pro trump supporters and trump opponents, both gathered out there to voice their opinions on what's happening. of course the trump supporters are going to say that this is absolutely unfair, that this is a politically targeted indictment and senator rubio said it's more harm to the country than the prosecution would be worth, why is the department of justice pursuing this. justice is supposed to be blind, it's not supposed to look at the politics of things. but when you are dealing with the unprecedented step of indicting a former president and the closest anyone really ever came was richard nixon and he was pardoned before it happened, is it worth it? >> that's a question, and the prosecutors will say that they are following the law and that there's a clear intent here and their evidence suggests the president knew what he was doing

concealing the documents. trump team will say -- we don't know what they are going to say, but they clearly are making the case about a two-tiered system of justice. i think it's fascinating to watch the gop candidates. remember, this is happening in miami. obviously the governor of florida is running against desantis, his comments have been to suggest there are two tiers of justice and the biden administration is slow and the hillary clinton investigation went nowhere, despite destroying 33,000 emails and destroying cell phones and the like. and talking about that is something that i think each of these candidates has hung on to. but there has been a bit of an evolution and some of them, like nikki haley, like former vice president pence who obviously worked for former president trump in that white house have said those things, the two tier

system, that talking point but then said but these charges as written are serious. then you have others like asa hutchinson, former governor from arkansas, very aggressive, and say they want to hear all the details but that what they see in this indictment is troubling to them. so, how they deal with this politically is really fascinating. but senator rubio's comments were clear and probably the sentiment of most republicans at this time. >> john: hang with us if you would, sandra. >> sandra: fox news alert as we enter a brand-new hour of "america reports," 2:00 on the east coast, former president trump has arrived at the courthouse, set to be arraigned in the federal courthouse in miami following the special counsel indictment. welcome back, as our breaking news coverage enters another hour. great to have the team along with us as well today. >> john: good to have everybody here for the big news day. we want to bring viewers who have just joined us up to speed on what's going on down there. mark meredith is live outside

the courthouse in miami. mark, what does it look like. >> describe it as a circus. you have local, national, international media, onlookers and a large contingent of supporters of the former president outside the courthouse to see this moment in history, and a day that's going to have an impact for months, if not years to come, impact on the republican residential race. we did not see trump go into the courthouse from our vantage point, as you can imagine, a better shot from the air but we know he is now in the federal courthouse, only expected to be here a brief amount of time. and as you and sandra has been talking about, we are not going to receive the cameras in the courtroom, it has to happen after the fact but of course we have us waiting in line for hours to get in the courtroom for the moment set to begin in the next hour or so. the former president have been very active on social media, claiming this is a witch hunt,

part of a political persecution, some of the same rhetoric we have heard from him several times in the other investigations that have been ongoing. but for trump this comes at a pivotal time, not only in his own presidential campaign but of course because of all the other forces that have been out there as we have talked about, though, he's made it have he clear he feels it's been a targeted attack by the biden administration justice department, very vocal in attacking the special counsel, jack smith. unlikely we are going to hear any forceful pushback from the justice department. they will let the indictment speak for itself. we hope we will pull a few quotes after it concludes. trump will go to new jersey, bedminster, as you can imagine, it's hotter than hell in miami so he heads back up north, so remarks to reporters, certainly an indication of how he's feeling after today. and looking to see whether it will create a dip in the polls

for him. he's leading the presidential primary polls for months and looking to see if it booster him further or more of the candidates chip away at his lead. one of those candidates was out here in miami earlier this morning, vivek ramaswamy, calling the other candidates to support a potential pardon of trump if he were to be convicted on the 37 counts he'll be facing. we'll see if the other candidates respond. as for the trump supporters out here, we see trump 2024 flags, people with very strong feelings. have not seen any strong desantis support, an indication it's going to be a very trump-friendly crowd. also a ton of security. there was a suspicious package earlier this morning deemed cleared quickly, but obviously some heightened awareness of anything and everything that will happen in the few blocks surrounding the courthouse. trump will not be here very long. they set up a podium right outside the courthouse, 50, 100

feet from the door, so if the lawyers choose to speak that's where it could happen, but they may wait for trump to give comments later this evening. >> john: i think the plan going in, somebody would come out and address the crowd prior to the proceedings getting underway, but we'll see. plans tend to be very fluid on occasion like this. sandra, when you look at the crowd out front of the courthouse there, large in number, very enthusiastic in support of the former president, very peaceful as well, and the miami mayor has said he was not going to do anything to try to separate the two sides, no cordons or first amendment pens or anything like that, but in case things would get heated, a large security presence. but at the moment, things are peaceful. >> sandra: we know the former

