first time from special counsel jack smith. listen. >> today an indictment was unsealed. charging donald trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. this indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the southern district of florida. i invite everyone to read it in full, to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged. the men and women of the united states intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. our laws that protect national defense information are critical for the safety and you are security of the united states and they must be enforced. violations of those laws put our country at risk. adherence to the rule of law is

a bedrock principle of the department of justice and our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets a an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone. applying those laws, collecting facts, that's what determines the outcome of an investigation. nothing more, nothing less. >> the words of rachel math maddow, stunningly simple words in both the indictment and from behind the podium. it was the first time we as an american public have ever heard from the special counsel notably he praised the fbi and the prosecutors on his team. rachel pointed out they have already come under vicious attack by the indicted ex-president. he encouraged all of us to read the indictment itself, an endeavor we're taking seriously. it's known as a speaking indictment, meaning it is straight forward and, frankly, gripping and dramatic. it lays out the alleged crimes

trump faces. 31 counts have to do with the espionage act. we're going to unpack all of them. it names walt nauta, the body man who moved the boxes nauta is facing his own charge of making a false statement as well. it includes multiple pictures, photographs and bomb shell anecdotes that were not previously reported or known to anyone, including this one. in august or september 2021 when he was no longer president, trump met in his office at the bedminster club with a representative of his political action committee. during the meeting, trump commented that an ongoing military operation in country b was not going well. trump showed the pac representative a class fewed map of country b and told the pac representative he should not be showing the map and he should not get too close to it. the pac represent you have did not have a security clearance or

any need to know classified information about the military operation. this comes on the heels of an avalanche of game-changing developments. news that judge ilene canon will be assigned to the case. the judge was a controversial figure in this story in the early days of the classified documents investigation. appointing a special masterer to review the materials seized from trump's mar-a-lago club. to say nothing on the legal defense team. now the countdown is on until tuesday when the ex-president will be arraigned in a miami federal court. there is a lot to get to. i'm lucky to be joined here by ari melber, joy reid, lawrence o'donnell and rachel maddow. also rounding us out is national investigative reporter and msnbc

contributor carol lenig. you dropped some crumbs earlier in the week that suggest that you had had some sense of the gravity. you don't have to confirm or deny that, but speak to the gravity of what the ex-president has been charged with today. >> i think you have highlighted some really important elements of it that some of my sources into that and have been hinting at for months pap that even though there's a wall of republican mainstream and more conservative who are confused by this classified records case and don't understand the technical charges that might be brought against the president and are supportive of former president trump, even despite all that, these sources have said to me over and over again, just wait. and i think the results of waiting is now we see in it this indictment from jack smith that national security of americans was an afterthought probably not a thought at all on donald

trump's mind. as he sat at bedminster in july of 2021 and again in august and september of 2021, flashing around documents that were military planning documents, one that had a map, one that explained how the pentagon prepares for attacking one of our adversaries and different options for doing so. part of the shock of reading the indictment was getting to those pages and seeing the exact quote from donald trump in which he says to one of his i'm sure wrapped listeners, look, look, this is secret. the secret. look at this. he knows the sensitivity of the material and he's instructing people that i they can look at it any way. >> one of these alleged acts has

been the subject of some news reporting and it is believed to be a document created by mark milley and trump's exercise is believed to be part of the revenge tour. the other we know less about. i just want to read from the indictment about that. it's the incident i just read about. trump commented that a military operation was not going well. trump showed a pac representative a classified map of country b and told the pac representative that he should not be showing the map to the representative and not to get too close. he did not have a security clearance. you have investigated cases involving classified documents and state secrets. the knowledge and his intent to share them couldn't be more flag rant or clear. how do you evaluate them in relation to other cases or been

involved in? >> that's exactly right. i think three things initially jump out at me about these charges. the first is the number and sensitivity of the classified documents that are mention. there are 31 counts of violations. that's a high number. it's common that in these cases, you charge more than one document when there's more than one document that's been retained. that's not uncommon. but 31 is a lot. more important than the number is the sensitivity. as you read in the prior hour, they talk about special access programs. these are information that needs heightened protections. and there maybe less that be ten cases in our lifetime that involve programs or use that terminology in a charging document. 21 of these are top secret. that's really important, not necessarily because of the

charge, but actually because of the potential sentence. there are sentencing guidelines that provide a recommendation for a court to follow. if you're convicted of a top secret dlt, they can subject you to a recommendation that's three to six years higher than not top secret dlt. there are 21 of them in the document. the document, some of them material is so sensitive. it's redacted. what type of program it's a part of. i have been a part of many of these cases. i don't even describe the sensitivity. they just say classified document. you see the department really trying to show as much as possible as they can. but these documents are quite serious. i think what it shows is really my second point, which is this case is about national security. the charges aren't about presidential records. that was part of the search warrant. this isn't about presidential records. it's reflected from jack smith's

comments about the gravity. his point was about protecting classified information. our national security structure, the foundation is that the ability to protect class fewed information and the way you do that is when people mishandle it when they willfully mishandle it, regardless of what they do with it, you ebb force the laws. you prosecute them. that's clear not only in word, but in terms of special counsel smith. just looking at the documents here, when you read the descriptions, they don't just read like they are technically classified. in fact, of all the materials that were seized at mar-a-lago, if you do the math, it looks like the intelligence community reviewed them in all but maybe one were confirmed to be classified. the number identified more classified documents that are marked. the point is the intelligence community reviewed this information and they were

classified. that's my third point. which is what you don't see is the special counsel concerned that the former president declassified these. there's nothing defensive about these charges. the language is that they think they were then and they are now classified documents. and much has been talked about you don't need to prove that they are classified under the statute. that's true. the term is national defense information, but the term national defense information is synonymous with classified. the point is the special counsel thinks they are classified. even if the not, if you just look at the description of these documents, they scream national defense information. the word military is part of 20 of the documents here. sometimes when you charge these cases, they feel sometimes technical. there's some sort of obscure program that was released. it can be challenging to present to a jury to explain to them why this is national defense information. that's not going to be a

challenge here at least based on the description of the documents we have here. >> sue gor dance shortly after the search of mar-a-lago takes place, she appeared on my show and careful lu chose her words when she described trump's practice of carrying classified material around in a box. it's how a lot of them were found when the fbi goes to reretrieve them from mar-a-lago. i wonder what you make in terms of what you're describing and your knowledge of the fact that both of the documents are all still classified. he didn't even think them classified. that he knowingly shared them with people with nonsensical things like don't get too close. if you can't read the little words it wouldn't be a violation. and the decision to bring this case in miami. do you see something in the strength of the evidence that that makes sense to you? >> two parts of that. one is, i think the case was

barred in florida and my former colleague said it right. they had to bring the case in florida. there was venue. there's a constitutional right to be charged in the district, in the location where the crime occurred. i think there are appellate lawyers who are far more sophisticated on that than i am that are determined this case had to be brought with venue. ien don't think it's necessarily reflection of the strength of this indictment, even though this is a quite a strong indictment. the second thing is we keep going back to this paragraph that talks about the dissemination. there are a couple things to dissect. there was a piece on this in the "washington post." dissemination is different from retention. it might be the same charge, but dissemination shows not just the potential of damage, the potential that this sensitive information was shared, but in fact, it was shared.

and the fact they talk about it, i think they are going to make and they are showing they are trying to make as tangible as they can this harm to national security. but they don't charge dissemination. what that leads me to believe is they might not have the documents that are alleged in paragraph 6. they really do charge a number of very classified documents at the top secret level. the recording talks about a secret document. so i wonder if they don't have those documents, which is why you don't see the charge. >> this is joy reid. on page 8, they go through all of the agencies that these documents belong to. the cia, the department of defense, national security agency, the national geospatial intelligence agency, you go on and on. but the firsts 16 pages are all about the sloppy retention.

