because, again, you commit a lot of crimes you stand a pretty good chance of being indicted for some of them. there is nothing that strange about this. this is what happens when you not just commit crimes. a lot of people get away with things. but when you do it over and over and over again, this is what happens. it's not strange. >> i recall growing up in new york city in the 1980s, in which donald trump loomed large as a tabloid fixture on the cover of the new york post in the new york times daily news. another fixture during those years was john gaudy, the teflon don, who escaped time and time and time again the intense -- and the feds ultimately didn't, ran out of her own. with two men have alleged to do was quite different in level of seriousness, but those two figures were alternating on the cover of the newspapers in my youth, and there's a lesson there that ended up happening

to the teflon don. josh marshall hugo lowell and andrew weissmann. appreciate it. >> that's all in >> alex on this thursday night. wagner tonight starts right now, good evening, alex. >> chris, what a thursday. accountability, i think that is the phrase of the day. accountability. >> yes. again, lots of things it seemed here to for unthinkable, becoming think-able as the other theme of the last few years. >> in some, ways unthinkable to donald trump. as much as he knew this was coming, now that it's happened, he's in a different league. he has made history, not the kind of history that i think you want to make. thank, you my friend, as always. >> you bet. >> thank you to you at home for joining us this evening. nbc news can now report that former president donald trump has been indicted in the special counsel's investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents. the indictment was filed in federal district court in miami. trump has been summoned to

appear in federal courthouse, again, in miami, florida, on june 13th, which is next tuesday at three pm eastern. nbc you can also report that trump has been indicted on at least seven counts. we know that two of those charges are making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. the new york times reports that those charges also include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the espionage act, according to people familiar with the matter. nbc news has not independently verified that reporting. it is important to note here that it conspiracy charge requires at least two people. this is now the second indictment after the manhattan prosecutors charged with 34 felony counts earlier this year. over alleged hush money payments. opposed on the true social media site, announcing his indictment, he, wrote the corrupt biden administration has informed my attorneys that i have been indicted. i am an innocent man. tonight, trump posted a four

minute video repeatedly claiming that the investigation is a hoax, and that it is politically motivated. >> they can't stop because its election interference at the highest level there is never been anything like what has happened, they figured that the way that they would stop us is by using what is called -- that's what this is. it's wolf warfare for the law. it's called election interference. they're trying to destroy the reputation. and they can try to win the election. >> joining us now is msnbc colleagues, ari melber and lawrence o'donnell, also with us is laura jarrett, nbc news senior legal correspondent. lawrence, this is literally a moment where american democracy is geared up to protect itself against the alleged crimes of a man that was president, and would very much like to be president again. lawrence, how are you thinking about this moment, as far as it

is a referendum on our ability to self govern? >> alex, the name of the case when we see it in writing on tuesday is going to be the united states of america versus donald j trump. that is the united states of america, the executive branch, charging the former head of the executive branch of the united states of america and the government. this is something that we have been heading for, when you really reach back and feel history. really it should've been headed off 49 years ago. 49 years ago, the president of the united states made a terrible president. we now know. gerald ford retardant richard nixon a month after leaving office. richard nixon was beyond a reasonable doubt guilty of multiple federal crimes. that he was a coconspirator, on for which other people went to

prison. he would've been convicted of federal crimes. this would've been the second time, which by the way, it would be very important for the trump voter, that this is not the first tortured victim of the law actually reaching into a former presidents behavior. this is a moment in history that is now unlike any other moment in history. this is making alvin bragg feel really comfortable. he is going to be -- he's going to be able to work without a lot of people knocking on his door, wondering what's going on. he -- this is so much more important in every legal sense. what is going to be happening in this case in florida. >> this is not a district attorney who donald trump can call names and harassed in the same way. it is the united states government, as you say, the united states versus donald trump, already, and when we talk about those charges that we are hearing about, that nbc

news can report and confirm, talk to us a little bit about the gravity. we're talking about potential obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to make, or conspiracy to make false statements. >> everything changes now. this is a very serious federal case. what started when donald trump went down that escalator, with all of his very public and brazen promises, overthrowing all tradition standards, rules, laws, and norms, to attack the fbi, law enforcement, but culminated in a way on january 6th, which is still under jackson's investigation, now today everything changes. the likelihood that donald trump is, for legal reasons, unable to continue running for president, or assume the offense, is much higher. the likelihood he's convicted and goes to prison is much higher. legally, he's presumed innocent and is afforded all of his rights. the biggest problem for him, and i want to see this quite clearly, because we've been following this case, the problem for donald trump facing these federal charges that carry years in prison is that

he did it, and that he admitted it. i wish i mean, under court order, they got the darn documents, and he publicly said, even when hannity and others tried to help, and you wouldn't do that, yes i would. yes i did, i got that authority. in that sense, he's legally presumed innocent, and could still find a jury sympathetic to some less legal, less factual defense. those exist. sometimes people feel bad about an officer or a military member on the stand, but what they're supposed to do is follow the facts and law. you already have that. another related point, the worst witnesses are his own people. as lawrence and you have covered, we've seen that before. the difference here is that you have a current, lawyer you have other aides, it is a serious night, but i do reach for the wisdom of 21 savage. he said, how many problems you have? a lot. how many lawyers you have? a lot. how many people have left you to write? a lot. these, lawyers including mr.

