebody had been issued. he said to sean hannity, i have the right to look. does he? >> the problem, john, his right to look at them or not look at them is really not what the material issue is there. the problem he has is that the grand jury issued a subpoena, or

the justice department did on behalf of the grand jury demanding that they surrender all of the documents that had classified markings that were in former president trump's possession in mar-a-lago. in early june, two of his lawyers met with the justice department official and three fbi agents, gave them a package of about 38 documents with classified markings and a sworn statement that said they had done a diligent search and there were no other documents left at mar-a-lago. so the issue is, if he was looking through boxes and looking through documents after that, it's not a question of whether he had a right to look at them or not because they were classified, it's a question of whether they intentionally misled the grand jury when they told them they had looked through mar-a-lago and that they were presenting to the government all of the documents that were present at mar-a-lago that had classified markings. >> john: i guess the issue then is if he was able to look

through documents after they surrendered the documents and said they had given up the documents, that would be a clear indication in my layman's mind there were still documents left to be turned over. >> precisely, that's what the issue is. >> gillian: andy, would it matter if those documents were considered totally declassified at the time he "looked at them" as i claims or does that not matter either? >> gillian, that's a much misunderstood part of all this. the espionage act does not refer to classified documents. it refers to national defense information. so whether something has classified markings on it or not and whether it was in fact classified is evidence that it is national defense information but it's not depositive so whether he declassified them or not, there's no evidence that he did declassify them. in terms of the espionage act,

they just need to be national defense information whether they have classified markings or not. >> john: the screen right now, it is the photograph allowed in the courtroom there you see the president in the middle with his defense team on the far left is todd blanch, who is the newest member of his legal team, announced yesterday. he gave up his job at a prestigious manhattan law firm to take on the defense of the president, described it as an opportunity i should not pass up. obviously doing this as a partner at the law firm was not an option, so i had to make the difficult choice to leave the firm. so, todd blanch on the left, also defended paul manafort has made a decision to leave his law

firm, and susan, and joe on the right-hand side. so there, is our one and only photograph from the courtroom, and bret, let's go to you. what kind of impact does that have on this presidential candidate seeing that photograph? looks pretty benign to me. >> pretty benign. you can make a lot out of the moment and it just being a moment of a former president, the first time in a courtroom facing indictment. it is not a mug shot. i think there was some thought that a mug shot could be used two base, by his supporters on t-shirts and mugs and everything else to back up this president, i think that's what, you know, his supporters look at this as a political prosecution and one which really rallies a lot of people about two systems of justice. that's what they talk about. the people who are backing

district attorney bragg say, you know, no one is above the law, and they are moving forward with these charges and he will face his day in court. and he's innocent until proven guilty. i think on both sides of the political spectrum people who good over the edge. this is a moment, and we are likely going to see as andy mentioned a fast movement to try to dismiss this case. based on the technicalities of trying to, if we as we assume, boot strap these charges to a federal election crime. >> gillian: martha, so many moving parts today. but i think certainly when we look back on the events that have transpired, a few distinct moments in time will crystallize. certainly this photograph of the president, the only one we are going to get inside the courtroom, flanked by his legal team will be something that sticks with all of us. read the tea leaves for us, read the moment and the impact this photo will have.

>> gillian, there was some indication last week when all of us thought that this was not going to come to fruition or might actually kind of dissipate until after the easter break was very starkly turned around on a dime very quickly when we learned at 5:20 the other day this indictment was indeed coming down. so, that set in motion a lot of things and it also set in motion the man that you see on the left-hand side of that picture with president trump, todd blanch, who as it was mentioned was brought in when it suddenly became an extremely serious legal situation that was not going to be pushed aside, at least not until we hear these motions. todd blanch, what he was successful at with paul manafort in those cases was essentially pushing the questions of the legal basis for them, right. so both of these men ended up doing time, but he was

successful, todd blanch, in mitigating those circumstances to a great deal and basically on legal arguments and that i think is where you are going to see him pushing here when we get to the motions which can be drawn out. but the question of whether or not this should be dismissed i would expect is going to be a very forceful argument he's going to make here as you look at this team. he is now clearly in the number one spot now that this is an extraordinarily serious situation. but in terms of real quick, gillian, to 2024, a lot between now and then that is going to transpire. so this is really just chapter one here in this story that will be quite fascinating to watch over the next several months. >> john: on the idea of a motion to dismiss, any defense attorney worth their salt always has a motion to dismiss at a hearing like this. i expect it's not something the judge would grant and then