they really focus on who was having access to these documents, namely, trump's own employees, including mr. nauta. they talk about the fact right on page 2 that trump stored his boxes containing classified documents in various locations in the mar-a-lago club, including in a ballroom, a bathroom, a shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room. they show pictures take not by the fbi, but by his employees of the boxes containing classified information. then you jump to the point in which of may of 2021, trump is warned specifically by the national archives, if you don't give them back, you're going to be referred to the department of justice. and then after that, you have months of these same employees, who again have no security clearances, have no right to see these documents, then going on a mission to try to get trump to focus and get these documents

and get them back in the boxes and get them back. and they say something to the effect of i promise we're going to try to get him to get back to us and he's not getting back. do you think maybe, to your point, there's not a dissemination focus that the point is that the employees that mr. nauta, that trump himself, all of them were able, in theory, as were his guests at weddings and events in the ballroom where the documents were, could have also seen these a classified documents. >> i think that's right. and it's exactly the most important point. this is about national security and potential harm to national security. so i think part of the reason they provide the descriptions of documents in a bathroom or in a ballroom is that we don't know -- and i think candidly the government is saying they don't know who could have had access to this. and it goes to the special counsel smith's comments.

that is troubling. that is frightening. that has the potential to harm national security. the intelligence community, when they are assessing the damage, they now have an 18-month window where who knows who had access to that ballroom. there's not going to be enough footage and testimony. another piece of that, though, which is really important, which is even though with the dissemination evidence and whether they can show it or not in the end, i think it's going to be a key feature of this case. the details are there for the other reason. >>. >> i have a bunch of questions about how this is going to be tried. you can answer any or all of them. on page 45 the prosecutors assert this would be a 21-day trial. i i wanted to ask if that seems

about right to you in terms of complexity. second of all, what you were describing was super compelling about how classified the documents are. there's 31 documents that are described we get a brief description and an account from the government as to what level of classification they are. and you rightfully point out this is highly classified stuff. including some of the stuff that's so highly classified, we're not allowed to know what level of classification it's at. we're not even allowed to know what mark rgs on it. how do they deal with that in front of a jury? the jury doesn't have security clearance. how do they work with that in the trial setting given that the documents that they base these charges on are so highly classified. and the last question, as you say, they are charging willful retention of national defense information under the espionage act.

did they have other choices? or given the facts laid out,s was that the obvious and only statute under which to bring these charges? >> i wrote erg down. we'll hit them all. 21 days, yes, i think we're talking weeks. certainly not days. we still don't know what the former president's defense would be. but it's acknowledge the this is going to be a lengthy trial. two points yobd the length of the trial. a key question because we're bumping up against an election, how long is it going to take to bring this case to trial? there are an incredible number of complex issues here, including involving classified information. special procedures. the former president just got a new attorney. that individual needs to get up to speed on this. the former president's attorneys need to get a security clearance. they need to get a high security clearance to view that information. that can take time.

there's going to be litigation on this there. when can this even go to trial and i think in some senses that's even more difficult and important to answer than how long the trial would be. in terms of how you show it to a jury, there's a tried and true way to do this. a number of the prosecutors that aren the special counsel's team have done this before. you show it to the jury, you physically show it to the jury, but you don't publish the information to the public. you don't show it to them on the official record. it's not on a screen in front of them. the judge has it in front of them. the jury has it in front of them. you'll have a witness that will walk them through, look at that first paragraph. do you see the second line when it says something about the military or something about this foreign country. and so they will walk through it, but they will be very careful in terms of how they do it. some of the visual, if there were maps, the public will not see that. but they will litigate this. there will be pretrial hearings

where they will talk about what they can and can't do. when i say they, it's not just the department of justice. it's the defense attorneys. what arguments can they make? how are they going to refer to some of this information. i'll give you an example, which is, one of the classic ways to defend against these issues that something is classified, you pull something that's available in the public. sometimes that can lead to issues if what's available in the public is too close to what is actually classiied because your back-door con if you remembering that classification. so there are challenges. when the intelligence community says something is too sensitive, it's because they don't want the jury to see this. i'm struck by the level of sensitivity in many of documents. they had to sign off on this. we are okay with a jury seeing

this. they do not get a security clearance. that's remarkable. and finally, were there any other charges? i don't think so. i think this is exactly the charge. this is it. there are other lesser charges that could have been. there's theft of government property. this was the most serious charge the government could have brought. it's certainly the one that's most consistent with other cases involving retention. >> brandon, nice to see you. in a very different context. i wanted to go to this issue of dissemination in paragraph 6 and your thought that it maybe that there's some issue with respect to the proof. i was wondering -- this maybe goes to venue as well. i was struck by the fact that the two instances are actually not in florida. they are in new jersey. to your point that you just made, to me me, dissemination is more significant crime.

do you think that's the another possibility that they didn't charge it because it's actually happening in a district outside of florida? or is it more you think there's some issue with the proof rather than the location? >> i think it's a great point in terms of why perhaps it wouldn't have been charged, except they don't reference the documents in the charging instrument. the paragraph before, they refer to an episode where there was spillage. the document that spilled is document number 8. they don't refer to the documents and then say, this is the document we found. so it leads me to believe the 31 documents they are referring to aren't the documents that are in there. now if they did refer to them, then i think you're absolutely correct. that's why they wouldn't have charged dissemination. they may not have those documents. >> i theed to ask about the way that there's such a deliberate

kind of reenforcement of certain things, where as a prosecutor if you have it, you have it. but if you can double or triple it, great. early on in page 3, they go through a bulleted list, where they talk about the obstruction and say basically trump did this in more than one way. he tied to get his attorney to do it. he tried to get them to move the boxes. hi tried to get his attorney to destroy documents. then he did a partial return. partial cooperation doesn't work if you're holding back dlts in a violation. and finally, causing the certificate few indication to be submitted. what do you think of the strength of this? why do you think prosecutor did it this way? >> they certainly had a lot to work with. that's why you see multiple parts of obstruction and conceal

ment. but i i think part of the reason that you're seeing this in detail, and again reenforcing a point, obstruction is critical. that's the reason we're talking about this case overall. it's not about the classified documents. it's that there's an on instruction that showed this individual didn't want to turn those documents over. refused to. it was intentional. i think the concealment and obstruction, each instance of obstruction and concealment is evidence of intent and knowledge. so i don't think it's just merely to prove the obstruction and the conceal the the. it's indications and efforts to build that case of a willful retention. >> if your actual defense is, a, none of this is classified anymore and none of this is stolen. then you wouldn't go to such

extreme lengths. >> false statements, it's very common when you bring a case that there are false statements that are charged with it. the reason why the false statement charges are important isn't just because there's another charge. it's because it raises the question why would you lie? whien wouldn't you be truth nfl that instance? and the fact that you would lie, the fact that you would subject yourself to criminal penalty suggests you were hiding something. that you knew something and that's why it's off in a critical piece. >> we learned at an earlier stage that the judge had seen enough evidence, but we learned what some of that evidence was. i want to read it to you.

trump met with them at mar-a-lago to discuss the response to the subpoena. the attorneys told trump they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification there have been compliance with the subpoena. trump in some in substance made the following statements as memorialized by trump attorney one. i don't want anybody looking, don't want anybody looking through my boxes. i really don't. i don't want you looking through my boxes. b, what if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them? wouldn't it be better to tell them we don't have anything here. d, well, look, isn't it better if there are no documents. in hindsight, it's pretty obvious why this is part of all this. as someone who has been on the other side of investigations, they don't end in an indictment. protecting the national security sometimes more opaque endeavor.