corcoran, he's been trying to save himself, making voice notes, who was four hours with the grand jury. who was part of why a judge said that they were making plans to commit crimes together, and that the crime fraud exception, donna front he starts with a lot of this case, what we would call legally proven. he is also legally presumed innocent, but he is starting out really behind. >> and just for the layman, he has one less lawyer. he lost him on may 16th. he was on my show last night when thing he said was that he didn't see how donald trump could possibly testify in his own defense in this case. all right? that is how bad he thinks that this is for donald trump. >> that's one of his lawyers saying that. you cannot put him on the witness stand. if you assume that and then you stare at these allegations as

we know the, you start to say well, how can you defend it? what is the defense? i spent a lot of time asking him for a defenseless and it did not emerge. that's the state this case is as weak right now. >> and to be clear, we play some of the sound of trump's video response to all of this. he is not offering a defense of his actions, he's suggesting that the doj is committing election interference, because these indictments are coming down at the precise moment that he was running for president in 2024. it's as if he was saying, i see your charge, all raise you one. this is the legalese that i can spout. >> the king of american election interference. tonight, using the phrase, election interference. merrick garland at the justice department. >> thick irony. i want to bring in laura jarrett. help me out in terms of breaking down some of those charges that we do know about.

obstruction conspiracy, can you flush that out a little bit for the layman in terms of what that entails and include more than one person. >> you would be right about that. the important thing to note is that you don't actually have to succeed in completing that conspiracy. one of the things that will be looking for is to see how exactly the special counsel backs this up. what facts, when evidence, what tapes, with documents? who, if anyone, cooperated with this? we need to understand some of the facts that are going to be backing this up. just to take a step back, we did not even know about this federal grand jury this time last week. so much has happened over this period, which is just remarkable. it is extraordinary how much has developed here, how the grand jury was working away, all at this time and denounced to us, which is really a reflection on the special counsel's process. look at how they went about

their work, despite all of the attacks on the justice department, on prosecutors, on the judges, on jurors themselves at times. these prosecutors quietly were working with laypeople in florida, trying to figure out how to get to the bottom of what happened here. it really has been a stress test for the better part of the last seven years as the trump, while president, and now as the ex president, has to try to take on the government single-handedly, and has tried to attack this entire process. and yet the special counsel went on with his work quietly, and appears to have gotten the job done, and appears to have secured that indictment from a federal grand jury in florida. alex, that doesn't mean that this case will be easy, it doesn't mean that there will not be attacks, and there will not be efforts to try to make the case go away, but i just think that it is remarkable to take a step back and recognize where we are as a matter of

history, and chest legally. the former president is facing federal charges. we are talking about decades in prison if he was convicted. again, we will have to see the exact charges, but the espionage act, this was reserved for circumstances in which people were trying to attack the united states. obviously, it could be much broader than that. it is not necessarily reserved just for people that were acting as a spy. just to think about what the entire purpose was for somebody that held the highest office, to be charged with anything remotely close to that should be a staunch-ing to us. >> laura, when you talk about the charges, i know that nbc news can confirm making false statements and the obstruction of justice conspiracy, the new york times is reporting that willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the espionage act is also one of the charges. do we have an expectation about when this set of charges is going to get unsealed?

it presently remains sealed. >> you would think that it would come pretty fast, because right now we're operating in an information vacuum. obviously, the justice department is trying to play this by the book, and you can understand why. when it's up against so much pressure, it's trying to hold the line. it's trying to do what it normally does, in the normal case, but this is not the normal case. he is not a flight risk, everyone knows where he is every minute of every given second. the normal reasons for why you would keep this under seal, i think that you might see the justice department go and ask a federal judge to get this unsealed, so that it can actually make public what has happened here before tuesday's arraignment. whereas just where you would normally see it unsealed. i just cannot see this holding until tuesday. >> yes, already, to laura's point, trump has already fundraised off of this. republicans are beginning to comment, the white house has not commented on this, which i think is quite telling. one would think that the doj

would like to get its case out in the open, so that it is not just absorbing the incoming from opponents of taking this case in the first place. i guess that my question to you would be, do you see the fact that jack smith has not said anything, that he quietly moved this down to florida, that he is going to a jury pool, and potential judge's election which is less favorable to his cause, is that a sign of confidence? >> it is certainly a sign of professionalism. he is doing exactly what you're supposed to do under the law, which is not been, or trying to find the most hospitable possible journey pool. you're supposed to follow the facts and law, that's what we think they're doing. i will say when you think about how long you've been following this era, and i think that us around the papal, laura, others that have been steeped in this, jack smith has the entire world listening. he's not sort of thing it. that is a style. mueller had that style as well, but he was always operating with the ceiling of the doj rule. it could never and with an

indictment. trump took that and tried to exploit that. smith has not said a word. everybody is listening. i would interpret what we've seen thus far the doj, tonight they will give a standard no comment, and, yes they may say to a judge, this is a little bit different. let's unseal it. i don't think that mr., smith special counsel smith, is the thinking about a news cycle of friday to, tuesday or tuesday to the following friday. i think he's looking at a somewhat more conservative stay in jury pool, saying that once we select people who commit to being partial and understand the rules, and present these facts, he thinks with seven counts, he will win. he thinks that he will win all seven, or the bulk of them. sometimes you throw in one or two, prosecutors sometimes do what is called a menu charge. you think that you can prove all seven but you recognize the jury may waiver. but no, he is not running around doing anything other than what you think the facts show. one more, point as we have all been following this. msnbc viewers, and watching, what have we learned? laura mentioned what we learned just from the last few days.

