>> we have much more to cover and to report to you on this historic night, and so i will return to this desk one hour from now, ed midnight eastern, nine pm pacific, for a second live hour of the last word tonight. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. >> today, an indictment was unsealed. charging donald j trump with national secrets, as well as participating to obstruct justice.

>> the united states of america, versus donald j trump. >> we have one set of laws in this country. and they apply to everyone. >>, tonight the stunning 49-page indictment. 37 criminal counts, secret national security documents, strewn around his country club, on stage in a ballroom, on the floor in the bathroom. a conspiracy to hide them from the feds, and the lies that he told to cover it up. rachel maddow, lawrence o'donnell, aubry melbourne, joy, read -- are here for msnbc's special coverage of the second indictment of donald trump. good evening from new york. welcome back to our special coverage. i'm chris hayes here at 30 rock with the whole team. as well as the great and the good, rachel maddow who is joining us remotely on this historic day. and unprecedented, is an understatement. 37 count indictment against the 45th president of the united states. was unsealed today. a special counsel, jack smith,

made his first public comments since his appointment by attorney general, merrick garland, nearly seven months ago. >> 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. this indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the southern district of florida. i invite everyone to read it in full. 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. when our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and the 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 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 is what determines the outcome of an investigation. nothing more, and nothing less. >> i think i speak for everyone here at the network, that we also encourage you to read this. the sprawling 49-page indictment, as jack smith said. it is concluding remarks, he said he and his team very much look forward to presenting their case against trump. and crucially will request a, quote, speedy trial. prosecutors, as documented here, have amassed a mountain of evidence against donald trump. the indictment is filled with pictures of the boxes containing the classified documents. and it descriptive accounts, text messages between trump's

employees. transcripts of audio recordings from close aides and his attorney. and transcripts of trump's own incriminating words, as reported by his lawyer. including referring to a document as, quote, like, highly confidential. prosecutors recount donald trump's repeated efforts to steal, obstruct the investigation, and willfully retain a classified documents. which included national security secrets at some of the highest levels of classification. justice department prosecutors describe how trump was personally involved in moving those boxes around his resort in florida, in a game of cat and mouse. classified documents were stored around mar-a-lago out in the wide opening. including in a ballroom, and a bathroom and shower. and office base, his bedroom, and a storage room. federal prosecutors described trump's scheme to mislead his own attorneys, to get them to lie to the justice department, all in a desperate attempt to

hold on to the documents that he did not want to turn over. how he personally combed through the documents, which he referred to as his papers. or as, my boxes. to decide which ones he would keep. prosecutors described two instances in which donald trump showed off classified documents to others. bragging about how they were secret. how he probably shouldn't be doing it. the indictment charges donald trump with 31 individual counts. wolf or retention of -- charges also include a conspiracy to obstruct justice. withholding a document, corruptly concealing a document, concealing a document in an investigation. a scheme to conceal those documents, and false statements. the government states in simple terms, quote, trump endeavored to obstruct the fbi and grand jury investigations. and conceal his continued retention of classified documents. prosecutors also say donald trump did not act alone. he has a named coconspirator. the indictment charges this man, his valet, walt nauta, who prosecutors described as a key player in donald trump's

scheme. trump directed nauta, in courting to the a diamond, on multiple occasions, to move boxes in an effort to conceal them and to obstruct the investigation. prosecutors say trump even moved documents from mar-a-lago to his new jersey residents. to put it lightly, this is all very serious stuff. we are not talking about trump taking some mementos from the white house. federal prosecutors say trump illegally took documents related to the united states, quote, nuclear programs. potential vulnerabilities of the u.s., and its allies to a military attack. plans of possibility attalia shun in response to a foreign attack. the document describes a may 2022 meeting the response to doj's subpoena for classified documents between donald trump and two of his attorneys in mar-a-lago. included in the evidence or statements donald trump made to his own attorneys about what he calls, his boxes.

trump said, according to the indictment, quote, i don't want anybody looking. i don't want anybody looking through my boxes. i really don't, i don't want you looking through my boxes. he also said to his attorneys, quote, well what if we, what happens if we just don't respond at all, or don't play ball with them? another statement quoted in the indictment, wouldn't it just be better if we told them we don't have anything here? and quote. and look, well, isn't it better if there are no documents? these are the charges carried a maximum fine of $250,000 and prison time between five and 20 years. once again, trump will appear in court on tuesday. the second time this year. this time, in federal court in miami. where he will be booked and arraigned together, with his coconspirator, some walt nauta. the two of them, standing there together in a federal courtroom. to enter their pleas in this remarkable case. i'm joined now by rachel maddow. here at the table, legal analyst, -- joy reid, alex wagner, and lawrence o'donnell. -- i wanna go to you first. i'm gonna start with it. we got this unsealed indictment

in realtime. we've all been reading it while broadcasting at the same time. what i begin tonight's broadcast with is sort of what i started. my lord, this is a damning, damning set of facts. >> yes. and this is not a conviction. this is an accusation. everybody is innocent until proven guilty. jack smith went out of his way to say that today. it's good that he did. we should all keep that in mind. at the same time, i do think that this is a remarkably straightforward case in which you don't need to imagine a lot of other things that prosecutors are going to have to hopefully have in their pocket if they're going to want to prove their case, that we can't see in the indictment. it's not like that. what they are charging is effectively proved by what's in the indictment. if they can demonstrate to the court that what is in the indictment is true. so it's just not that complicated of a case. it's not that far reaching of