have you ever seen conduct like this? and not just from an ex-commander-in-chief of these united states, but tell me your reaction upon reading that. >> it's just so rare to actually have visibility into the communications between an attorney and client. it's just rare that that happens. so no, you don't see that type of evidence. even though the focus is on the words themselves, it's the individual who they are spoken to that's so remarkable. there's candor that you have with your attorney for a reason. because you have that attorney to protect you, to help you. and the fact that that privilege was pierced, the fact that the judge took and take incredibly seriously, you just don't see that. that doesn't mean it's unprecedented. it's just incredibly rare. >> i want to bring you back in

on this point. because your body of reporting and your two books have gotten at this. to him, the state was never different from his personal, political and legal equities. what you see in this transcript with his attorneys is that national defense information was, in his view, mine. my boxes. mine. we won't play ball with them. them being the federal government. >> that's exactly right. and that's going to -- that was a through line of the donald trump presidency. every element of his office, every element of the institution that was supposed to be serve ing the public he viewed as a tool or lever or trick that would be beneficial to him. sometimes to the trump org, to his own company, but steering all sorts of equal to his hotels. sometimes by basically just hoping ab agency would do what

he wanted if for that political crisis he was in that moment. make ab announcement, make a decision, regardless of the law, regardless of of the regulations, something that would help him, quote, unquote, sort of win the moment. he was a pr magician in terms of trying to win the moment. i think what's really important about his interior conversation a private conversation with his lawyer, if i can just reflect on that a little bit, you see the real donald trump having a private conversation, which he should be allowed to have in privacy had he not obstructed a federal subpoena in a criminal investigation. you should be able to ask your lawyer, hey, will i get in trouble for this. and be allowed to do that. but you see the real donald trump here saying wouldn't it be better if we didn't have any documents. and that is how he acted as

president in many of his conversations with his cabinet secretaries. couldn't we just ship these people back to mexico, even though it violates our treaties and agreements couldn't we just ship them back? if you guys are charged with violating the law, i'll just par you. these were things he said in the oval office when he was running the country. so it is just part and parcel of the thread that runs through everything for donald trump. how does it help me? how does it benefit me? one of the troubling elements of when i look through the indictment is prosecutors having the evidence that donald trump was pressing and pushing his fairly low level aids to do his bidding, and not really thinking too much about how that might ultimately impact them. now to a loyal aid may now be

rethinking his loyalty and which side he's on now that he faces three counts of false staumts to the fbi in may of 2022 and misleading them about what donald trump told him and what he himself did to move dths in a way that clouded a criminal investigation and a subpoena. >> as recently as two nights ago, donald trump's lawyer who left the criminal defense team was saying to me, said similar things that as far as he knew, it wasn't at all clear to him that donald trump knew what was in any of the boxes. that was floating around defense world publicly for trump. in this document, there's vivid descriptions of him with his

hands in the documents. and as you look at it,s it does seem all of that behavior that we're reading about in here, now in description as criminal behavior does seem to be behaviorally consistent with what all of your reporting behind the scenes of his operations were like. >> you mention that, it take mess back to a particular moment, which i didn't know at the time, but my colleague and i uncovered in our additional reporting. you may remember it well. donald trump sauntered down while president to the office of his chief of staff. it was in the middle of the mueller investigation. andrew wiesman was on appeal. and in the moment, donald trump

announces to a group of reporters who gathered for a background thing, he announces to them that he's eager to meet with robert mueller to sit down for ab interview. it's a question all reporters are trying to get an answer to. what we learned is donald trump as he arrived had just left his own office in and a room full of lawyers in which they had convinced him and he agreed that he would never sit for an interrue with robert mueller. so it's so striking what he says in public versus what he actually does. i have to say i give him credit today because in announing his own indictment, he was close to accurate in describing it, other than the number of counts against him. he self-reported, he likes to get ahead of the news, but he did get close to accurate in his description on thursday night.

>> just wanted to respond to what lawrence said. we talk about the lawyers in the news here. you usually only talk about the lawyers when you get really up to the trial itself and you say how was the closing argument. then you're talking about what a good lawyer is supposed to get attention for, which is their work, their lut gags. on this case i alone, we have seen four lawyers out. others remain to be explored and he's welcome back as we learn about the case. mr. corcoran recused out, now a key negative witness with husband notes, as we have been reporting. two more lawyers just left today. donald trump had to make and he

will be defended by a firm to be named. i say that to say that's a tough spot. he's tried to get so many lawyer s to commit crimes. sol of whom refused, some of whom may have gotten up to the line. we'll find out. and a couple whom we don't have the full story left breaking news today. that's also weighing him down. >> one of them went to prison. >> and the notes, the narrater of the mueller report, the narrater of this chunk we have been reading from is evan corcoran.

>> if you go to your point after paragraph 55. this is my favorite and said page 21. paragraph 55. it's memorialized by trump attorney one. that's cork ran. and this is the irony because in paragraphs 22 and 55, all references hillary clinton. paragraph 22 is to show donald trump's knowledge and they use all his statements. and in paragraph 55 it's an explicit reference saying to corcoran, why can't you do what he suspects hillary clinton had her attorney do. and is basically why aren't you getting rid of these for me. >> he was the one who deleted

all the e-mails. because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and her having beauty appoint thes. he was great. she didn't get in any trouble because he said he was the one who deleted them. >> trump related the story more than once that day. that's what's going on here. which is basically how did she get a lawyer willing to do this crime for me. if you're wondering why they ruled the way she did, it's because of things like this. >> that's the predicate to page 25. >> hang on, let people flip. this goes to what we were discussing. >> if you can show the palt earn and practice and the intent, it's even worse. this was where, again, corcoran, through these damning notes, says oh, trump made a quote, funny motion. you could take those with you. we're talking about these secret

documents. to your hotel room. if there's anything really bad in there like pluck it out was the motion, that was the motion he made, pluck it out, we're talking about destroying or hiding evidence. that's why this goes to joy reminds us everybody remembers michael cohen. cohen was someone who got pulled in farther than corcoran, who served prison time, but it goes back to a very memorable quote that people remember, what kind of lawyer did you need. we don't need a criminal lawyer. we need a criminal. that's what he's describing. >> they had the sense to say you don't put a criminal conspiracy in writing. corcoran is writing all of this down. >> we got this information after piercing the attorney-client privilege so what i'm fascinated by is the piercing of the

privilege. to obtain much of what we see here, what is not completely obvious to me is what did they have before to get to the gold mine. they had to have had something that allowed them to get to the gold mines. that's not separated out here. >> you don't know because you don't know exactly the time looib of what they had had when. just remember the things that seem clear is they had a certification that said we did a diligent search. everything has been turned over. and you could present that to the judge. you can present that that's false because they have ended the search and there are the dlts. and the sufficient is that sol of this information about the box movement is something they had and presented. >> all of that will become known because that application to judge howell is something that will be given to the defense.