tonight, we learned that merrick garland did exactly what he said he would do. he would hire a career nonpartisan professional, somebody who oversaw at the time, big prosecution of democrat john edwards. he would take the recommendation. we know the special counsel rules, if public, would go to congress, but we learned tonight that smith is indicting, and the garland recruited. >> one more question to you, i know you have a busy night. what do we expect in terms of the timeline here? we know that special counsel of course has the january 6th investigation that has not yet been completed. what is the expected timeline beyond tuesday's arraignment date? >> certainly the january 6th piece of business is important, and we have obviously been so focused on one slice of this, and for good reason. he is under federal indictment for it. after the arraignment on tuesday, he will enter a plea, not guilty as we would expect, he has maintained his innocence all along. then you will get discovery,

and this will go on for some months. it is hard to put a time stamp on it. i know that everyone wants to figure out when this will go to trial, could it go to trial in the summer before the election? we don't know. that is okay. this will play out as it does in the global course. the january 6th investigation, that is quite active. there are grand jurors going into the testimony on that case, all the time. that includes today. we shouldn't take our eye off of that. we recorded just yesterday, we broke the news, steve bannon, somebody that could not be more important to the january 6th investigation, obviously a close aide to the former president, he has been subpoenaed in that case. we don't know whether he will actually go in for that grand jury, but that could be a meaningful piece of the puzzle here. the grand -- the january 6th piece of this, i think that is certainly an open question on that timeline. even if the special counsel is not prepared to indict on that for sometime, it is worth keeping that in our sights. >> laura, thank you for your time and excellent reporting. go forth and be successful in

more of it. already and lawrence, go go anywhere. stick around with me. i want to bring in now to this riveting in breaking news conversation, brandon, former national security official at the justice department, and former prosecutor on special counsel, robert mueller's team. joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst. thank you for joining us on this busy night. brandon, i've been reading your quotes in a lot of news coverage about the move -- the charging in florida, and panneling of a grand jury down in miami. it was a surprise to many people that were watching this, as we now see, donald trump has been indicted by a florida grand jury. what's your expectation about how that changes the dynamics of this at trial? >> well, i think that most people speculate that there would've been a preference to try this case in the district of columbia. you have more experienced judges on these issues. , you have more favorable jury,

as well. i think that in the end, it does not matter. what this signals is that special counsel has selected the team, and simply believe that they need to charge this case in the southern district of florida. they haven't had anyone in d.c., and so they have charged in the district where they need to charge. >> joyce, it's clear that trump is doing everything that he can to suggest that this is a hoax, to say that the federal government is guilty of election interference. what tools legally does he have to delay this trial or otherwise complicated at this point? >> he will have the tools available to him that any other criminal defendant would have. really nothing more at this point. look, miami, the southern district of florida, although every judge sets their own pace, miami has been known to be a rocket docket. they moved cases quickly. this perhaps will not go as quickly as the 70 some odd days this speedy trial act allows for from the time of arraignment to trial, but this

is not a court that tolerates a lot of efforts to slow down its docket. trump will certainly file preliminary motions trying to get this indictment dismissed. i think that we should expect that. he will try to position them so that they can be appealed to the 11th circuit court of appeals in advance of trial. there is some issues, or you can fully take down sort of an appeal, and then others where you cannot. the important thing about this circuit, the 11th circuit, which is deeply conservative, it's already considered former presidents delay tactics twice, and rejected them. in other, words trump's credibility is shot in this circuit. he will have to come in with legitimate legal arguments, to the extent that he does not have them. he will be in serious trouble, and because these sorts of cases when you are talking about retention of national defense information, the source of cases are so heavily staffed by the government before they are indicted, it is going to be

a difficult road for trump. >> brandon, can i ask, in terms of the judge, i've read some reporting that it's possible that the trump team might request this case be transferred to a favorable judge. i think that a lot of people remember the start of this investigation, judge aileen cannon. what is the likelihood of that? >> strategically, it would be possible, ultimately sort of based on local practice. ultimately, exactly as joyce said, ultimately their reality is that you're going to have what appears to be -- the fact that they're even bringing this case in florida, you have another career prosecutors, some of the most experienced prosecutors in national security, and public integrity. you have an attorney general it is deliberateness and involved, and now you have a grand jury in the southern district of florida, all who looked at these charges, apparently

multiple charges, and said at the former president, not only he violated the law, but compromised national security. in that sense, i think that ultimately, regardless of the judges, this seems to be quite serious. >> joyce, in terms of the doj and the degree to which they put themselves out there to answer questions, do you have any expectation that we'll ever hear from merrick garland where jack smith? >> look, i hope that we will, alex, doj prosecutors are limited at the time of the indictment. all of the information that they can share is the information that is contained within the four corners of the indictment. they still have the ability to educate the public, they cannot argue that the defendant is guilty. they have to be very careful about what they do. archibald cox during watergate went to the american public to help them to understand what he hoped to do in obtaining evidence in an effort to get full transcripts. i think that, here it's fair