president is inside the courtroom, turning himself in a short time after the motorcade departed. the brit hume, great to have you join us here, what are your thoughts in this moment? >> well, it's interesting and colorful as the activity outside the courthouse, of course, is, sandra, this moment inside is truly something we have never seen before in this country's history, a striking moment that will raise questions in people's minds about the impartiality of the department of justice, about the guilt or innocence of the former president. the justice department, you know, sandra, exists is he intersection of law and politics and has to navigate the narrow passage and keep the department's reputation where it needs to be, trusted by most people. that reputation is damaged these days and this prosecution is going to add to that in the eyes

of a great many people and the presentation of the facts so far as alleged in the indictment may have gone some distance to repair that, but we haven't heard from the trump said yet and i'm very interested in hearing how his lawyers approach this. there's been no sign that trump is going to deny that the things alleged and photographed, and some cases tape recorded in the indictment did not happen. i think it will more likely be an argument whether they were constituted a crime worth prosecuting or a crime at all, or whether they were legally based in terms of rulings about evidence and so on. so we have a lot of ways to go. it's going to be interesting. >> john: and it will be a while i think before we hear trump's side of the story, represented by todd blanch and christopher kies for today's proceeding, but he has not lined up a legal team. he spent most of yesterday afternoon at mar-a-lago, sitting

down with prospective attorneys, that process continues today, to some degree. obviously the president has others thing to contend to at the moment, but he's having some difficulty putting together a team and as marco rubio was suggesting, the political implications of a case like this and the logistical intricacies, and finding the legal team may be problematic for the former president. >> and suppose you are a lawyer thinking about possibly representing donald trump and you see what bill barr said over the weekend and what trump said about him, referring to him as a low life and so forth. bill barr was a former attorney general to begin with when he was named by president trump to be his attorney general, and he represented the department of justice and the trump

administration i think effectively and well and argued some legal theories to the benefit of the president. he resigned, trump claimed he fired him, he didn't, and now critical to the president and look what's happening. a lot of lawyers look at things like that and the fate of other lawyers dismissed or otherwise not still on the team and wonder whether they want to get involved in that. i'm not sure i would if i were a lawyer. >> sandra: this sound from chris christie, he made a prediction saying a rocket docket in the florida district and the former president will likely go to trial this winter. >> they have something in south florida called the rocket docket. southern district of florida that cares about the speedy trial act which says 70 days from the day of your initial appearance, which is tomorrow. they won't do that, because it's too complex a case, but could i see the case to trial in 6 to 8 months from tomorrow, i could. >> sandra: your reaction to

that, brit. >> a lot of room here and challenges to the evidence. pretrial motions and probably a lot of them and where the trump defense lies heavily. for example, the subpoena -- the warrant that was granted for the search at mar-a-lago, it's legitimacy is likely to be challenged, and of course, if that were -- that challenge were to prevail, it would mean evidence gathered in this raid at mar-a-lago would be inadmissible, it would damage to some extent all of the counts. there will be other sorts of legal challenges and argument made i think this would probably have to come before the jury, but look, where is the damage here. yes, he did hold on to these documents and yes, some involve national security information that shouldn't have been waived around or even kept where it was. but where is any evidence the

national security was harmed. yes, it was dangerous to do that but if nobody was harmed, does anybody convict a former president in a case in which something was done was wrong but did not harm the national security when it's a national security case. you can see the outlines of arguments made by his lawyers, both before the trial and at the trial. >> speak if you would, bret, to what senator marco rubio said a minute ago, and mark levine said the day the indictment came down, where is the harm here, where was the risk to national security and a former president who knew all this information having these documents in his possession. senator rubio said is it worth risking the division to this country by bringing a prosecution against the former president. what do you say to that? >> i say that that is the question that was confronted by the attorney general and by the

prosecutors in this case, and i think it's a close call. you can see in the presence in the street the level of public sentiment about this, much of it being displayed there against this indictment and in favor of the former president. but this is -- this move, you know, by department of justice already under fire and some cases legitimately so for its past decisions involving other similar cases. no case is exactly like any other, but the similarities to the hillary clinton case are pretty striking, and she was -- she was allowed to skate by fbi director who said no reasonable prosecutor would bring the case against her. i think a lot of people look at that and say wait a minute, she shouldn't have skated and if she did, he should, speaking of president trump. so, yeah, there's -- justice department, you know, its for the law, of course. am that's what it's about.