>> that they deliver to the feds in writing. they described it as someone who knew nothing. we knew very quickly that corcoran had written that. at that point, it was very clear to you in discussing it with us that he's absolutely going to have to explain that. there's no way he won't have to explain that. >> to wrap it in two sentences, this is the original warrant. and it says we think you violated the espionage act. and today that's what's been charged. there's a straight line from that. jack smith hasn't missed yet. the defendant is presumed innocent, but what they said they were looking for is what they charged. >> i want to ask you the role the security footage, which was also in a lot of the filings prior to today played in all this. i have also the numbers of class

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in my administration, i'm going to enforce all concerning the protection of classified information.

no one will be above the law. >> we also need to fight this battle by collecting intelligence and then protecting our classified secrets. >> one of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information. >> we also need the best protection of classified information. >> we can't have someone in the oval office who doesn't understand the meaning of confidential or classified. >> we just can't, you guys. we can't do that. we just can't have someone in the oval office that doesn't know the difference between, you know, you know. there's always a tape. >> all of that, as far as i can tell, that's all stuff that's referenced in the indictment. and again, it has a very high

factor, in terms of pointing out hiss hypocrisy, how can you say that, campaign on that and then have done the things that are alleged in this indictment. but in a material, legal, technical way, it shows that he knew this was wrong, materially relevant to the national security of the united states, and illegal. and so there isn't something in this indictment where we have to think, oh, what do prosecutors have on intent, what do they have on his mens rea, on his culpability based on the fact he knew this was wrong. it's all out there. there isn't anything you need to dig for. so it's boths a to beishing to see him say that. it does matter in terms of him

knowing what he was doing and how wrong it was. knowing that it's not only against the law, but against the law in a way that he enhanced the penalties for when he was president. >> chris hayes has joined us. >> not only that. if i'm not mistake, the obama administration set a record in espionage act prosecutions. so it wasn't just rhetoric. it was policy of the department of justice under donald trump to more aggressively pursue cases precisely like this as a kind of follow-through on the campaign rhetoric. i wanted to ask a question here. maybe i missed this. so when all this goes out, there is almost a comical aspect to the sort of, it's not here, we don't have it. the box is like a vaudville routine, the papers are flying out of the clown's coat. i don't have them.

there's extremely funny moments, including walt nauta opening a closet and texting a photo, oh, no, someone is like, here's my question. we know from page 14 of this and paragraph 32, he moves some of the boxes to minister. >> let us flip. we're flipping. >> he caused the boxes to be there. we then get the rundown of the infamous tape in which he's wave ing the document around. it's the document which is classified, which he has cause to be moved to travel with him to bedminster. back after mar-a-lago was searched, and we learned, i remember thinking to myself, the funniest plot twist would be if it they searched bedminster and found more stuff. why didn't they search

bedminster. isn't it weird that we have in the indictment that we know that classified documents ended up there, as recorded here, we know the guy is a pack rat. >> we know he traveled with boxes. >> it is a little strange to me that they didn't search bedminster. >> brandon, why would that be? >> i missed you guys. it's great to see you. >> we're still here. we're always here. >> i'm sorry can't hang out with the pos sit up there. one point i wanted to make. it's a point that ari made earlier. and i think it's just worth emphasizing. he was waving the indictment and talking about plucking it out. there are two pieces here. we're talking about the strength of the case, how important is this evidence. but the other piece that's critical is distinguishing how this case was treated, is treated and other similar cases. and that is the paragraph that i

think makes this tangible. the two most compelling pieces that differentuate this case and the investigation against the vice president pence and pooud, one is the volume and sensitivity of the documents. the other is the obstruction. you did not have -- there's no chance, there's no evidence that you had vice president pences or president biden making a pluck it out motion or talking about in any way, shape or form they shouldn't do anything other than hurry up and give those documents back to the fbi. then open up their storage room and say you search it. you figure it out. then that leads to the bedminster question there was contention. there was at least based on reporting contention within the department, whether they should do another search, whether the chief judge howell needs to make certain findings regarding

compliance with thesubpoena. we were talking about dissemination. i said they don't have the document. the better way to say it is they don't know whether they have those documents. that's the reason we don't see the specifics. >> chris? >> i also wonder to your point, because i remember that reporting, should we search bedminster. you know, all of this -- all of this exists in two spaces at all times which is it a regular investigation and it's investigation of the former president of the united states. those judgment calls, i think, about whether you serve bedminster after this incredible serial noncompliance also probably -- i would be curious what you think -- comes up against those constitutional

restraints. >> i think -- let's go through the timeline here which is what we learned in terms of the subpoena, in response to the subpoena and on june 3rd, the former president's lawyers provide 38 documents. it's not everything. the search gets conducted. at least according to reporting, after that, there is concern that there may be documents elsewhere and there are representations that the former president has additional attorneys, additional individuals conducting searches. i believe that's what the reporting said. there are different facts in terms of the comprehensiveness. you may have former attorneys for the president saying i searched. there were representations that were more extensive than the qualified ones we saw here. >> brandon, there's a flow of when the government seeks to get

classified material back and when it drips in. i want to put it back up. on january 17th, one year after trump left and after multiple demands for trump to provide the missing records, trump provided the 15 boxes. they contained 197 classified documents. on june 3rd as a result of a grand jury subpoena trump's attorney provided to the fbi 28 more documents. on august 8th pursuant to a search warrant the fbi recovered from trump's office and a storage room at mar-a-lago 102 more classified documents. surveillance footage plays a role and it was shared and made public because of the extraordinary nature of the search. what role -- you talked about

confidential witnesses. how much do you think the government knew on the 3rd when far from the total amount, just 38 documents come back? how confident do you think they were when they're sitting there with 38 and there's a whole lot more they don't have back? >> it's a great question. we know they were already before june 3rd speaking to individuals at mar-a-lago. i do wonder -- again, just because this is a speaking indictment, that doesn't mean all the evidence is present here. this is just explaining the charges. i wonder whether you have employees or individuals who are -- for example, saying things like, well, i saw boxes in the bedroom. i saw something in the shower, something that would indicate that -- like, the -- something is up or whatever. i think to make the momentous decision they did to search, there must have been information

beyond that to sort of continue to have them press for surveillance footage and there must have been testimony that really caused them to think they didn't have everything. >> andrew? >> yeah, i agree with that. also could be coming from people other than employees. it could be coming from secret service. there's reasons why you would hold back certain things. i wanted to go to your point. if you look at what donald trump was trying to do and the clown show aspect of this, his first strategy on the obstruction was to say why do we have to comply? just tell them -- just lie. tell them we turned everything over. >> same thing he says to rosen and donahue about the election, just say it's corrupt. >> or to pence, you're being too honest. >> or gesturing the idea of what are they going to do, search mar-a-lago and indict me?

the answer is yes and yes. >> i think we should do it rachel maddow style. this are some things reported. i don't want anybody looking. i don't want anybody looking through my boxes. what happens if we don't respond or don't play ball? wouldn't it be better if we told them we don't have anything? well, there would be better if there were no documents. >> plan a is let's just lie. plan b is what we record about hillary clinton is can't you just get rid of these? this is a testament to in many ways corcoran being above board and not willing to go along. this is what causes him to have to move the boxes around. the lawyer's clearly going i'm not doing that, i'm not going to lie. at that point you have him saying we'll move the boxes

around so corcoran can't find them. >> the boxes, my boxes, there's a quality to trump throughout this whole thing. it's not that he didn't realize what was going on with the boxes. it's not that he had a normal amount of the awareness. he was obsessed with his possessions and documents to a degree that is deeply weird and also shows that this was all entirely intentional. >> we have to take a quick break. brandon, we understand you have to go. we're always here. you're always welcome. we could not have covered this day as wisely as we had without you. thank you very, very much for being part of our coverage. >> thank you. >> are you leaving as well? >> no. >> do you have to go? >> i'm going to work soon. i mean, i'm at work. >> you can stay a few more minutes. we're going to take a quick

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today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. trump with felony violations of our national security laws, as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the united states and they must be enforced. violations of those laws put our country at risk. >> hi, again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. we're continuing or breaking news coverage of the federal indictment of donald trump. this afternoon special counsel jack smith, that man, broke his silence with a short by dramatic address to the nation and the world. smith advised the public to read the 49-page indictment for themselves.