game for the doj to talk about what they did, why they did it, and what the public can accept. procedurally, if not substantively. this is a moment for the doj to help the public understand the rule of law still matters in this country. >> lawrence, i agree with joyce. i hope the doj comes out and talks, because trump and his supporters have done so much to erode confidence, not only in the institution of government, but specifically in the fbi and doj. you're going to hear a drumbeat of that kind of criticism over the course of the next several months and weeks. it's hard to imagine that merrick garland would want to talk, but i sort of hope that he does. >> there is precedent for. this president for jack smith talking about this. they cannot do it. tuesday at three pm is just a couple of news cycles away. it's not like we have to really endure some difficulty waiting period. the new york times is already on to it. reporters will collect more and more details of what is going

on in this thing between now and tuesday at 3:00. we have a pretty good idea of it already. i don't think they're going to run into serious problems. there will be some rabid trump supporters in congress that will be as rabid as they always are, but i think that what you're going to see is an awful lot of hanging back by most senators, most republican members of the house, just really waiting for tuesday to see exactly what it is that they're going to be called upon to defend. >> you sound pretty sanguine about the role of congress in throwing a monkey wrench into all of this. jim jordan, -- >> the congressional committees would like to do as much as they can to muddy the waters left. do you think that is just a complete -- >> it's just a game. part of the game, part of the reason they're playing that game a little more emphatically than they might otherwise, is because kevin mccarthy gave so much on the debt ceiling deal

that one of the things he kind of was doing at the same time was humoring all of the crazies about impeaching everyone. in the biden administration. that is really all that they have. they don't have anything legislatively to do. they lost the debt ceiling situation. and so this is the thing that they're going to deal with. it is all empty and there's nothing they can do to anything involving this investigation. >> a related point to what lawrence is underscoring, they know that they can't mess with it. what we -- want to say very simply, the only thing worse as a public official then being accused of abuse of power, which is how nixon was run out, which is why you could be impeached or convicted, or not run for office again. it's being accused or convicted for abusing power that you did not even have. in other words, that's what this is -- being a president where they say yes, the president has enormous powers, the president has military powers, but if you are found to abuse the military

for political purposes, in that impeachment, that's a big deal. now imagine are not present anymore. that is why so many countries have already been down this road. people do abuse power in office, some people try to carry it over. if you show up at the pentagon on january 1st trying to tell him to kill people, or abuse the relationships that you have with the secret service, they want to protect, do not carry out a kill order, that's that. that might sound on tv like, okay, i see exaggerating? no. that is legally what we are talking about, alex, because people live and die by these classified documents, by the state secrets. other people, high-ranking people, high-ranking clinton officials, national security advisers, was prosecuted for this kind of crime, small in scope, -- and petraeus was a war hero, there are many people that we would remind you that he risked his life. we saw that, but neither that or any other title puts you above the rule of law. . if you then leak documents that

can get other people killed, the fact that you did other things in the past or did a title did not help you. now tonight, he stands indicted for, and with overwhelming evidence of, trying to abuse powers that he did not have. >> for a year during the most loaded year you could possibly use this phrase, repeatedly, the attorney general of the united states said, no one is above the law. there were millions of people out there, all of them on twitter, not believing him. not thinking that he really meant former presidents. now you know that when merrick garland said no one, he meant no one. >> the saga of merrick garland as a figure in american life around whom great tectonic shifts have happened, that is a conversation for another day. i do want to get to some breaking news that we have here. the nbc news is now reporting that a u.s. secret service official says the secret

service personnel will meet with former president trump's team tomorrow, which is to say friday, to begin security and logistics planning for his movements to appear in federal court. i want to go back to brandon, when we talk about what needs to happen for what needs to make this tuesday date go seamlessly, what are the conditions that the doj is making, what kind of preparations are underway right now in order to make sure that the security is as watertight as it needs to be given the stakes we are talking about. >> there are extensive discussions that are happening right now. you talk about the breaking news in terms of the secret service, but with the courthouse, they are over already communications that predate the news of the indictment, in terms of poultry security and working on procedure, for example individuals will be housed, how the former president will be processed, fingerprinted, how

he will come into the courthouse, all of those details will be orchestrated in detail before tuesday. just one additional point, we talk about it going to be five days before, finding out the indictment, as many of the guests have said, that will be the normal course. it will not surprise me if ultimately, the department of justice found a way to unseal it before them. there is at least some precedent for unique behavior here, if you recall, this search warrant that occurred with the former president's home, attorney general actually gave a short speech about that. that's quite unusual. but we are dealing with unusual times right now. >> that's an understatement right there. lawrence, there is a fairly anemic response when trump was arraigned down in new york city. >> i was there. >> i was getting to that point. >> there are the most peaceable, few dozen people that i've ever seen collected in support of donald trump. >> your expectation of what

happens in florida? it's a state that trump won, palm beach county is not a county that he won, but it went more narrow lead to biden than, for example, washington, d.c.. trump is going to use this to inflame a lot of tensions, as he always does. he continues to fund-raise on, it as you said, the republicans will close ranks on this. are you concerned that because this is the government, this is not an individual district attorney, at the end of his or her probe, this is the federal government accusing the former president, who would like to -- >> i'm not at all concerned for how smoothly this would go, the most violent trump supporters are in prison already, others so inclined, watching that happen. it's smart and up a lot of people. people think that there are so many more trump supporters in and around miami than manhattan,

