they don't want to influence doj in any way, but that doesn't mean that president biden hasn't weighed in on his predecessor's actions, especially when it comes to january 6th. he doesn't talk about it very often, but when he has, he has been scathing, john, on the one-year anniversary anniversary of january 6th, he accused former president trump of rallying the mob to attack, he said he watched it all on tv from the white house dining room, near the oval office, and did nothing for hours as police were assaulted. he accused him of spreading a web of lies, not just on januare the election even took place, and he said that the former president ignored what he was being told by his own attorney general, his own vice president and governors from every state in the nation about the validity of the 2020 election. we don't hear much from this president anymore, particularly

not us this investigation heated up about his predecessor's actions. he has tried to be very careful, knowing that this is going to be an ongoing issue as we get closer to, you know, his repeat match up, if you will come against former president trump. >> john: nancy cordes with president biden. white house correspondent. thank you nancy. scott macfarlane has some more details as we wait for the special counsel to walk to the microphones. scott, what do you know about the judge? >> reporter: if you go to the last quarter of the indictment, you see references to january 6th, a lot of talk about fake electors, a lot of talk about what was known about the election but if you get to the bottom quarter, you see references to what the special counsel calls the defendant's exploitation of the violence on the chaos on the capital, and one of the references is to then house minority leader kevin mccarthy, in a conversation donald trump had during the riot with kevin mccarthy in which there was a reference, according to the special counsel, that you more concerned about the

election -- they seem more concerned about the election than you do, mr. mccarthy. but also, note where this case is headed. it is headed here to washington, d.c., to federal court and assigned to judge tanya chutkan, a 2014 appointee of this court, and obama administration appointee will be handling this case after the magistrate judge has her hearing with donald trump on thursday. >> john: scott, briefly, and i might have to leave you because the special counsel is due any moment, but what is security like there, and how -- i imagine when the former president shows up, it is going to be quite severe? >> reporter: a lot of reinforcements here, the u.s. marshals are here, u.s. park police and d.c. police all have some type of foothold at this courthouse when there is major events. we expected to ratchet up exponentially thursday, 4:00 p.m. eastern time court appearance. >> john: scott macfarlane, thank you. just quickly, jeff pegues, security, you have covered this now, this is the third one, each time significant measures have

to be taken. >> yeah, and you didn't really see that in miami. you saw the court appearance there. there weren't enough barricades, was the concern. miami police thought they did a good enough job. in washington, d.c., because of all of the landmarks here, because of all of the public activity on the streets any given day, you are going to have to set up a lot up a lot of barricades. you are going to have to coordinate between federal and local law enforcement, and of course, on january 6th, there was criticism about how well -- or how intelligence and law enforcement efforts sort of fell apart leading up to januart going to want a repeat of that. they are going to make sure that they coordinate with d.c. and homeland security to prepare >> john: visually it will be an echo, in a sense, the former president's supporters arrive, as they did in miami and as they did in manhattan, will echo the scenes of that very day. >> yeah, but the crowds have not

been that big. why? because a lot of people are facing criminal charges for following president trump's orders and showing up in washington. >> certainly smaller numbers than the former president had hoped or led people to believe there might be on his behalf. one of the things that the indictment makes very clear, and it is an important point at this moment in american history, the indictment makes clear something that is fundamentally true but needs to be stated any legal document like this. the defendant had a right, like every american, to speak publicly about the election and to even claim falsely that there have been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had one back. he was also entitled to formally chalhe results of this elec i am reading from the indictmen. itsaysfter exhausting all of those legitimate legal means, and being sho that he had lost, the presidenthen became malious about holding onto power. e ia that he can speak abouthis raised questions,purs f that is legitimate, and he did

that. but once he l there, he made a fundamental decision. never before made by any sitting chxecuve in the history of this country. to take other means to hold onto power. and that is the central question in this indictment and will be the end central question beforee jury appeared to be when there are rules for fighting these things out. he didn't play by them. >> what major just said, it is such an important point. december 30th, 2020, donald trump has a conversation with steve bannon. pence is on vacation as vice president. get pence home. pence is now the target. because as major said, everything had failed for trump and giuliani in the courts. they were struggling to have any kind of strategy moving ahead. the electors had already voted in mid-december of 2020, december 30th the turning point, focus on pence, that is what bannon and other outside advisors tell trump and on january 3rd pence goes to the senate parliamentarian and she tells him, sir sir, you've nothing to do with january 6th except count the votes.