it was unsealed before he spoke. the indictment we've been reading page by page as we've been on the air lays out the seven charges and 38 felony counts against the former president and his aid. 31 counts against trump are for willful retention of national defense information. among the other counts conspiracy to obstruct justice and corrupting concealing a document or record. the indictment is filled with colorful and shocking revelations. we learned that trump was personally involved in packing up his many, many boxes containing classified documents. we learned those boxes containing classified documents were stored in various weird places around mar-a-lago, including on a stage in a ballroom and a bathroom and a shower. the content of the classified documents included information related to foreign countries, including their military

activities, nuclear capabilities of a foreign country, military contingency planning of the united states and much, much more. this stunning story that during a conversation with his lawyers about the subpoena issued by doj trump said this, quote, wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here? well, look, isn't it better if there are no documents? trump is set to be arraigned on tuesday in miami. rachel maddow, it gets more shocking the further we get away from the unsealing of the indictment and the brief statement of jack smith. >> yeah, i mean, we're back to where we started with this which is we don't know if this is going to be the only federal indictment of donald trump. i mean, it's been noted that this is part of what jack smith was investigating. he apparently was presenting evidence to grand juries both in florida where this indictment has been brought, but also in

washington, d.c. where they're looking at the january 6th related stuff and the stuff about trying to stay in office after he was voted out. there may yet be another federal indictment. to the extent we have this one to work with, it's straight for war. there's not a lot of sort of loose ends in terms of stuff that we still need to find out more about in terms of thinking about how this will come out in court. one of the things i've been thinking about is what's going to happen next, which we believe is the arraignment at 3:00 p.m. on tuesday in district court in miami. it's been reported today that the judge who's going to oversee that arraignment and set the initial sort of things in motion regarding this case leading ultimately to this trial will be judge aileen cannon who is a trump appointee. she's a judge who has been involved in this case in the

past and when she -- she is the judge who -- i don't mean this in a personal way, but she embarrassed herself with rulings that were so favorable to trump they were shocking to people in the legal world and then they were not just overruled by a very conservative appeals court that reviewed her decision, but she was actually criticized in sharp terms by that appeals court, by other trump appointees saying what you ruled here was nut ball. so she's been involved in this case before in a way that was strange and very pro-trump to the point where i think it affected her reputation overall as a judge. it will be interesting to see what she does on tuesday, the way the wheels are set in motion to start this case, to set timing and other important

substantive things about how the case will be litigated. it's in her hands on tuesday and she's an unusual character in this drama. >> i would like to make this point again. one of the things that jack smith said in his very, very brief presentation today was very specifically a grand jury indicted donald trump. this was a grand jury in the southern district of florida. they were already in place in florida in maga land. they heard this evidence that we've now been able to read and do some dramatic readings of and indicted him. that's cleared the lowest bar of we can get this past a florida grand jury. katy makes a point that's important. if, in fact, a jury in miami, trump country, and a judge who i think we can presume is going to rule in trump's favor a lot -- we don't know if she'll always rule in trump's favor, we don't

know if the reputational experience will change her behavior, let's just presume she rules a lot in trump's favor and then a jury in trump country convicts him, in a way it immunizes the process from what we already know trump allies on the hill will do, what his allies running for president will do, what his sycophants in the republican party will do. it will be hard to say trump was railroaded by a pro-trump maga judge, a miami jury in trump country and by a process where his own staff and lawyers are providing all the evidence. it helps, right? i mean, in a weird way. >> i totally agree with you, but here's the big open question. if she's the judge on the case, she can basically pocket veto this for quite sometime because

everything you said is totally right, but she is -- if she's the judge, she can say this is going to take a while. there are pending motions. the trial -- i'm not going to start thinking about the trial date for another year. basically we're talking post-election. that's the damage. >> to stall it until he could win and pardon himself. >> wouldn't even be that hard to put it off. in other words, cases take a while. she would have a lot of discretion. i think one of the things to rachel's point about what to expect and what could happen is is the government going to do something to say, you know what, she needs to recuse herself. it's hard to do that. it's worth noting to rachel's point that this judge's rulings were so out of bounds that she -- i mean, i remember at the time -- there were judges you

disagree with. there was a reason everybody i knew, including myself, thought this was beyond the pale. it didn't follow the law or the facts. that's why if you remember the special master got involved and judge deery was like night and day. you had a judge grounded in reality and the law. the 11th circuit reversed judge cannon not once, but twice. the issue to me is is the government going to say we're going to accept her as a judge and then battle over and over again, including on the trial because they'll ask for a speedy trial. >> jack smith already did. >> yeah. >> go ahead, rachel. >> let me ask one quick question. it's just a technical thing. i apologize if it's a known unknown. judge cannon is one of a whole

bunch of judges in that district, andrew. would she have been assigned respond for this arraignment tuesday because she had otherwise been involved in those earlier stages of this case when it came to those things that she ruled on and whether the justice department could reveal that matter and executive privilege? would she have got this case because of her earlier involvement or was it a random assignment? >> we don't know how that happened. i think that -- the intel i'm hearing is that the universe of judges in the location of the nucleus of facts is so small, near mar-a-lago, it's random. did she get it out of 24 and it just so happened it went to the same judge and same magistrate? that didn't happen. it may be random within that

nucleus, but it's something the government will drill down on to make sure the process by which she was selected was fair. then they could ask her to recuse. they could ask the chief judge at the district court level and then the 11th circuit. that's one avenue. the other is to keep battling it and create a record that she's being so unfair you ask her to recuse. >> you kind of got that. can the government object? can they say she's shown she's so bias that she can't take this case? could they ask make a national security case? she's based closer to palm beach. miami because of the way it's situated has more federal marshal structure and it's easier to do a case where you think there could be a national security issue in miami. could they on that basis or on the basis of the notion that she

can't be fair or has shown she can't be objective, could they get her pushed off the case? >> i would say if you have a chief judge inclined to rule for the government, that would be a lovely fig leaf to use so you don't have to make a ruling that a colleague has the appearance of impropriety. this does happen rarely and when courts do it they bend over backwards to do it in the most benign way. that's one potential strategy. i can assure you that conversation is going on right now about, you know, first to rachel's point finding out how the selection was made and then trying to figure out legally what other options there are. >> let me bring in alex garner. since you got off the air last night -- >> what's happened?

there was some sandwich crumbs ari left. i swept the crumbs off. >> we were going to connect him to an iv because he hadn't really left. the indictment, jack smith, what are your thoughts? >> many. the first -- apologies if you already addressed this. i was very moved by this in a way. the moment that smith sort of pauses his remarks and says, i think it's important to presume innocence. it reminds everybody that donald trump is innocent until proven guilty. for him to go out of his way in this moment where he's amassed what looks to me a layman, not someone that went to law school, an open and shut case, it's a reminder that as complicated as this will be for our government, our department of justice, our democracy, someone with a lot of

integrity is running the show. that i thought was important. beyond that, it reads like a whodunit. the fact that classified information about some of the most sensitive programs and sources in our country and overseas was basically stored at like a cvs or grand central station. i mean, no security. boxes in the ballroom. boxes next to the toilet. it's comic, right? it's unthinkably ridiculous. can you imagine if you were a secret undercover agent working to help the cia abroad and this is how we're treating the work that you have done? this is how we've taken care of your life and service for the united states of america. it is damning. it is chilling and my -- i mean, i can't imagine what it's like to be overseas in afghanistan,

in iran, in any of these places where people live in peril to keep our democracy upright to see the president of the united states treat these secrets with such impunity, such cavalier behavior -- we can't lose sight that these are people's lives. >> i saw the wall in cia where people have died and he was there and made asinine comments about the size of the crowd. he never respected them. >> to the central -- in here, in the indictment, he thinks they're his. full stop. they belong to him. in fact, we talked to other trump lawyers who said the

presidential records act wasn't intended as criminal statute. it's not true. it was an emergency piece of legislation passed by congress because richard nixon is about to destroy evidence of his own criminality. there's an emergency passage of this law to stop him from doing that that will come challenged at the supreme court and become the actual presidential act signed by jimmy carter. in the moment it's passed it's because richard nixon is incapable of making a distinction between the office of the presidency and his thirst for power. here we are now 30 years later in the exact same situation with a law passed exactly to stop this which is the irrigation of the people's property. >> let me bring rachel back in

and introduce former acting u.s. solicitor general neil catiel. neil, let me get your thoughts. >> it's not that some documents were stolen. it's the kind of documents that were there and trump lied about. i was surprised by this 49-page document because it's truly a speaking indictment. the indictment speaks in loud and clear terms that the prosecutors have damning evidence against trump, and a lot of it. to me, nicolle, the thing that stood out the most is that it's trump's own words. it's his own damaging statement after his own damaging statement before and after the subpoena was issued.