and that might be statistically true, however, on the island of manhattan, there are hundreds of thousands of people who voted for donald trump. within commuting distance of the manhattan courthouse. there are millions of people who voted for donald trump. almost all of staten island voted for donald trump. none of them, none of them bother to change the order of their day, when he summoned them. he asked them, begged them to come to the courthouse of manhattan. they refused. they would not show up. i think that that era, that moment of trump inspired madness and violence of january 6th is behind us. >> will you go down to miami to take a tour? >> i would love to be in miami on tuesday at 3:00. i hope that the right people are listening to this. >> lawrence, always a pleasure to have, you and especially on such a momentous night. we'll see you in half an hour.

on your television program. already, please stick with me. joyce, do we still have joyce vance? we do. the great joyce vance, what's your expectation in terms of how the other probe that the special counsel is working on sort of complicates or otherwise intersects with this one that is now wrapping up. any charging decisions in that probe? as you pointed out moments ago, steve bannon, mark meadows, almost subpoenaed and showed up in front of a grand jury to testify. adam schiff on this program, suggesting that he thinks that probe is wrapping up as well. what's your take on that? >> scheduling is certainly going to get complicated. if, as my former boss eric holder predicted on chris's show, donald trump ends up charged in four separate cases. you can only imagine judges in four different jurisdictions deciding who gets to have the former president in the courtroom that day.

that will be complicated. we will be interesting complication to watch procedurally, as cases work through two different states systems, and the federal system. if all of those cases come to fruition. as for the probe in d.c., alex, it's a good judgment that the case seems to be wrapping up. i think we know less about whether there will be charges in that case, for anyone who watched those facts unfold from january 6th and forward, it certainly looks like the government will be in possession with sufficient evidence to charge the conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the election. and that donald trump wouldn't be the only participant in that conspiracy. we see this charge tonight, we don't know much about. it it's still sealed. the times is reporting that there is a conspiracy to obstruct here, donald trump is not somebody the tends to act alone. if the january 6th probe concludes, and indictments, i

think there are a couple of possibilities. i think the one is that there's a first age, where some of the people who the doj is very confident they have sufficient evidence against, are indicted, and the effort is made to flip them, to cooperate against other people higher up in the food chain. perhaps you will see everyone indicted all at once. it seems the donald trump is yet again in doj's sights on that matter, as he should be. >> everything everywhere all at once, it's not just a movie. speaker mccarthy is out with the statement today. he's calling it a dark day for the united states of america. it is unconscionable for a president to indict -- this president is speaking about president biden. for a president to indict the leading candidate opposing him. joe biden kept classified documents for decades. i, and every american who believes in the rule of law, stand with president trump against this grave injustice. house republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable. let's unpack that for a second. . first of all, the assertion

that joe biden is indicting his opponents, his political opponent, donald trump. >> no evidence of that whatsoever. we have a process whereby, as i mentioned earlier, smith has been approved by the attorney general. we haven't seen any reporting that was tipped off or approved by the white house. if there is a smoking gun on, that we would report on that. you have an attack that starts with a lie. the allies of the president have every right to make their defense, which can include trying to say the trump didn't do it, which is hard because, as mentioned, he has confessed too much of this. >> publicly and repeatedly. >> they could also make a different argument, which is selective prosecution. . if you look under everybody's file, sooner or later, there's a new version of. it whether he had a version of, this if there's a selective prosecution. those arguments, you're allowed to make in court. selective prosecution arguments don't do as well when there are stacked crimes. when the former lawyer might become a witness against you. because it looks like something

that came up from the facts, rather than down from selective prosecution. they have a right to make those claims. the deeper, point here is, when you look at fast and furious, or the marvel universe, you're, like how many sequels? what is the tenth, or the 15th? it's not even a sequel, right? they just keep going. this just keep coming. we've seen so many versions of this argument, of this, shall we say, lying to her gym moving plot that never lands. bill barr appointed john durham for exactly the series of arguments. and our viewers follow this, you all remember. it was not that long ago that after years of unfettered prosecutorial powers, you can interview, you can subpoena, you can arrest and detain, you can indict. just like jack smith can indict. the problem for durham was that after all of that, he had two cases he brought to trial, he lost both. we still have a system of laws in this country, we've reported many ways about it coming up short, but it's overseen by independent judges, and the

backstop of juries, and if you give juries something -- in my experience, and there are exceptions, but generally, something that has a really strong, clear, factual pattern, they usually go with it. if they come up with something less than that, they will stand up to it. that is what happened to these -- they have every right to make these claims, report on, them some of our folks, we had matt gaetz on the program to discuss these kinds of weapons nation arguments. the only thing that matters for donald trump, the only thing standing between him and a jumpsuit, and a lot of prison time, is a trial and jury. it is not kevin mccarthy's op-eds, it's not something coming around three years later to try to re-rack and redo another fast and furious, but it's the same plot, which is want want, durham couldn't prove anything, and he couldn't win the low level cases that he brought. by the, way those cases are not against mueller or biden, it is just other stuff that he could not win. yes, we have to be consistent, but we see credible reports here, obviously we will report on, i'm track them down. this doesn't end on breitbart.