he says, that's what my lawyers have been telling me, that is what i'm going to do. the next day, january 4th, 2021, john eastman, the conservative lawyer who authors this blueprint for a cool, in the oval, with pence, trump confronts pence in front of them, he says, listen to john, also threatening, bas on our reporting. follow the eastman plan. pence sayi will still think about it, let me take my te but i can't do it, mr. president. the next day trump calls in a january 6th come heads into the oval office for the ultimate one-on-one with trump. trump was so into the moment, this has been confirmed by testimony in front of the january 6th committee, he opens the door to the oval office he can hear the gathering mob outside on freedom plaza, freezing cold night, some of the aids to trump walk in the oval office and they say to themselves, why is the door opened? goths know my gusts of air are open, trump was to have mob outside, he says to pence come infamously, you have to do this

for me, mike, you have to do ths for me, walk away from the certification on january 6th because what was the hope, that the certification was delayed, and if it was delayed, then the conspiracy would be effective in trump's eyes because of the states where lease republicans controlled the legislatures could send new electoral slates. >> john: and major, this is not just a question about the past. what you're talking about, there is a system for adjudicating disputes in america and the president did not play by that system and we are coming up with another election and there are many people who thought it wasn't that he played outside the rules, it was that he did not play hard enough outside the rules. >> well, there might be some who believe that purity could have played harder. i don't know quite how he could have played any harder, as bob has articulated, he tried to use the justice department, the deferment of oman security, tried to use his political apparatus, tried to convince state legislatures. i mean, just about every lever he could think of to pull, he tried to pull, and we have an

established record. what makes them indisputable facts comes from democrats who hate former president trump, not think tank people who are not aligned with the republican party, republican party stalwarts, trump administration stalwarts, people handpicked by the former president. they are the central and most important witnesses in this case, and they will be, as this case unfold. we have had close elections in our history, john, you know this as well as i do come 181824, 1876, 1960, 2000, and every single one of those close elections in which the fate of the country was in the balance for those who were most aggressively competing for that power, all had an essential choice to make: do i try to undermine this system, or do i live within its guardrails? every single previous president lived within those guardrails. until this one. >> one thing we have not

mentioned, as a result of january 6th, 5 police officers died here if i mean, think about those pictures. i will never forget the picture of the guy beating on the officer with an american flag pole. to me, that said it all. this was a mob attacking these police officers and too often, i think, i am sure the families of the officers feel the same way, they get lost in all of this. that was a violent day. >> john: bob, greg jacob, a lawyer for the vice president, as i recall, there was this question of whether the president was just listening to his lawyers, there was some testimony in the january 6th hearings as i recall, from greg jacob, the president was told by john eastman that this was not a legal theory, that this idea of fake electors was, well, was not legal, and goes to this question -- >> asking pence for a small violation of election law. that is a direct quote from the

january 6th investigation. >> john: there isn't that testimony which suggested, which undermines this idea that the president -- >> that it was foundational, that it was legitimate, that it was of the body of understood law in america. it was not the body of understood law by any stretch of the imagination. >> what you see from john eastman is someone who comes out of the orbit, who is not part of trump's inner circle, when in the final days of the trump administration, he is looking for anyone who is going to give him an exit ramp, a path to stay in power. that is why sidney powell is at the white house come up in the residence of the white house, talking with trump about potentially seizing voting machines, and that is by john eastman, who is not known by trump, a lawyer from california, is brought in, because there might be a way, but you are right, greg jacob, that then counsel for vice president pence, the january 4th meeting, pence says to eastman, why don't you go meet with my lawyer, greg jacob, and hash it out. they have a private meeting in the old executive office