trump's big mouth ultimately did him in. that's what this indictment reflects. normally at the indictment stage i would caution it's hard to evaluate and there will be any number of defenses, but this indictment is so thorough, so profoundly bad for donald trump, i'm not sure how he can defend himself. >> we've seen the attempts at defenses. they all seem to melt away when you read the deadly serious nature of what he endangered. rachel? >> on the point of what he endangered, that's exactly what i've been thinking about through this whole discussion. we don't have an explicit explanation in the text of the indictment about what harm was done to u.s. national security by his alleged handling of these documents and disclosure of these documents to people who didn't have clearance. if you step back, you can

imagine the harm that is done just by our allies around the world now knowing that this incredibly secret information that they have shared with us or that they have co-developed with us, stuff only cleared to be seen by the five eyes, our allies around the world know that in the united states their very sensitive documents and information and secrets have not been protected. they've been kept in a bathroom with an inexplicable to let chandelier in a private club in florida, parked on a stage in a ballroom. more than 300 documents, classified, almost all involve important equities that depend on them trusting us to be able to handle our stuff and we can't

handle our stuff. on page 15 and 16 of the indictment, we have this apparent recording of trump talking about a document, a recorded meeting where he's showing classified information to a writer and staffer. he says, look, all sort of stuff, pages long, it's highly confidential. secret. this is secret information. look, look at this. it's like a child coming from from playing outside saying, look, mommy, plutonium. it fell out of a box. look, look. just the horror that this stuff is out there, the harm is done. our national security reputation, our ability to work with our allies who need u.s. to be trustworthy is harmed by what donald trump has allegedly done. >> frank, this has been a line

in all -- i want to read that section. we have trump's motive. he's trying to smear who in his mind is a political adversary. he's trying to smear chairman mark milley. well, with the senior military official, let me see that. i'll show you an example. he said i wanted to attack country a, isn't it amazing? i have a big pile of papers. look, this was him. they presented me this. this is off the record. they presented me this. this was him. this was the department of defense and him. donald trump was always on a revenge tour against someone and to rachel's point we don't really know the blast radius of the damage that this reckless handling and willful retention caused, do we? >> we don't yet. you have described a possible glimpse into at least partial

motivation. we know from his track record that he's trans actional. everything is a transaction. for some of the documents after going through them he said i'll keep this because it has value to me. we have multiple people describing a president who would take boxes of documents and sit with them on air force one and show people, look, i'm working. i'm reading. may not have any clue what's in the stack of papers. it's a mixed situation in terms of motivation. let's be certain of one thing. regardless of his motivation, what strikes me from this indictment is the level of secrecy attached to these documents and the breadth of the agencies from which they come. when i see a listing of the agencies who had a piece of that

unfortunately for them, had their documents in the open at mar-a-lago and they include the national security agency, the department of energy, the national geospace agency, the cia, we're talking about agencies within the intelligence community we refer to by code word so we don't say the name of the agency. that's how secretive it is. yet, they're in the shower and on the stage. i can't help but think how large a target mar-a-lago has been for years and how undoubtedly foreign intelligence services have made their way there. we have only peeks of that in public reporting about foreign nationals who got in somehow and got close to the president. i'm here to tell you there was far more going on in the

background. we don't know the extent to which they actually -- those foreign powers may have got their eyes or hands on some of those documents. >> can you imagine the scene in the spy movie when the person who is rolling up to some wedding at mar-a-lago in disguise excuses themselves to go to a bathroom to find a million boxes with sensitive documents? >> or the shower. >> they detail that on page four. first of all, hundreds of members of mar-a-lago, staffed by more than 150 people and hosted more than 150 social events. this was like grand central station. >> they're trying to get ahead of this idea that these were kept in a locked storage room. what's the big deal? this was basically intact. why are you complaining? okay, maybe it wasn't exactly right. maybe it should have been a scif, but this was a locked room. >> the pictures are there as

irrefutable evidence. >> exactly. this is totally getting ahead of that. they also said the secret service was not told anything about this and had no idea. don't use the secret service as an out. just to the big question to frank, the last time i was this surprised that the intelligence community went along with something like this was the two russia indictments where -- without getting into the details the intelligence community has to sign off on this. the idea that the intelligence community signed off on the 21 top secret documents is flabbergasting. you can imagine the meeting where everybody had to pony up. you have nsa, cia, everyone saying we understand this is important because to rachel's point, the damage is done and the prospect of having donald trump back in the white house

does not help. when you're trying to get cooperation from other countries, the idea that it's -- how do we know this isn't going to happen again? that i can tell you is so damaging to national security. that is our national security. it's not about getting information just to protect the rest of the world. the way that we are safer is by getting that information. >> i want to bring neil in. i know we'll lose you in a minute, neil. how do you think these serious national security issues -- it's clear from listening to frank talk and others, we may not understand the scale of the damage that's been done. revealing that may not be in the national interest. how do you think that plays into this revolving door of defense attorneys on the trump side? >> the trump attorneys were floating this defense, nicolle. they were saying no harm, no foul.

the documents remained in a locked area. no threat or harm to national security. i think there are two fundamental problems with that argument. i expect that will be trump's argument in the days and months to come. one is, as we've been talking, there's an obvious harm now. if you're an ally, if you're britain, canada or australia, are you going to share things with us? that's why a prosecution like this is so important. it's also true by the way for our own spies in the field, our covert agents, folks who work for other governments, do they want to take a life-threatening risk when they know their information that they generate could be so cavalierly handled? that's why i think -- i've always said since the night of the mar-a-lago raid many months ago, this is going to culminate in trump being prosecuted. you have to do this.