it doesn't and on reddit. it ends in a courtroom. >> a point that can't be stated enough. brandon, i would life to ask your opinion. you are going to hear a couple of things from republicans, and from this president in the coming weeks and months. , one this is a hoax, and to, trying to draw an equivalence between what trump did and, and what joe biden. you're seeing the speaker of the house do that tonight. joe biden kept classified documents for decades. there is one witness, according to cnn, who has testified in both the probe into joe biden's retention of classified documents, and the mar-a-lago donald trump retention of classified documents case. this witness, according to reporting from cnn, said that the line of questioning was a dramatically different in the two respective probes. the biden case was much more about, how things were packed up in the final days of the white house, as biden was leaving his time during the obama administration, and the trump line of questioning was much more centered on

obfuscation, false statements, and misdirection on the part of the former president. in your professional assessment, what makes the joe biden case different? is there any peril in brushing aside comparisons between joe biden and donald trump as it concerns classified documents? >> it is a critical point. it is important that we all spent time to understand the difference between the probe into president biden, and vice president pence, and what has happened here. you can see it based on the charges. the charges here are not just the retention of a national defense information, and that's the most serious charge. it includes concealment and obstruction. the indication, the implication, is that former president sought to not return this classified information. we certainly know some of that

from the search warrants. that is a significant distinguishing factor in most instances. there is classified information was handled, it usually happens -- as soon as the individual or individuals identify it, they turn it over. that is why you never hear about most of the cases that are investigated for his handling. they don't get charged. most of them are not even investigated by the department of justice because they are so quickly determined to be an accident. when you have obstruction, when you have concealment, when you have, in some instances, 18 months where this material was not turned over, that is distinguishing. i think that is the reason you're seeing charges today, and i think that you will anticipate not seeing charges against president biden. >> brandon van grack, thank you so much for your expert opinions and thoughts this evening. we really appreciate them. joyce vance, please hang with us for just a few more minutes. i want to bring in now from miami, florida, where she has been reporting on the grand

jury proceedings, msnbc legal analyst, lisa reuben. lisa, you're aware of the action, tell us a little bit about what is happening today. we saw senior prosecutors in and around the area. i think it is the first signal that perhaps an indictment might be coming down imminently. what are the preparations going to be like in the coming days ahead of the tuesday arraignment of the former president? >> you're, right, alex we saw one senior prosecutor today from the special counsel's office. i chase down, much to his chagrin earlier today. we didn't see anyone else in the form of witnesses or other prosecutors. it is the absence of witnesses today, folks that we could recognize that lead others to believe that maybe with the grand jury was doing was actually considering a presentation of the evidence to lead to charges. in terms of the coming days, i think you're going to see a lot

of preparations by the u.s. marshal service and others to secure this courthouse. you can see behind me, and hopefully even in the dark of night you can see how large the plaza is. it's not like 500 pearl street the, federal courthouse in southern manhattan. there is an enormous public area here, and there will be a lot of efforts to try and crowd control, and anticipation of the arraignment next week. the other preparations that we'll see is ones that we won't see. for example, from kelly o'donnell tonight, as we talked about earlier, the u.s. secret service is making arrangements for trump to get here, by tuesday at three. in anticipation for his arraignment then there is the thing we can't control, which is the unpredictable of miami weather that i have been dealing with all week. there are torrential downpours here. there are mosquitoes here. there are roosters and feral cats around the courthouse. all of that adds an element of unpredictability and surprise to what will certainly be a historic occasion here on tuesday. >> a plague of locusts.

it is raining frogs. lisa, i think that for so much time, we have looked at the elevated level of witnesses coming into testify in front of these grand juries as a signal that this thing was wrapping up. correct me if i am wrong. the last witness to come into speak to this florida grand jury was tyler but a witch, who is a trump spokesperson, and by no means in this inner sanctum of trump land. we'll see really the last person with the doj had testified before the grand jury? if he wise, what does that suggest to you about the case that they're making given that the role he played in trump, plant in and around the mar-a-lago documents saga? >> you, know he was the former president spokesperson between january of 2021 and september of 2022, when he became the head of the former presidents super pac. by virtue of that position, he is head to distance himself from the former president.

he can't coordinate his activities, with trump, world officially anymore. however, alex, during that period of time when he was that spokesperson. i would say that he was maybe a more central figure than we would've previously thought, or really even talked about. he is certainly not a figure that had character in the story, that we talked about extensively. he was at the presidents side, constantly and most importantly, for purposes of this investigation, he was the presidents mouthpiece. he went out and made statements, starting in february of 2022 with respect to the national archives as efforts to get documents back from president trump. then he continued to make statements after the mar-a-lago search, and beyond their. those are the types of things that the prosecutors were interested in talking to him about. your question about, what is the significance of pence being the last witness? sometimes prosecutors find that as they are approaching readiness for charges, and i think that joyce can speak to this better than i can, there are little things that they need to clean up.