something we talked about a while ago, some folks may have tuned in since, what about the idea of a change in venue? the former president is indicating it's not a fair venue to him, the judge has bias against him, the prosecutor has bias against him and the entire borough of manhattan has bias against him. what do you say? >> i think what will happen today is nothing more than a scheduling for all of these pretrial relief, pretrial motions that will be made. i don't have a lot of confidence they'll get a venue change here and i don't have a lot of confidence that it would make much of a difference. i think if the trump defense is going to succeed here, it won't -- it won't ever be a jury trial, but if there is a change of venue the change of venue would probably come with the same prosecutor and the same judge moving venue. so yes, you get a different jury, but judges and prosecutors

tend to have a big impact on how a case goes. so i wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be granted. i think the best argument that the former president has going for him here is that these -- >> gillian: andy, it's gillian. we just got word into the newsroom thanks to our producers on the scene that the former president has officially pleaded not guilty to new york criminal charges in this court hearing, that just happened a moment ago. official plea from the former president of not guilty. what's your response? >> well, he's been indicted so this is an arraignment and it's a formal requirement that a plea be entered, so it's not surprising that he has pled not guilty. >> john: but it's another moment in a series of historic moments here. jonathan turley, we take a look at this, and we think oh, it's donald trump and he's before a court, people figured at some point in his life this was going

to happen. but he's a former president of the united states and other than ulysses s. grant being arrested for driving his horse and buggy too quickly and the charges were later dropped, this has never happened in the entire storied history of the united states of american, jonathan. >> yeah, and grant was guilty. so, that was charged and in that case his guilt was well established. here it might be a bit more challenging. you know, when you go back to that picture, it is notable that blanch sitting closest to the camera was just added to the case. but in order to be added, he had to leave his law firm. and it's a very sad moment. if he left his law firm, if the -- the firm did not want to have a partner representing a former president of the united states. we have seen a great backlash against firms that have represented republicans or

represented donald trump and that itself really slaps at the underlying principles of our legal system. you know, he should not have to resign from a firm to represent a former president of the united states. but that's the age of rage that we live in. so the president is now -- has now pleaded not guilty, and they -- the court is going to have to decide if this case should go forward at all. that will be the first threshold legal question. the second question will be where should the case go forward if the first motion is denied. now, as andy said, i expect that motion for a venue change would be denied. i think this is a stronger case than most. even if you end up with just the same judge and prosecutor potentially, you do end up with a different jury pool and here the problem is not just the prosecutor running on bagging

donald trump, it's the fact he was elected by voters in this district in part for that reason. and that creates this very troubling appearance for many people in the country. so the question is does the judge want to try to make some type of gesture that this is not a canned hunt, that you know, we are not just allowing a prosecutor to bring in someone that he promised that he would charge for some unknown crime. >> john: jonathan, jonathan. hold that thought for a second. bret baier has got some information about the charges and the indictment which was just unsealed. bret. >> just coming out from inside the courtroom, 34 counts of falsifying business records. and it says first-degree. i'm not getting the specifics of how this breaks down or reading each 1, 1 by 1, but the number

is 34. falsifying business records in first-degree and as far as what cases, whether it's stormy daniels or expands to the other case we were talking about, karen mcdougall and the "national enquirer," we don't have that detail yet. maybe we could talk to jonathan turley and andy about the falsifying business records. does not appear there are any other avenue the district attorney has gone down here. >> gillian: andy, what do you make of that, what bret just laid out, what can we read into the fact that there are 34 counts of falsifying these records in the first-degree? >> well, obviously if it's in the first-degree, then we are in this posture where i presume without having read this that they are saying there is another crime that he's committed that he was trying to conceal which

is what makes it a felony. always the fact that he's using the grand jury indicated that he was pursuing felony charges, i presume he could have filed a criminal information without the grand jury, bragg could have by himself had there not been felony charges. difficult to make a judgment without having read it, but i would just say if it's based on what we already knew, i think, you know, trey talked before about count stacking, the kind of thing the justice department has guidance telling federal prosecutors not to take a case where you have thin evidence and try to camouflage with quantity of charges what you lack in quality of evidence. and what i fear here is that they have taken what's essentially one transaction and figured out ways to