but it's also about public confidence in its deliberations and it's actions and that is likely in many quarters to be shaken by this indictment and no way to get around that. in the end on balance whether it's the right decision remains to be seen but on the streets of miami and public sentiment in the polls, a move that further divides this country. >> sandra: just going to add to what is happening inside the courthouse, since there's no cameras allowed there, the former president has been processed ahead of his arraignment in the classified documents case, per a court official a few moments ago. also, brit, the trump aide walt nauta has been booked in the documents case, that according to a court official a few moments ago. we are at the mercy of the court officials, brit, we know the journalists in there cannot have devices, so they will not be able to transmit what exactly they are seeing and hearing in

the courtroom. but certainly what a scene outside of that courthouse, brit. >> yeah, it's pretty remarkable. there was a time not long ago, sandra, when reporters would go dashing madly out of a courtroom like that and run to the nearest phone booth. those days are gone, of course, and if you are not allowed t have a cell phone inside, not a lot you can do except come out later and by that time it's old news. >> john: my question, what he is a phone booth, but -- those were the good old days. we have some -- we have some video that we want to play out here, melania trump entering the courthouse just a short time ago. there she is. just out of the vehicle and now going toward the courthouse. just trying to nail down whether we are going to hear from a

representative from the trump legal team. that was the initial plan, but not sure if that's going to hold at this point or not, as you can imagine, with everything going on today and unfolding fast and furious as it is. plans do change. we want to bring in byron york, and maybe you can address this question that is outstanding in all of this. when we talk about why this prosecution was brought against the former president, when you take a look at the indictment, when you take a look at the doj side of the story you say ok, so there is a fairly extensive and detailed accusation against the former president for improperly having classified documents and then trying to hide them when the national archives and the fbi came calling for them. but in the same breath, if you take a look at the situation with the classified documents regarding president biden, he had documents from his time when

he was a senator, and there is no reason for a senator to have a classified document in his or her possession. they are allowed to look at them in a sensitive compartmented facility, a scif, but not allowed to take them, that's breaking the law. so, why does biden skate here, as brit said, hillary clinton skate, why does biden skate here but the former president does not. >> well, the biden investigation is still going on, although we have not heard a word about it, nothing from the special counsel in that case. if biden did something like that as a senator, it was quite a long time ago. but the fact is, he does, the president in this case -- >> john: byron, i'm sorry for interrupting us. a member of trump's legal team. >> hillary clinton, joe biden himself, retained possession of

classified documents yet have not prosecuted and none of them came into possession of those documents when they were president. none of them were president who as the head and sole member of the executive branch has the power to declassify documents. the decision to pursue charges against president trump while turning a blind eye to others is emblematic of the krungs that we have here. we are at a turning point in our nation's history. the targeting prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like cuba, and venezuela. it is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted and put into jail. what is being done to the

president trump should terrify all citizens of this country. these are not the ideals that our democracy is founded upon. this is not our america. thank you. >> so what's happening right now inside the courthouse? has he been arrested, has he been fingerprinted, has a mug shot been taken, walk us through what's happening here now. >> president trump is in a very unique position where he doesn't need to be given a mug shot, obviously. he is not a flight risk. he is the leading candidate of the gop at the moment. he is going through a process that has been coordinated with secret service and will be handled seamlessly. >> what is this -- how is he feeling? >> he's defiant. >> he's defiant. >> john: spokesperson for president trump, byron, back to you.

she was talking about what you were speaking to. >> yes, what you heard there was the political defense in the trump case, and it drives democrats crazy for trump to say what about hillary clinton, although we know even from the indictment itself that trump was thinking about the hillary clinton case quite a bit and the indictment he's alleged to have mentioned a lawyer for hillary clinton who helped destroy 30 plus thousand of her emails. so look, the fact is, in 2016, right after the july 4th weekend, fbi put its thumb and the scale in favor of hillary clinton, saying that she would not be further investigated, she would not be charged. if anybody remembers that, james comey, then the director of the fbi he was not the person who should have done it but he did the news conference and spent a long time talking about how guilty she was and then said at

the end but we are not going to prosecute. so, this does drive democrats crazy, they call it what aboutism, but it is in fact a precedent, not an exact precedent. as far as what trump is doing, if you look in the indictment, there is special emphasis on papers that were actually picked up by the fbi during that infamous raid on august 8th of last year, the search warrant raid on mar-a-lago, and those being papers that trump had defiantly kept after being asked to return them, after getting a subpoena to return them, and after resisting a great amount. so, the indictment focuses on the papers that trump went the greatest distance to try to keep from returning to the government. >> sandra: byron, we are continuing to look -- it seems the crowds are growing as the president is still there inside

of the courthouse. he turned himself in, what has to be probably a good 25 minutes ago. we saw the motorcade enter, we did not see him. he was taken through a different entrance where cameras could not catch a glimpse. this is not expected to be a long proceeding. he will likely be departing and this is the crowd he'll see, byron. >> well you know, the fact that the former president is going back to bedminster where he has an event tonight, fundraising, expecting to make remarks, the whole thing is set up, shows how incredibly unusual this case is and the crowd outside the courthouse says the same thing. trump is very aware of the support that he has among republicans. we have seen some polls in the last few days, after the indictment, that have shown huge majorities of republicans believe the indictment is