they approved things from other people, when they put it into charging language, they realize that there are some elements here or there that they really need to wrap up in order to complete an indictment. that is the kind of witness that taylor appears to have been. he was only with the grand jury for an hour. it was short, it was surgical, it looks like prosecutors got what they thought that they needed from him, and then proceeded to be evidence in getting in the grand jury to consider those charges, and a vote on them today as we now know. >> lisa reuben, thank you for braving the mosquitoes, the humidity, everything else that this entails. sincerely appreciate your reporting. thank, you my friend. already, what's so interesting about this case, and what i think there's a lot of people focus, on is the role of the attorneys. the fact that they are testifying, evan corcoran, effectively the doj, breached attorney client privilege and boy, what did they get when they pierced it? evan corcoran, keeping audio

recordings of his diary through the onset of the saga with the retained documents. there is alex cannon, another lawyer who's refused to put out a statement that said that the doj, or the federal government had not gotten everything back from donald trump. the lawyers are key players in this, not just because they are advising their client in a legally treacherous terrain, but because they are now witnesses and potentially criminally exposed in this. >> criminally exposed, which is why the most known recent former trump lawyer, michael, cohen said that it's like working from a bus. if you know the godfather, the consigliere is a lawyer, and the way that works is you try to take somebody that has this extra protection and privilege, and abuse that so that they can help you commit secret crimes. donald trump learned that from roy cohn, who represented jon gowdy and other mom bosses in new york. in his life, it of ultimately involved him getting, at one

point indicted, and disbarred. there's a deep, rich history of exactly where this comes from. it's not a mafia movie analogy, it's a real life mafia lawyer. michael cohen made that, point don mccann not pulled into that as the star witness. we saw it over and over. what donald trump learned from those people, and did at times pull off, was oh, if you have no ethics and morals, you don't care about the law, and this person has more protection, you put it there. i make this analogy deliberately. most people hire security to do security. to protect. there are people who have figured out that you can hire security, a security guard who has a weapon, a license fire, and you try to use them to be more of an enforcer. it is not security. all right? you can get on a lot of trouble for that legally. >> this isn't lawyering. there isn't a lawyer for michael cohen, that's why ultimately you went to jail, he fled. what we've seen, here and what we learn more about this, evan

corcoran, merrick east end of the case, and perhaps other lawyers in the history, -- mr. parlatore, all of these folks are in a position where all of the pressure is going to be on them to tell the whole truth, nothing about the truth. again, so what? against a client or former client who has got the weight of the world on him. that's why all of these things, you can't do future looking predictions, when they talk about stocks. we can't do any of that because on the one hand, donald trump got away with a lot for a long time. on the other hand, nobody's ever seen what it feels like to work, were to be around donald trump if folks think he might be actually convicted in a federal case, or might be in a jumpsuit. that'll change the gravitational political and legal pressures around him. nobody counting him out, and legally, presumed innocent. a lot of this could change very quickly from lawyers, to the witnesses, to the republicans the you voted for tonight. they might look around and say,

it's hard to be two cases in a short time. what's their backup plan? >> just when you read the charges that they know about, obstruction, conspiracy, espionage act, this is serious, serious stuff. and these are being brought by the federal government. our melber, always good to see you. i mean, let's do it again. >> it's a tough breaking news. night you've done such a incredible job. it's hard, you're great. i believe they had some added information. >> thank you my friend for staying late thank you for staying late. i'll see more of you in the days to come. now i want to bring in danya perry, a former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. danya, thank you for being here. i would love your reaction to the charges that we know about that far, and how surprising, not surprising, could you flesh out what the actual implications of these are? >> i would say not surprising.

some colleagues, many of whom appear on your show, including joyce vance just now, writing quite some time ago, a white paper prosecution memo that predicted, what are these charges? it's not because we're soothsayers, or you know, have any particular insight into the future, it's because when we read what was publicly available, and we seem to fit into a particularly framework. as we sit along time ago, a lot of this wasn't particularly subtle or nuanced. it looked, from the very beginning, like a lot of the elements of a lot of the crimes that are now apparently maintained in the four corners of this indictment. they are relatively simple. it appears they are going to be charged under the espionage act, and the questions that are

relatively simple, did the former former president will fully retain documents with classifications, or that contain national defense information? the only question that seemed to be hanging out there was, did this known, was this willful? did he understand that it violated the law? he pretty quickly went out there and said, yes, i knew i had these. i thought i was allowed to have them. that is pretty easily debunked. it did seem like a lot of those elements were established sometime ago, at least within the public record. what has really been coming into sharper focus, in the weeks proceeding the indictment, some very granular pieces of evidence, including specific it's dances in which allegedly, the former president showed documents. kind of bragged that he had these. including very sensitive its or national security secrets that,

you know, now they tell a story. it made me realize, we've been thinking about this, waiting on this for a long time, and as these details have been trickling out, we've had this aha moment, as better people have, this is going to happen, because now it's not just, oh, the elements are mad, there's a narrative. there's a story that's actually very compelling. essentially that compels, i think the department of justice to bring a case that would've been brought along time ago against just about everybody else. >> danya, when you talk about the obstruction piece, because i think we've got the most the reporting around that. is there one thing that stands out to you as the smoking gun? is it the audiotape of trump admitting that he knows he had declassified these documents, the security camera footage of players moving boxes in and out of the storm, is it the draining of the pool that floods the i.t. room, with the