compartmentilize. mic michael cohen, and a check end then a business entry, turn it into three counts and it's only one transaction. and it's repayment for a debt. so i fear what's happened here is they have done exactly what the justice department warns abusive prosecutors not to do, which is take something that is a single unitary transaction and turn it into multiple to make it look like the defendant is a serious offender. >> john: let me read the statute here in terms of the charges again the former president. new york state law, 175.10, a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first-degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second-degree and

his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof. so, jonathan turley, i take it the inference here is that the financial crime was meant to -- was done in such a way to conceal a crime of an illegal campaign contribution, is that where we are going here? >> well, that is the assumption, that's been the second crime that's been discussed for weeks. that was the boot strap theory that we have been talking about. so this does appear to confirm that there's not a new crime in the sense of a nonfalsifying business records crime. the question is, is there any variation on what that felony might have been. in terms of the motivation of committing the first offense. if that -- if all of these

counts refer to payments that were made in 2016, then we will know those are related to daniels and mcdougall. if that's the case, then this would be a terrible moment for the rule of law. this would mean that all bragg did was replicate the same flawed theory 34 times. and that doesn't improve upon repetition. if that is his theory. the reason is that the department of justice never brought the charge of election violation. many of us don't believe this is an election violation, that you could count this as a political contribution. even people at the fec rejected that argument. but also the department of justice went down this road before. it tried -- democratic presidential candidate john

edwards, a stronger case, a hush money went to a woman, in that case they had a child. the jury rejected those claims. a good reason why the department of justice may not have proceeded. but still, if the second crime here, the thing that makes it a felony in the first-degree is a federal election charge, we have a very significant threshold question that will face the court. that has never been done to our knowledge in any case in history. it not only speaks to selective prosecution, it suggests exclusive prosecution to just donald trump. and so -- >> gillian: quick follow-up, jonathan, sorry to interrupt, coming up against the end of the hour and make sure i get some clarity from you on this. you talk about this has never happened in history, we know that former political candidates, presidential candidates, including hillary clinton have paid financial penalties for campaign finance

violations. is embedded in the charges, again we have not seen them yet but early reports about them, can we now assume safely that bragg is making, and the grand jury is making the case in those charges that trump did have the intent to defraud american voters, definitively what they are charging him with here, is that what differentiates this? >> i don't think we can make that assumption until we read the indictment and see what it was that he was allegedly trying to conceal. what was that other crime? we have only heard of one in all of these leaks and discussions, and that's the federal election violation. that would be really problematic. >> gillian: can we assume that's the case that bragg and the grand jurors are trying to make. we know that now, right? >> well, all we know is that the description, the initial description of the indictment with fit that profile, we don't

have confirmation of what that second crime is. the concern about the grand jury, by the way, is that they only hear from the prosecution. it's not clear that they really were given all of these facts, the fact that many attorneys believe the boot strap argument is invalid. it's not something the grand jury usually considers. but if -- certainly this initial account would be consistent with reports that bragg was going to boot strap by alleging an effort to conceal a federal election violation. but we need to still confirm that. it's consistent but not

conclusive. we are going to hand over to martha in a minute. wrap up on your thoughts so far. >> i would like to respond to one thing gillian just raised. even if they regarded this as a campaign violation, even if the campaign did, everybody agreed it was, which it wasn't, the nondisclosure agreement was days before the 2016 election. they would not have had to report this until well into 2017. so the idea he defrauded the american people into electing him does not hold up to what the timeline was. >> gillian: interesting. bret, before we are out of time, your final thoughts on what we are seeing. >> i think we will finally have all the details very shortly. looking at counts that include falsifying business records and a conspiracy count, looks like it covers stormy daniels and

karen mcdougall, the details shortly but you see the former president pleading not guilty and he'll definitely have something to say shortly. >> john: there may also be some breaking news from the 9th circuit court of appeals regarding an order for stormy daniels to pay attorney fees to the former president. see how that goes. thank you for being with us on this historic occasion. >> martha: thanks very much. continuing breaking coverage here this afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. good to have you with us on this day. we watch the former president, donald trump. this is a still image on the right-hand side of your screen flanked by his attorneys inside the courtroom. he has pled not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. we're told that he would like to have a moment to speak to the media and than that could happen