building. john eastman and greg jacob. in that meeting, based on under oath testimony from greg jacob before the january 6th committee, eastman reportedly says, "well, i did a float this theory to trump and have authored this memo, but i am not really sure it is going to hold water." and jacob explodes. he is a mild-mannered person, but he explodes in terms of being a lawyer, saying how is this circulating at the highest levels of the federal% government? yet pence persisted. on jan january 6th, communicatea text messages and emails, eastman is saying follow the plan. >> john: this is something the former president still believes now, he has not changed his mind on the outcome of the election, however wrong they may be. >> he has waited into the possibility of becoming president again and issuing pardons for anyone implicated in this. so that puts in a nutshell his approach to the facts, to the

law, and to power. if he reclaims it, he will pardon those who helped put this in motion. >> john: jeff pegues, we have about a minute, apparently, till jack smith shows up. he does not say a whole lot when he comes out. >> no, he doesn't. i sort of bumped into him on a plane to miami, and i was just watching his mannerisms just to see if he would crack a smile with his team, maybe drink something. i didn't see anything like that. he seemed focused, even sitting -- i think he was sitting in a middle seat, may have been a window seat. sort of blended in. most people on the plane, i don't think he knew who he was. he wasn't trying to call attention. >> part of history now appeared indelibly. >> john: he has done, i think, 100 triathlons, so i think he has the fortitude to make it three middle seat. what do we know about his operation? it has been pretty unleaky, just

as these kinds of investigations go, doesn't have a character to? >> jack smith's character. the prosecutors that he has on that team, they are among the best. they are pros. they are major league prosecutors. and you see that because there really aren't a lot of leaks coming out of that office. people will say, oh, there's something -- there really aren't that many leaks. they do, they are speaking through these court documents, and that is why these court documents are so detailed. because, in a lot of ways, they are trying to respond to what the former president puts out on social media. >> john: well, and that raises the question, as we watch perhaps here we have a special counsel entering the room now. and let's pause to listen to jack smith as he addresses reporters. >> good evening. today an indictment was

unsealed. charging donald j. trump with conspiring to defraud the united states, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. the indictment was issued by a grad jury -- and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. i encourage everyone to read it in full. the attack on our nation's capital on january 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault of the seat of american democracy. it is described in the indictment. it was fueled by lies. lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the u.s. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. the men and women of law enforcement who defended the

u.s. capitol on january 6th are heroes. they are patriots, and they are the very best of us. they did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. they defended the very institutions and principles that define the united states. since the attack on our capital, the deprived of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. this case has brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. in this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged that a of citizens. in the meantime, i must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed

innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. i would like to thank the members of the federal bureau of investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the many career prosecutors and law enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6th investigations. these women and men are public servants of the very highest order, and it is a privilege to work alongside them. thank you. >> reporter: why didn't you charge any of the other coconspirators? >> john: and there we have special prosecutor jack smith saying this is an unprecedented act, an attack on the bedrock function of democracy. he was typically laconic eared bob costa? >> one thing to note, the special counsel did not -- former vice president mike pence, based on this document, is a central, crucial,

key witness in this investigation. this indictment says pence took contemporaneous notes, in date after date of pence's recollection of events is there. we know pence met for hours with a grand jury but to have a former vice president who was in the room with trump, often one on one in the oval office, and now testifying in detail to the special counsel, he could end up being the most important witness in this case. >> john: because, do you think, bob, it is not just x happened after why, but he has some ability to speak what happened -- >> he can speak to possible criminal intent. pence has said he does not know what it is not for him to judge whether trump had criminal intent in his actions. but by pence detailing what trump said, this indictment says pence recalled trump calling him not to honest -- too honest, as they had a private conversation. and so pence was someone who was weaponized at the end of the presidency for trump and to have him cooperating with the

investigation gives the special counsel an eyewitness account that someone who is not a lawyer or some trump functionary. >> and to put this in a political context, let's also remind ourselves that the former vice president is now challenging the former president for the nomination of the republican party in 2024, so he is a witness against the former president, as bob costa just outlined, and his political opponent against him. and he is a primary fact witness, and a constitutional empowered officer of the executive branch. and that makes him the most important, or if not the most important, one of the most important fact witnesses, because he saw this entire progression of the argument, through all of the ways that trump was thwarted, through the legal means of challenging the election. then he went to extralegal means, and he was the recipient of maximum pressure on that extra -- part of the indictment -- extrajudicial pressure. >> here is the thing.