security camera footage, is it the audio diaries from emma corcoran, trump's lawyer on this? is there anything that stands out is particularly agree just and unavoidable legally? >> can i answer all of the above? it's the coming together of all of these facts. i know that a lot of these prosecutors personally, they're the best of the best. of, course this is the most sensitive case that's ever been brought into this country to date. they're going to the asthma take euless and careful as possible. i think there is building brick-by-brick, i did becomes overwhelming. and so i think that it really is every time something else was leaked to the press, it just creates this wave that at some point became unavoidable. and too heavy to not bring to charges. i do think that as other people

have said, it's a matter of common sense, if not for the obstruction piece of, it likely no other charges would've been brought. that, i think, is what made this really impossible to ignore, impossible not to prosecute, impossible for the doj to hold its head up high and say, we do follow the law equally, because so many low level fbi analysts and other people have been charged for far less. and so i think that it was, you know, all of these pieces of evidence that came one after the other. this came to us, the public, one day out, just very compelling case, impossible not to bring. >> impossible not to bring. it danya perry, thank you so much for your time tonight. we really appreciated. now for more on the political implications of all of this, let's bring in dan pfeiffer, former senior adviser to president obama and co-host of the politics of america podcast. and former democratic senator

claire mccaskill. dan and clare, thank, you claire, what's your reaction to all of this? what are you stealing -- >> first of all, i don't think it's a night for celebration for the country. i think it's time to pause and really take in what's just occurred, and what will be occurring over the coming months. i've got two hats here, somebody who read for office and understands politics, in a granular way. and somebody who spent a lot of time in a courtroom as a prosecutor. there are a couple of things that stand out to me. number one, the decision to go to florida is one that lawyers are looking at and thinking, okay, they want to be really careful about venue, on appeal, on that issue, it's not settled. right now, there is a case in front of the supreme court about venue that would be relevant to this. they want to be very careful

about bringing it somewhere where the conviction, if they get, one would not be overturned on appear. it also shows strength, alex, that they are willing to take this evidence to any courtroom in the country, including trump's backyard. i think that they could've manipulated this, in terms of venue, to get enough of the charges in washington. they could've brought it there, they could've just did, let's let the facts be what the facts are. politically, it's interesting to me how many republicans are coming out and saying things tonight without knowing what the evidence is. my sense is that something's flipped here. my sense is that there is going to be a charge, tampering with witnesses, that maybe some of these witnesses have been threatened. they should not cooperate. i just think it's very dangerous for anybody in public office to be saying that somebody's innocence, and that this is a sham, a political

sham. before they know the evidence that would be presented. none of it. >> the speaker of the house, right? they said in a statement today, he stands with president trump against the great injustice. house republicans will have this brazen display of weaponization accountable. they don't even know what the charges are to this point. >> and they don't even know what the evidence is to this point. that's even bigger than the charges. if they have trump on tape, if they have witnesses they were in the room with trump, they were his supporters, are they going to move at 30% of the party if it's going to be with trump no matter what? they're probably going to be even more for trump now. no. and maybe trump gets the nomination with an ankle brace, that remains to be seen. it wouldn't surprise me if he gets the nomination with an ankle bracelet. >> dan, president trump's nomination with an ankle bracelet. unpack that for a second but also, and specifically because

of your time in the white house, the white house has not released a statement here. biden very much wants to keep his distance on this. our guess is that he's going to have to say something at this point, how should democrats talk about this? it is a dark day in a lot of ways, as clare aligned. the white house actually should not say anything, i've seen reports that they learned about this from the news, exactly -- why the special counsel, that's why the justice department was held independent, i promise you that when the president asked about this, he will not comment on it. he will walk away from, it that the right thing to do. the democrats want to talk about, that's fine. i want to be looking for in terms of the politics. what are trump's republican opponents going to say about it? i don't expect they're all gonna say -- talk about classified information, the morality of these things. are they gonna make an electability case against trump? are they gonna point out that it's going to be, you know, you don't want to nominee with an ankle bracelet. you want to nominee who's facing multiple indictment. you could have another driver

next month. an entire summer of indictments with trump. that's, -- it eta illiterate the politics will be. i'm not ready to assume that this indictment will strengthen his hand. like the one in manhattan did a few months ago. >> yeah, clear, that has been the calculus thus far. that wasn't -- what doesn't kill trump makes him stronger, it used its hit to his own partisan ends. i wonder whether this is different. >> it may be. especially when the evidence comes out. if it's his words on tape, if there are people that were close to trump that are providing evidence that is strong and solid, then it may move people off of him. the question is, who wins in that situation? we've got nine people running no? which all works to his benefit. some of them have to drop out. and coalesce around another candidate, right now, even if some drop away he's in a dominant position within their

primary. and frankly, you know, mccarthy is saying, i stand with him. mccarthy can't even move a bill in the house right now. i mean, it is chaos city in the republican party right now. from top to bottom. >> then, we know that ron desantis has called this the weaponization of federal law enforcement. he's gonna be in an odd position on the campaign trail. saying that donald trump is unfit, but also that these charges represent some kind of federal overreach. >> yeah, i think what you will probably do is try to make some argument about trump, is innocent. this is weaponization. but he can't win because of it. we'll see that. the kevin mccarthy statement is so interesting, because it's directly related to the fact that he can't move a bill through the house right, now he's being held hostage by the biggest trump supporters in the caucus who can decide whether he keeps his job. so, of course the first thing he's going to do is go out and defend trump to try to regain the love of matt gaetz and the rest of th