politically motivated, and if you talk to republican voters anywhere, even the ones who want to move on from trump now, they will say he was really unfairly targeted for years. starting in 2016. and what those republican-based supporters have done with this new indictment is simply fit it in to what they think is a preexisting pattern of unfair targeting by the justice department, in this case the biden justice, and that has made them support trump even more, and everything you see trump do from today, who knows how far along, will be to maximize his support and turn what's happening now to him now into continued support from republicans. >> john: so we just want to clarify something, byron. we thought that was melania trump who was arriving, apparently it was not melania,

apologies for that. but a day like today, with so many comings and goings, it's easy from a distance to mistake two people. byron, what do you think is ultimately -- oh, it was margo martin, who was working in the lower press office during the presidency and then departed to work for president trump as an assistant in mar-a-lago and bedminster. so back to what we were talking about, what do you think is the political impact of all of this for the president in the campaign going forward? >> well, we've already seen what happened after one indictment. the local indictment in manhattan, which seemed to really raise trump support significantly, among republican voters. now, the question is, is this going to do the same thing or

keep that support high for the continued future because trump has, if you look at the real clear politics, 30-plus point lead over ron desantis in this race, or will the evidence in the indictment sink in in which trump's opponents will find a way to use it against trump without alienating the republicans whose support they need. will we see a process where trump support begins to erode. right now it's just too soon after this federal indictment to know what's going to happen. >> sandra: in fact, it's going in the opposite direction, and the president continues to note that himself. >> yeah, his support is just enormous at this moment and presented -- it's a terrible dilemma, a lot of them believe

trump was unfairly targeted, among those republicans i was discussing earlier, and so they want to come out and they want to tell the voters that yes, they believe, too, that trump has been unfairly targeted. but of course they are running against donald trump. they -- if he loses support, it helps them. so they have kind of a conflict here and we have seen a few of them, like nikki haley say you know, this is really pretty serious, if it's true, it's really bad. but others -- everybody is being very, very careful now because if this indictment is going to raise support among republicans for trump, they don't want to help that along any more than they can. >> sandra: the white house press briefing is ongoing, and as you can imagine, a lot of questions about what is happening right now, the white house is mostly avoiding or dodging those questions as you can imagine

based on the president also in the oval office was asked by reporters to comment and he said nothing. adding this as well, top republican in the senate says he will not comment on whether he would support donald trump if the former president receives his party's presidential nomination, just a few moments ago on capitol hill, mitch mcconnell saying i'm not going to start commenting on the various candidates we have running for president. he was telling this to reporters minutes after the president arrived there at the courthouse. so he says he will not say if he would support donald trump as the nominee. your reaction to that, byron. >> boy, that's some of the least surprising news in the world. there is no love lost -- no love lost between mitch mcconnell and donald trump. what's happening in the senate is really, really interesting.

remember, a few, a handful of senators voted to remove trump during his second impeachment on the way out. and now they have a very popular senator, tim scott, who is running and senator john thune has come out and i believe supported tim scott and there are other senators who are likely to support tim scott. so, a lot of senators look at this and say there is absolutely no reason i need to stick my neck out on what's going on with former president trump right now. >> john: all right. byron, hang with us. back to bret baier here, a boisterous crowd out in front of the federal courthouse but a peaceful crowd out there. most of them, i would think, voicing their support for the former president as he's inside and the proceedings are underway. >> my mentor and friend brit hume said it best, this is historic, we have not seen anything like this, and there hasn't been -- we have had these

moments, but this has never happened for a president to be charged under the espionage act. and just talking to some legal experts about this, and this is where this may start to be the defense's take. you know, why, why did the doj move forward with this. the presidential records act, 1978, had civil process tied to it. it's not mentioned in this indictment. the espionage act is. this has criminalized this based on the national security documents. the presidential records act is designed for presidents, and there is a real argument about, you know, whether they can take the documents, where that line is, lyndon johnson took documents, we referenced bill clinton, and what ended up happening in that

administration. and sandy berger and the socks. >> john: he took them out of the archives. >> out of the archives. a question of the criminalization of this. they laid out in the document as a national security issue, but there is some argument to be made about -- about this, and you've seen the former president touch on that a little bit, but his legal defense may go down this really interesting road about the difference between the espionage act of 1917 and the presidential records act of 1978, and whether he was not turning over the documents a civil process first. once you start criminalizing, they testify under deposition, you flip them and it becomes all kinds of different things. that's some of the defense argument they may start to make. >> sandra: jonathan turley, andy mccarthy joining us as well, why don't you expand on that for us, jonathan turley.