you know, a lot of this, obviously, allegedly happened behind closed doors. but what is so frustrating, sometimes, about the former president, is that he will say things publicly, where a prosecutor, or even his own attorney, would be flabbe flabbergasted, just telling him, please, stop, don't keep putting this information out there. so a lot of what is in this happen publicly. >> john: we are going to turn out to scott fredericksen, a former federal prosecutor. scott, what is your take after taking a look at this and listening to the special prosecutor in his remarks? >> yes, i think one thing that strikes anyone who has watched special counsel smith is that he does not show emotion very often. he showed emotion today when he talked about the fact that this indictment has brought consistent with the prosecutions responsible for the deaths of five law enforcement officers and the mob, the violent mob

that attacked the capital, and when he talked about that, you could see, he was emotional about that and that is driving him, when he said this was an assault on democracy, fueled by lies of a president. >> john: just to underscore that, scott, the point is that while, in the political realm, this might get discussed in all kinds of maybe even abstract ways or in political terms, what it sounds like he was doing is saying two bedrock principles: accountability, and also that there were real victims here who held the line when somebody else was trying to cross it. >> i think you are absolutely right, and i think what surprised most of us here is how much of the january 6th events have been made a part of this indictment. many thought he would avoid

that, and the incitement of the violent mob coming up to the capitol. instead, it is a central part of the indictment, especially when he gets into the detailed rendition of the attempts to change the vice president's mind, in almost a shakespearian mano a mano fl face-off. detailing over and over again told by the former president trump in an attempt to change the vice president's m mind. >> john: former federal prosecutor scott fredericksen, thank you. rikki klieman, or cbs news legal analyst, is with us now. rikki, you have taken a longer look at this indictment. what else have you concluded? we are going to go back to rikki in a second. but bob costa, you know the players so well in this drama, sticking with your idea, your point about the president being a central actor here. mike pence is another key person. who else are you looking for, as

a useful witness for some of what we don't know or what the special prosecutor may have come up with in this indictment? >> so i always remember the night of january 5th, i was outside the with her hotel. while trump had a hotel most of the time he was president of the united states in washington on pennsylvania avenue, the other trump hotel was the historic willard hotel because inside at hotel on january 5th rudy giuliani, steve bannon, and so many of their associates were calling republicans in congress. they were pressuring them to do trump's bidding. the infamously issued a statement saying pence was in agreement with trump's position on january 6th, even when he was not, causing pence to erupt along with his aides and say that was false. you have the willard under the everyone who was inside the willotting with giuliani and boris epshteyn and all of these other associates to try to overturn the election and those outside who were in tents getting ready for the rally the next day and to attack the catol, and of course across the street at the white house talking to trump late into the night. all of these people are now in

the spotlight based on this indictment of the special counsel. he is not just painting this based on the indictment as something that was a bit of a bad idea gone wrong. he is saying that there was criminal intent to deceive the american people, to defraud the united states, and to mount a multipronged conspiracy. it is hard to digest that this is being alleged it happened and is being done by the department of justice at the highest levels against the republican front-runner. >> and the indictment pays the former president a complement, indirectly, in the sense that his vocalizing falsehoods about the election had a dramatic, galvanizing, and impassioned in effect on much of the country. reading from page 2: "to make is knowingly full's claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and a anger, anddde publicc faith inin the admininistrationf dictmentnt says thehe former just by thee soundnd of his voi,