there's no alternative. the other thing is that the whole regime around classified information, it's not like you have to prove the harm to national security. the idea is that just by handling the information there's a risk something bad could happen. it's like drunk driving. the person who drives home drunk doesn't get in an accident, they could say no harm, no foul. the law is written to say you're engaged in a very serious risk. those people we put in jail for long periods of time. this is a far more serious thing and i think jack smith's indictment recognized it. when he said to americans read the indictment, that's when i say read the indictment. it's hard to come up with any other explanation other than this is a wanton criminal and

deserves to be brought to justice. >> neil, inevitably what's going to happen on the right the comparisons are going to be made to other people who had access to or contact with classified materials and have not been indicted. i will note they were all investigated. there's no one who had contact with classified material, whether hillary clinton or vice president mike pence or the sitting president now who was former vice president. the justice department investigated all of them. check there. donald trump is being treated like everyone else. i go back to sandy berger who was a national security official in the clinton administration who pled guilty to avoid jail time. he had access to a small amount of classified material that he took out of the national archives and he was all the way prosecuted. the scale of that and the fact

that he destroyed some of the documents weighed in on he didn't give them back, some documents were destroyed. to me that fact pattern is similar. the scale with trump is so much different. the fact he had this hide and seek. trump goes through this hide and seek where he has please saying trump is tracking the boxes. more to follow today on whether he wants to go through trump. trump employee two, thank you. trump employee two, got anything new of the boxes? can we get new box covers? days later. get you information on boxes. it seems like there's a hide and seek to hide the boxes to make sure no one can get to the boxes. there's no other official that i heard of -- hillary clinton say what you want. she wasn't doing a hide and

seek. if she forwarded emails to a foreign country, they could have found that. does that explanation in your mind help to frame this when the right brings up hillary clinton, brings up joe biden and brings up mike pence? >> yes. i agree with you totally. three points. one, absolutely we have the long track record of prosecuting people for even small amounts of mishandling classified information and putting people in jail for that. that's established precedent. second, the scale of this law breaking was so much worse. i was surprised in this indictment to learn it was hundreds of classified documents and as andrew was saying, not just any old classified documents, but some of the most classified documents.

this is really serious stuff. number three, the distinction with people like the pence or the biden thing, beyond just the scale of it, is the obstruction afterwards. it's one thing if you make a mistake. it's another thing if you don't own up to it, if you lie about it, engage in dress rehearsals for boxes to be moved, to tell your attorneys information was provided and it wasn't and you're caught red handed with these documents because the fbi raided your social club. all this stinks to high heaven. that's why jack smith made the choice he did, made it in a detailed way. if you're donald trump, the guy never seems to be afraid of anything, but i suspect he's terrified. this is as serious as the law gets. >> andrew, after being on live television for about 40 hours,

we're going to let you go. >> what? so soon? >> i heard they were considering an iv drip to keep you here. before we let you take a bathroom break before your next shift, i want to ask you something about the man. i mean, mueller was lionized and i think people thought it was justified. across the spectrum we were disappointed by the outcome, a whole lot of pardons that wiped out the work you were involved in and bill barr smearing the facts and the truth. >> yep. >> what, if anything, is in the doj dna to not let someone like trump houdini his way out of brazen crimes? >> it's really important to think about the difference in terms of situations.

one, it's -- it's useful to think of the press conference today as in the robert mueller style. this was a jack smith who is not enamored of speaking in public. it was clear he was really good. >> really? >> this is i'm going to say what i have to say and that's it. it was terse, to the point and that's it. very mueller-esque. the difference is he gets to charge somebody who is no longer the president. he doesn't have to worry about an attorney general undermining him. three, he doesn't have to worry, yet, about the potential for pardons to deter cooperation. he has a lot going for him. having said all that, it's also -- jack is a really good prosecutor. he's really thorough. he had a good team in terms of experience in this particular area and it's also worth noting

we're talking about an amazing indictment now. there is more to come. this is one set of charges and, as damning as this indictment is, it's worth remembering what he's still being investigated for in two jurisdictions. it's overthrowing the will of the people. as much as we're talking about -- i totally agree about the importance of this. i was in national security. i was listening to you thinking this is great that you're making that point, but what he's under investigation for is worse and goes to the very heart of our democracy. >> it's second in the history of the country only to the confederacy, the greatest crime ever committed. reading this and thinking about

this, i have long strongly thought criminal accountability in a court of law for that day and what led up to it is crucial for him specifically, not just the other people involved in it. these are independent investigations. one doesn't bear on the other in terms of the law. they're parallel. smith's willingness to go about this in the way he has makes me more bullish because it seems like are there chargeable criminal conduct of donald trump in the runup to january 6th? yes. is it a hard case? maybe. is it worth it? absolutely. all three of those seem crystal clear to me. the fact that they've gone through this with the tenacity they have, makes me think the other shoe will drop. whether it does or not --

>> even though it's considered to be the least important case, we're seeing new york gets to donald trump's greed. the e. jean carroll case gets to his hatred of women and violence. this gets to his lack of basic patriotism and weirdness and oddness. it's the january 6th piece that gets to his utter hatred of this country. he can't love this country or the military if he gets a navy man to be his gopher to commit crimes for him and then say i'll pay for your lawyers and let him go down like the january 6th people. every piece that's happening to donald trump right now, gets to different parts of his villainy. there's no piece of it that isn't important. >> we have to sneak in a quick

break. neil, andrew, we can't do it without you. thank you so much. i have to say too, while i have the floor, on monday on my broadcast you predicted that jack smith would charge donald trump this week and you were right. we pushed you and pressed you and you held by that. you were right. >> off-track betting we should listen. >> give us the lotto numbers. >> they were getting close to 30 on that. still ahead, reaction from the right and potential calls to violence from trump supporters. our breaking news coverage continues. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back.

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we are back on this historic day of news. my colleague rachel maddow had been monitoring some of the vitriol coming from the right. what are you seeing? >> nicolle, one of the things we were watching is not only what this means personally for donald trump and his political future. what we're watching is what this means for the country. donald trump has been explicit in warning that, if the legal system is used to hold him to account, that he'll call on his supporters to respond through means of protest or through means of fighting or other terms like that. well, we've seen already in pro-trump message boards online people calling for violence. we saw that after his first

indictment. we've seen things from republican members of congress. this is from republican congressman clay higgins of louisiana. president trump said he's been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. hold. our potus has this. our potus is what trump people use meaning real president of the united states. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. one over 50k, know your bridges, which means be ready when it comes to knowing about critical infrastructure. rock steady calm. that is all. this is a perimeter probe from the oppressors and then this reference in military jargon to what people should be doing in

response, with the specific reference to which courthouse trump will be in on tuesday. that was clay higgins last night. you saw an alarmed response to that. what is congressman higgins doing here? this afternoon it got worse. republican congressman andy biggs of arizona posting this this afternoon. we have now reached a war phase. eye for an eye. again, we're seeing trump supporters and trump media personalities on the right effectively calling for violence. at least calling for some sort of physical resistance to this act by the justice department. to have members of congress using language like this, i'm glad it's not more than two of them, but we're seeing a couple of them get far out on a limb to the point where that limb starts breaking as far as whether or not we're a country that's going to accept we're a country with a

rule of law. >> we have one investigation, the january 6th select committee probe that was able to track the impact of the december 19th tweet, quote, come. it will be wild for which two groups were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. we have a warning by dhs and the fbi governing our country right now saying every group except republican men are a potential target for violence. we have acts of political violence that have been carried out against the speaker's husband, against election workers in new mexico. it's not a will it happen? it's a has it happened and will happen again. >> and, you know, it's interesting to see -- >> we have florida, rachel. we have the fact that, you know,

that is enrique tarrio's base. people are concerned about florida becoming a magnet for extremism. it's the planning base for maga right now. it's concerning that a member of congress, a member of the body that was attacked on january 6th would actually do a stand back and stand by type tweet in reference to donald trump. if that was last night, that's before anybody got a chance to read the indictment. it's actually frightening. i think the security around that miami courthouse had better be real tight because this isn't having to fly people into d.c. miami already has the problem. let's be reminded that florida is now a no permit carry state. it is now a state where the

governor is encouraging it to become more like texas in terms of, you know, wielding firearms. it's -- this stuff -- this makes me lose sleep. florida ain't the florida i lived in. florida has become much more extremist. it's scary to have members of congress stoking this. >> the important thing to watch is what trump calls for from his supporters. one of the understood appreciated things is, i think it's somewhat humiliating for trump to call for nationwide protests in response to that indictment in new york. it was a handful of people on a bridge going to mar-a-lago. in new york on the day of his arraignment there was a busload