>> the government is going to argue this yes, it began as a presidential records act matter but the archives informed the fbi they believed there was classified documents in an unsecure location. and the government is effectively saying yeah, we switched horses, we viewed that as a classified documents case, national security case. they probably will get support on that argument by the court of appeals if this does get challenged and go above the trial court. there are issues here, you know, this is an odd fit. many people were sort of repelled by 31 counts alleging espionage act violations, that act talks about mishandling but also standard to harm national security or help some foreign adversary. nobody is arguing that there is evidence of harm to national security or intent to do so. in fact, if you read the

government's indictment, they seem to be latching on a different motivation in talking about that audio tape, they are treating it sort of like a trophy that maybe these documents were kept by the president out of vanity. well, that may be true, but it then has a hard fit with an espionage act claim and that's the majority of these counts. >> john: jonathan, bret wants to ask you something, i want to make sure his mic is open. >> thanks. i just have one thing, jonathan, something senator rubio talked about and you've just touched on, and that is the harm. we understand what the statute is, what they are going down, what the indictment as they allege, but the harm here and whether national security was harmed and whether that factors in potentially. was there a document destroyed, was there a document that was somehow accessed or given to the press or some foreign entity. was there harm here.

in understanding how they are handled, but does that factor into the legal aspects of this? >> i think it will. quite frankly, we have been critics of the espionage act our entire careers. free speech community, this is a horrific act. designed to crack down on political dissidents. it has been used in some of the worst cases in our history. so you'll find very few supporters of this act among certainly the free speech community. and this really gets to it. as the government reaches to the espionage act of 1917 when they don't have other options. it's the all purpose act they can use to go after targeted individuals. this may be a bridge too far, certainly for many people in the public, you know, they will argue that the harm was the mishandling, but there is another statute dealing with the taking of classified documents.

they clearly didn't want to go under that statute. but in putting so much of this on the espionage act, they are really sort of, you know, raising in the public's mind whether this is too clever by half, you know, there's -- the fact is, even if the trump people knock out 31 counts, they still have six counts to deal with. the question for some in the public, why did you have to count stack and say this is an espionage case. >> sandra: andy, you want to jump in here on that? >> i respectfully disagree with both the commentary about the presidential records act and the espionage act. as far as the presidential records act is concerned, i must say i'm tempted to say the argument is frivolous. what president trump is accused of hoarding down at mar-a-lago is not presidential records. these are agency reports.

agency reports are not what the presidential records act is directed at. it's not even clear that they would count as presidential records but in terms of what he's allowed to keep as personal records, not a conceiveable contention that the information that was down there is covered because what personal records under the act are things in the nature of diaries and journals and the like. this doesn't come close to that. this is agency reporting. and on the espionage act, you know, the word espionage doesn't appear in any of the codified provision of the crimes that went into federal law as a result of the espionage act. there are various prongs to it. there's a series of crimes that go from things that are very serious like what people traditionally think of as espionage down to crimes that

address a very specific group of potential defendants. government officials who are trusted with national security information who hold it in unauthorized circumstances, that is in a place where it doesn't belong, and who willfully retain it when there is a demand made by the government from somebody who was lawfully enabled to have it. so what president trump is accused of is that part of the espionage act. it's irrelevant whether there was an intent to harm the united states or not. that's not a defense to this charge. what the charge is, is he was unauthorized to have it, he willfully retained it, they demanded to have it back and he refused. that's the crime. >> sandra: very interesting. martha is still with us, ahead of you taking over at 3:00. get this in here as well, the white house was just asked about the president's message amid

this trump indictment. she cited the hatch act, karine jean-pierre, and said we are going to go back to what the president ran on in 2020, bringing people together, she said, and that is what he has been doing. he is the president for everyone, it's important that the president continues to bring the country together and that is the message, the future of this country, that's his message to the american people, that has not changed. >> i would just point out with regard to the interesting discussion between andy and jonathan about this issue of harm. now, as a legal matter it takes on one sort of level of understanding. but, it will be argued outside of the legal matter with the american people in terms of whether or not any harm was done, and we heard a similar argument when it came to the stormy daniels situation. the argument then was made nobody was harmed in this. she ended up owing him more money than she was paid off in the end, so that became an

issue. but one of the questions that that raises for me, in terms of the public's ability to absorb all this, how much they care about it, whether or not they have already made their mind up about how all of this works, jonathan, you know, maybe i could ask you. is there, do you think, regret -- is it difficult for jack smith that this is the second time that we have watched the president indicted and does it wear down public opinion what they think about this, they watched the process in new york, and now it's happening in miami again many will say. >> john: martha -- i'm sorry, jonathan, go ahead. >> i think it does have an impact, particularly if you now have the georgia case coming in in august, you are going to have these book ends. so this is going to be sandwiched between two cases that many believe are political and rather raw political prosecutions. i think in new york that is