coconferring u upon h him one oe foformer presisident fromm likiy about himsmself: he hahas a movement.. he a voioice, and peopleespon t. all true.e. presiden prtr butut you usedd thatat voice. you u used thatt influencece inn criminal dangeger. john: knonowingly usesed itt to advancnce a criminal scheme. rikki klieman is apparently back on the line. rikki, you have taken a further look at this indictment. what do you come up with? >> when i look back, john, at my prosecutorial days, what i wanted to know were, who are the victims? what did they suffer? and how did they suffer? well, the major victim here, of course, is democracy. the secondary, or perhaps in tandem victim, are the american people. the third victim are the american voters. all of those go together. but when we look at the individual paragraphs, what we

have to remember, in addition to the people in congress who might have suffered serious bodily harm, injury, and even death, what we have to also look at is mike pence as a central victim in this indictment. and that mike pence became a person that donald trump, according to the indictment, wanted to do his bidding. and that was to change the election result, that mike was supposed to do the "right thing." but when he didn't, at the time that the capitol is being breached, that donald trump's tweet, when he goes and says that mike pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country, et cetera, which is in

paragraph 111, that is what spurs on the chance of "hang mike pence," and if% mike pence had not been spirited away by his secret service, he might not be running for the nomination today. >> john: cbs legal analyst rikki klieman, thank you so much. rikki. now we want to go to chief white house correspondent nancy cordes, who has a thought. nancy? >> >> reporter: john, it was notable in that brief statement we just heard from the special counsel jack smith. one of the things he did say was that he is going to be seeking a speedy trial. that is notable because we know he is not getting a speedy trial in the case in florida having to do with former president trump's handling of classified documents. that case is not going to go to trial until at least mid-2024, just a few months before the presidential election. if you wait to get a speedy trial in this case, let's say

early 2024, then the trial could take place, and we could have an outcome well before the 2024 election takes place in november, possibly even before the end of primary season, and that is notable, of course, because president trump is currently the runaway front matter, according to recent polls, and actually his lead appears to be growing all the time. this is something that the biden campaign is obviously watching very closely because they are anticipating a match up again against former president trump, but when we ask the biden campaign whether they had any reaction to this new indictment, they said, as predicted, no comment to comment. >> john: nancy cordes, thank you. scott fredericksen, i want to bring you back in on something nancy hinted at. the calendar. calendar for a second. how does whoever is in charge here operate all these different

investigations and indictments and court trials all at the same time? the president invited three times, plus several civil cases. how does all of that get coordinated? >> well, it's a good question. there is no formula. it is not any federal let alone often times it is the first case indicted and they take it in turn. but i thi wt is interesting here is that this case, which will come to the arraignment for e former president on thursday, this case could actually jump ahead to mar-a-lago documents case, for one important reason. there are no classified documents involved in this case, and the classified documents are a serious complexity in the mar-a-lago scheduling. it takes a lot of time to work through those issues. there are none of that issues

here. so i wouldn't be totally surprised if this judge, the new judge here in washington, took this case and moved it ahead and moved it into early 2023, ahead of the mar-a-lago case. of course, the former president will fight that and want to delay until after the trial, but i think the judge could also make a point that this is the most important case. this is the one indictment that charges criminal conduct while the president was in fact in office as the president come on like other cases. it goes to the heart of kind of the most important charges against him. i could see this case getting moved forward in an earlier time spot. >> john: all right, scott fredericksen, thank you for that analysis of the calendar. once again, former president trump has been indicted by the special counsel on four counts tied to his attempt to overturn the results of the 2,020th presidential election. among the charges include conspiracy to defraud the

united states and obstruction of an official proceeding. our coverage will continue on cbs news streaming, your local news, and tonight on the "cbs evening news." this has been a cbs news special report. for all of us here in washington, i'm john dickerson. ♪ ♪ and here are tonight's headlines. ♪ ♪ the former president now facing indictment in at least three separate legal battles. what we are learning about this federal indictment. >> the attack on our nation's capital on january 6th, 2021 was an