of people in new york. he wanted the whole country shut down by mass pro-trump civil disobedience, and he didn't get it. it may be he approaches this differently in terms of asking for something he might not get. the geography matters. asking for it in manhattan might be a different kettle of fish than asking for it in florida. >> alex? >> it's meaningful that it's members of congress that are saying this, using this military lingo. as someone who has spoken to former militia members, a lot of these guys responsible for january 6th were ex military, current military. we're not talking for an ousted former president. we're talking about people in congress who the president has tasked with getting him off the hook and who have been falling in line. if you see what the oversight committee has been doing, if you

look at the judiciary committee, they're listening to trump. they have power. that is a real distinction. we know that congress has tried to mess around with alvin bragg. we know jim jordan, comer, they're fired up. now you have these tweets calling for military action. >> is frank still with us? >> i am. >> frank, what do you see? >> there's a concern developing. i'm talking to la enforcement contacts in south florida. i served there at fdi miami. joy is right about her characterization of the region. it's a hodge podge of every possible belief, conspiracy theory. i'm told that even today on

english radio and spanish radio, there's a stream of conspiracy theories, anti-federal government rhetoric. it's something that happens every day. the security challenge really is significant. the problem is this is very much split up, the security and threat and risk plan. you have secret service with their protectee. you have the u.s. marshals with the courthouse and personnel in that courthouse. you have the city of miami police department three blocks from the federal courthouse, a relatively small police department. then you have miami-dade county that will come in and that and establish outer perimeters. the state authorities as well, but this is all hands on deck. and you and i, nicolle, have talked recently about that's very nice, you can throw resources at this, but the tools in the tool kit, the domestic terrorism response mechanisms simply aren't there.

and so in order to repeat something like january 6th, which by all accounts isn't something that's going to happen because of the chilling effect of the 1,000 arrests, but that lone operator, a small group who are planning something are going to key off of something trump does or posts or something some senator or congress member says or does. and that's the challenge. >> you know, i want to bring into our coverage maya wily. you've been sitting with us, and i'm sorry we haven't brought you in yet, but you think about trump's explicit nature doing what rachel just described, come to d.c., will be wild, and you look at the copycat excitement in congress, and to frank's point we have precious few tools to deal with that. what are your thoughts? >> well, first let me say this is a level of fear possibility

of violence whether or not there was a indictment in the sense and we did a report called cause for concern because every single election cycle we've watched the building of violent extremist, white supremacist neo-nazis increasing their threat and their incitement because we're about to behave in a democracy and something so essential to that democracy, show up to vote. what donald trump is doing is actually taking advantage of what he has helped to stoke, what he has allowed to come into the light of day and have permission. and what we have seen is an increase in the number of people joining proud boy chapters since january 6th. this has happened since post-january 6th. so between congress' inability to convict him and during the impeachment for this very violence that he helped to

incite has simply reinforced, reempowered and continuing to stoke the growth of hate and bias and organize -- because i agree with frank with individuals, but it's also organized and growing and developing this in country. and it's because political figures such as these have not only given it permission, pretend it doesn't exist, but in some instances actually join it. >> maya, can i just make a point the responsible figures to the extent they remain in the republican party, the incentive structure is all wrong here. everyone who's running for president the incentive structure is to defend trump. and even mike pence, you know, who was the intended victim on january 6th his statement was very mixed today. he said it's important to carefully handle classified documents. i apologized and returned the documents that were found in my possession, but he then got onboard with the idea this is the weaponization of government.

he got on that train. >> clean house from the top to the bottom of the doj if he became the next president. >> exactly. and of course you have ron desantis or desantis, however you pronounce his name these days who's essentially whipping up the maga base thinking he can steal them from donald trump. so he's doing everything vowing he will -- it's weaponization of government, it's all the rhetoric not that far from what those posts by that member of congress. his rhetoric is getting real close, and you only have like mitt romney who has no moral authority in the republican party left and asa hutchinson a former federal prosecutor and also a former governor of new jersey, they're the only two talking sense. so if you don't have chris christie who can be the bully voice to tell people knock it off, at least he has that ability. it's concerning to me people in it republican party there's no one saying let me be the grownup

here and shut this down. >> edie, i think one of the asymmetrical aspects to trumpism the any biggs call arms makes all the way around and world and universe a dozen times before a single voice with credibility in that world makes it through any of them. >> right. i think there's this sense in which partisanship trumps one's commitment to the security of the nation. politics, you know, is paramount instead of patriotism in some ways. look, we've always faced this tragic choice, nicolle. and the tragic choice has been will we uphold the rule of law and of course face the prospects of a cold civil war turning hot? will we not uphold the rule of law and face the prospect of losing our democracy? we're here, we're there, and people have to choose sides. it's clear. and i think we have to understand that tragic choice

for what it is. we're at that moment now we're at an inflection point and the nation must choose who we are going to be. >> i just want to say one thing about rachel's point before about the humiliation of being rise up everyone and it's a few people with drums. i've seen this on the main ream of college with protests. rachel has pointed out this before with other figures who seemed to be colossas at the moment. when it goes it goes, and there is a little bit of this sense i think from the time he came down the escalator of like this sort of gravity defying trick of trump's political capital, but it's just not foreordained it doesn't fall back to earth at some point. it's also not the case he can necessarily marshal folks into the street. it's not the case a series of

indictments doesn't at some point like a little needle in a massive balloon might start to actually leak. i don't know if that's the case, but i'm also not squinsed yet to rachel's point we see two members of congress saying this. his power and control over a certain portion of the base is obviously rock solid, but his broader political power and influence to me, i think there's a lot of different ways it can go at this moment. >> eddie, i want to go back to your point of a time of choosing. it seems as much as politics i don't think enters into anything jack smith does or says ever, there is a desire that thosef us interested in helping to preserve and protect our democracy read the indictment. he said at the beginning of his remarks read it, read it. i didn't make this up. the investigation brings to bear donald trump's own words, donald trump's three criminal attorneys, donald trump's own aide, donald trump's own braga

docio to someone interviewing him because it was secret. there really is a choice to your point about how we move forward at this moment. >> absolutely. in some ways, nicolle, you presume or assume facts can overrun passions, that some people will read this and still see the weaponization, as joyce said, the weaponization of the government. whether you're talking from higgs to mccarthy to steve scalise. there's always a sense this government overreach threatens our liberty even though the facts are what they are. we have to make a choice and fight for the country that we need, the country that we want. but we're here at this inflection point, and all of this of course is right in front of us. >> we've gone three hours without mentioning the name bill barr, which is a triumph. but bill barr, the most dangerous place to be for the

last seven months is between bill barr and a camera when he's asked how much legal he's in. >> one of the reasons we're in this situation is because of bill barr, so he helped get us here by being the bag man and really protecting trump, doctoring a memo to try to undermine and take some of the sting of what robert mueller was going to say about what? obstruction. what did we see in the indictment, the "o" word. i think it's important to understand it actually matters bill barr is out here saying this ironically because he's the very person willing to protect trump. so if he's not willing to anymore, if he had a bottom line and his bottom -- the line is

very low, but it's like, oment, end of democracy, i think i found my line. i do want to go back to chris' point because i think it's important to florida. having spent a couple of times during the mid-terms and most recently in florida, people are resisting in florida. people are supporting democracy. black and brown people are trying to vote and help other people vote. we have to understand they don't own the country, the haters don't own it, we do. >> perfect place to hit pause. rachel maddow, alex wagner, joy reid, chris hayes, frank figliuzzi, eddie glaude, thank you. thanks to all of you. we're really glad you watched with us. msnbc's special prime time coverage will be back at 8:00 p.m. eastern. in the meantime the beat with ar