certainly well established and that's going to undermine this even further. and i want to, i think your point is also a good one at the outset, i agree with andy about everything he said about the standard. the statute does refer to harm and espionage, but he's right as i noted, this specifically deals with the question of mishandling and the government will say that is the crime and that is the harm. so he's right about that. but when it comes to how the public views this as the necessity of bringing these claims under the espionage act, i think that he may be talking to an empty room. i mean, the doj may have lost its audience because of its history of targeting trump and that's the audience they have to pick the jury from. >> john: hey, martha, being one more thought to you. in terms of dividing the country and attacks on the president and

the office, according to fox news digital. congressman matt gaetz of florida has send a letter to merrick garland asking for the names on the prosecution team. he is contending one of the prosecutors previously contributed to biden's team in 2020, and faced allegations, and political battle is escalating here by the moment, and that goes to what rubio was talking about, is in bringing this prosecution and weighing whether or not it, as james comey said, a reasonable prosecutor would bring a case. you know, what's the political cost to the -- and the social cost to the country going to be? >> i think that's what has worn down people's confidence very sadly in these processes. you remember the discussion

during the russia investigation about mueller's team and where their political allegiances lie. we heard similar things about the team that was involved in hillary clinton's investigation, she got a very friendly july 2nd, i believe it was, discussion with the attorneys and then it was all sort of crossed off the list and i think people have gotten to a point they watch these things and say it's all political. it's a very sad situation for the country to be in at this point and just again raises the question in my mind as we look forward in this political scene because i think everything has changed since donald trump came on the scene, right, and we talk a lot over the course of political campaigns, whether there is room for a third party candidate but a possibility. when you look at the ukraine story and the recordings that grassley talked about last night and we will dig in on that on "the story," you know, do the american people say a pox on all

your houses, we want another choice. that's something i'm going to watch closely as we kind of move forward, but clearly the support is very strong still for president trump. but we'll watch as this wears on. >> sandra: martha, we will let you get ready for your 3:00 hour and coverage of this. you'll know a whole lot more at 3:00. thank you. just an update here, eric trump, the former president's son accompanied him, his father to the federal courthouse. on their departure, seen waving before they climbed into the vehicle. he rode to the courthouse with his father, we saw on social media the former president sent out a message and called it a witch hunt, and hit lawyers saying it's not about donald j. trump, who is defiant, it's not about the party, it's about the destruction of long standing principles that have set this

country apart. now an update, former president trump is not the only one appearing in court, his aide, walt nauta joining him at the defense table. rich edson joins us now. jump on in here. >> good afternoon, sandra. walt nauta has been by the former president's side, when he was president in the white house, a role he took when he was working in the white house mess, he was in the navy at the time, and then when donald trump left the white house he moved down to florida with him, retired from the navy and served as his valet, or his assistant. that's a role that is fairly common among senior members in washington. whether it's senior members on capitol hill, former presidents. if you need a diet coke, if you need a clean shirt, if you need a task done, if you need to move boxes around your house, this is the type of staffer who gets that done and it's the last thing that's gotten him in trouble here, according to the department of justice, according to this indictment. he's involved in this, he's been indicted, he's at the courthouse

with the former president right now. he's facing six counts in relation to all of this, some 90 years maximum in prison because of this. and basically who prosecutors are saying he did was at the direction of the former president he moved dozens of boxes around mar-a-lago just around the time the former president's lawyers would examine the boxes to see if there was classified material to send back per the request of the u.s. government. according also to the indictment, they say he was moving the boxes around, some had disappeared in that process, and then also when he was asked about it, because he was talking to investigators last year, he wasn't truthful about that. so, these are the charges that he faces, this is what the government is accusing him of doing here. he did not cooperate or stop cooperating at some point last

year with the federal government and that has been something that the federal government has tried to pursue with walt nauta. he's remained by the former president's side, you can see him on the campaign trail, see him at speeches, like it's his job and responsibility to do here. he is very much a part of this. it's an indictment that has two names in it, and it's donald trump and walt nauta, he's been standing by the president's side since his time in the white house and is doing so today at a defense table. >> sandra: rich, we will get back to you again soon. thank you so much, john. >> john: back to brit hume, fox news chief political analyst. so, according to the charging document, brit, there was an audio recording of a meeting that took place where former president trump was talking to a person who is writing a new book for mark meadows and this conversation was recorded. this goes to the idea that the

former president has said that he declassified these documents and so there's no there there. but if we could bring up call four number three here, this is the way according to the indictment the conversation went. the former president was showing apparently this plan of attack that was drafted by a senior military official. we believe the country was iran. according to trump, it's like highly confidential, secret, this is secret information, see as president i could have declassified it. now i can't, you know, but this is still a secret. staffer says yeah, now we have a problem. former president trump, isn't that interesting. so this would seem to contradict on the surface at least the former president's claim, brit, that he declassified all of this stuff. there he is according to the indictment saying i could have declassified it but i didn't. but then again, an audio recording of him saying this, but can we verify that that in fact was the document? is there any room here for his defense to go with this and pick

it apart? >> well, apparently they don't have the document, so we don't know what that document really was. we know what we think it was, but apparently the government doesn't have it. so that might eat away at their ability to make hay with that particular document. it does seem to blow up the argument that one way or another i declassified, and in this case he said he didn't or he said he could have but now he can't. so that pretty much settles that. so, that's certainly a strong piece of evidence. i think, and it's caught the eye of a lot of observers who wondered how strong the evidence would be. this tape recording comes in at trial and stands up, it seems to me that is a big point in the government's favor. >> sandra: brit, another update from the white house press briefing where jacqui heinrich was able to get a question in with karine jean-pierre asking about the recorded conversations with the president and his son hunter biden and burisma, she

responded that is malarky, but going back to what we know is happening in the courtroom in miami, our producer is getting updates here. we will not get updates from him because any journalist in the room had to leave their devices out of that kroument as required by the judge overseeing this case, trump has local counsel so he will enter a plea and there will be a formal arraignment. more as we get it. that's what we know at this point. brit, as we look at the live pictures, we should know more in a few moments, brit. yeah, it will be interesting to keep an eye on walt nauta. he obviously now having been charged, he's on paper at least a small fish, but he has been at the president's side during all of this. he would make a wonderful witness for the prosecution if he were to decide that rather

than risk being convicted and going to jail over this, that the smartest thing for him to do would be to flip. i'm not sure the government -- how hard the government will try to flip him but the charges are impressive against him for somebody like that, and i think that's worth keeping an eye on as the trial goes. so far he's sticking with the boss and he may continue to. if he doesn't, look out. >> john: that local counsel is christopher kies, the former solicitor general of florida, 1 of 2 people representing the former president today, todd blanch, handling the new york case is the other one. but the former president, brit, continues to try to search for a legal team to see him through all of this. we should also point out the judge that he's appearing before today is the magistrate goodwin, and eileen cannon will see at least the beginning of this case, and take a look at her,

she had the ruling that was very favorable to the former president last year in which she said, well, wait a minute, we are going to put the doj's investigation, the fbi investigation on hold here over these documents because we are going to appoint a special master to look through them to see which documents the doj and the fbi actually have access to because some of these may belong to the former president. the doj took that to the 11th circuit court of appeals and two other trump-appointed judges, shot that down, and overturned her. so based on that ruling, she's going into this with critics would say a strike against her and literally every move that she makes in this case, brit, will be under heavy scrutiny. when we come back to marco rubio and the cost of the prosecution, the federal judge's life will be

wholly affected by the political ramifications of this, not just the legal ones. >> that's right, john, and in this case in particular based on what we are surmise about it now, the trump defense is going to depend a lot on legal rulings. if you haven't heard anybody on the trump side, not the son or trump himself saying i didn't do these things, didn't hold on to the documents, the photographs that show them in the bathroom and the chandelier are not real -- we are not hearing this. but we are going to defend this and questions of the legality of the investigation and the case itself and that's -- and that, of course, is going to depend, the outcome will depend on rulings by the judge if she ends up hearing the case. >> sandra: byron, byron york is still with us as well. look looking at the political implications of all of this.

when will we know, really, the impact as we are waiting the official appearance at 3:00 eastern time. >> hate to say i don't know but i don't know. obviously they're going to be -- there are a number of events that are kind of milestone events going forward, and what will really see the republican race pick up in august, the iowa state fair begins august 10th, and that's a time when you'll see a lot of the candidates cycling through august, and then on -- excuse me, august 23rd, the fox news debate, and that will be very, very important for us to get a read on what the other candidates are gonna say about this case. obviously it will be further down the road, maybe our thinking about it will have changed a little bit, but i would look at that debate, whether or not trump attends will be something the other candidates are going to have to talk about. i would look at that debate as a

time when people really start to sort of put their flag out and decide where they are going to stand on this. >> john: bret baier is still because, as he collects a lot of wool for his terrific program tonight at 6:00, "special report." what's the political upshot of this for the former president? when you take a look at the latest polls, he's further ahead now than he was before he was indicted by alvin brag, and i expect that polls taken after today will probably shoot him up even higher. >> i agree with you and that's what we have seen in recent weeks, likely to see today. to martha's point earlier, there may be a candidate or candidates who tap into this thought about chaos and want to, you know, have trump policies but not all of this around it. that may be an argument that

they make, some candidates. and maybe it start to stick. we don't know. right now what we see is a big lead for the former president and a defiant former president who will have an event tonight at his golf club in bedminster, that will be a fundraiser and he will again speak to his faithful and his base that is sticking with him. there are some questions about this indictment and about the reasons why he had these documents. why does he have the documents after he's asked to turn them all in. why does he keep those documents. and the why part we really don't have an answer to as of yet, and it's going to be fascinating to hear the trump defense talk about all of that. >> john: i was puzzled by that, too, why was he so determined to hang on to these documents. a letter from kim jong-un, allegedly among the trove of

documents, you understand that, but if he wanted to put it in the library you negotiate with the archives and say can we downgrade this to be part of the library. you have to get inside his head to know that. >> yes, and we hope to, i'll have an interview on monday, june 19th at bedminster, pretty in-depth, it's still on track, we have triple confirmed it, so we'll be there monday, the 19th. >> john: we look forward to the answer to that question. >> sandra: just an update here, byron york still with us as well. as the former president has been in the courthouse, obviously going through the procedures there, we are just getting word that he has entered the courtroom for his arraignment hearing in this classified documents case. that is the latest out of the courthouse. it's going to be -- the updates will be far and few between as the communications will be lacking for a little bit, but it looks like things are happening on time there. byron, a final thought for you

there as we are wrapping this hour. >> i think one theory about why the former president did keep this stuff, there are two possible reasons. one is souvenirs. he really liked momentos, his office in new york is filled with them, and a letter from kim jong-un would fit into that. he was really -- he was taken with those letters that he got from kim jong-un, he read them to people in the oval office, he thought they were quite amusing. a second possibility is revenge. what we have -- or self-defense as well. what we have heard about the whole general milley thing and iran, those are just reports right now. but having a document from general milley would be a defense for the president against any accusation that he, the president, might have been thinking about invading iran. so, i think the president either had a personal or a political motive for keeping a number of these documents.

>> john: the whole context of that battle plan for iran was the former president saying, you know, people said it was my idea to attack iran, no, here is the document, look at the name on the top of that document. it wasn't my idea, that idea was written up by somebody else. brit, put a button on it here for us as we await the former president to come out and head back to the airport to travel back up to new jersey. >> well, you've been talking about the political ramifications of this, but it's been discussed so far mostly in terms of how it affects the republican primaries and former president trump's chances getting the nomination again. i think a widespread sense that while it may not hurt his chances of getting a republican nomination, i think if we look reasonably at a general election situation, it's an entirely different matter all together. as has been noted, president trump does motivate a significant segment of the republican base, maybe not

majority, but plurality to win primaries. he motivates about 100% of the democratic base and not a good way for him. is it possible to imagine a scenario people who voted for joe biden -- joe biden, with all of his frailities, to be president in 2020, to avoid donald trump are going to come back four years later after all that's happened after january 6th, after the attempts to overturn the election and the criminal charges against him and vote for him now, maybe there are a few, but i don't think very many and i think his general election chances are harmed by the prosecutions, whether they are fair or not. >> sandra: just getting another update here, the trump arraignment hearing has officially begun in this classified documents case, and a little bit of color from the courtroom, the former president is currently in the courtroom, that is confirmed now, with his counsel sitting next to him.

the prosecutors are in their place and jack smith is in the front row. more as we get it. a final thought from you, jonathan turley. >> you know, one of the things i would be looking for is also whether the judge discusses with the former president public comments. he's planning a rally tonight, which is not what you normally see from someone who has been arraigned. and this is going to raise one of the most difficult questions in the case. to what extent does a federal judge feel comfortable telling a candidate for president you are not allowed to talk about a case when the election itself is going to be talking a lot about the case. i mean, trump is clearly going to run on this case. this fulfills his narrative and his view of a weaponized criminal justice system. usually defendants are subject to these gag orders, but this is not your usual defendant. so it's not clear if the court is going to touch on that subject or ask for more briefing. >> john: well, i think it's in

true trump fashion, jonathan, to hold a news conference after a day like today and we will see that tonight in the 8:00 hour here on fox news. thank you all for joining us. appreciate it. >> sandra: thanks for joining us, everybody. our coverage will continue. a heck of a couple hours here, john. great to be with you. i'm sandra smith. >> john: another monumental day, it does not stop. seven years and running now. >> martha: good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. breaking right now, this procedure is underway in the miami courthouse. history unfolds today. the first ever former american president has been charged with federal crimes and is being arraigned inside the florida courthouse. former president trump faces 37 counts of handling of classified documents after he left office that he illegally retained those