the case. i will say though, that it occurs to me today, looking at this, seeing the prosecutors ask for 21-day trial. that's 21 business days. they think that in terms of actual time in court, this would be several weeks in court. seeing what they are laying out in terms of the numbers of counts here. seeing what the potential penalties here. this is potentially decades in prison for donald trump. this feels like the end of something. and it is the end of the non public facing part of this investigation. but it really is the start of something that is now going to take a very long time to play out. this will now be months, if not the next year of our lives. dealing with this. and he's got another trial that starts next year in march, in new york. that could go on further as well. so, the furniture of donald trump, and the future of everybody covering him is now going to be this for a very long time. the people who are supporting trump, and saying they are outraged by this today, the outrage is going to fade with

time. people are not going to be as exercised as they are today. but the fairfax will remain. the bear, very simple accusations, that list that starts on page 28 of the indictment of the documents in question here. that for all of the documents of the basis of each of these 31 counts. that's an irreducible truth here. that is going to be hard to explain away after the emotions cool down over what will be a very long protracted process. >> it's interesting you say that, because one of the things i was just starting to look at some of the reactions from the folks that might rush and defend the president. obviously people have one set of arguments that they use all the time, this proves too much. it's weaponization of the justice department, blah, blah, blah. that wrestles with what actually happened here. one of the things, andrew, i want to get your thoughts on this. one of the things i have seen, and you've seen smoke signals from trump's lawyers before they leave the case.

they used to be there, or no longer there, or did in the indictment. some of the folks rallying around him, they're not contesting the facts, actually. they're going to contest the law, right? the facts, which is he had the documents, they asked for them and they didn't get them back. they were found at mar-a-lago. they were in all sorts of places. they had these classification settings. none of that corset of facts seems either contestable or contested, right? what they are going to do is say he had every right to have them. >> so, i agree with you that the political defense will be diversion. and you will have this i was always entitled to do this. i'm perfect. you will also have the adjectives and add forbes with respect to jack smith. that he's a horrible person. again, let's even a stipulate that's true. who cares. all of this is about the evidence. the thing that is so damning when i read this book, as a

litigator. and thinking about this as a prosecutor. look, where are the holes? how is this going to be proved? this is overwhelming. because the source of evidence here is not. this is not michael cohen. this isn't where you go oh, i'm going to put on someone who's got a lot of baggage. here you've got employee one. employee to. attorney one. attorney to. attorney three. it goes on and on. as you said, text messages, tapes, everything is corroborated. this isn't something where you can say, gee, there's a defense. i'm going to attack someone's credibility. these are his people. they seem to be corroborated one side down the other. >> in fact, lawrence, we had reporting from the very beginning about the videotapes. of them moving the boxes. which seems to be confirmed

here. they don't quite say videotapes, but they just take in these indictment. these boxes were moved at this particular time, as a statement of facts. >> you can read a stack of random indictments. and not find quotation marks in them. not fine quotation marks saying the person said exactly these words. and prosecutors won't use quotation marks unless they can actually prove every one of those words. not just the gist of it. he said something like this. it's word for word. that's pretty striking. i want to go back to encouraging people out there, if you read one indictment in your life, let it be this indictment. we like to brag that we've been busy reading a 49-page indictment. it's not 49 pages. there's a lot of white space here. there's pages like 43, that looked like a screenplay page with all that white space. because it's pure dialogue. you've got half pages here, because of the little signature pages and stuff. it really, really, maybe it's 20 something pages. if it was book pages, maybe 15. anyway, consider page 43. you just flip open to page 43.

this is how easy it is. they put the crime in bold on page 43, when you take this out to read it. this is the other person who is indicted in this case. this is walt nauta, here are his crimes. his crime is in bold twice. where he is in an interview. it's a voluntary interview with the fbi. he is served in the navy. he's supposed to know it's a crime to lie, in this discussion. he's asked, this guy's been moving the boxes, he knows exactly where they are. he's been delivering them to trump's office and all that stuff. he knows which one trump was looking at today. so he says this when they say to him, do you have any information that could help us understand, like, where they were kept? how they were kept? where they were secured? where they locked? something that makes the intelligence community feel better about these things, you know. he says, i wish, i wish i could tell you. i don't know. i don't. i honestly just don't. this is the guy, this is the

box guy. his whole life has been the boxes for the past couple months. the final question here, that sentences in bold. that's a crime. the final sentence is, so, you didn't know. you have no idea how they got there before. he says, no,. and the world know is bolded. because that two is his crime. i just want to encourage the audience. that is how we see this thing is, legally and to read. >> we'll be selling bound coffees of it. [laughter] >> i'm actually selling audiobook version of it. >> and interest rates man you. our page eight, you see the agencies that have information that is been compromised here. this is not the pga. this is the national geospatial intelligence agency, that's analysis of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information in support of national security objectives. the department of energy, in terms of nuclear deterrent information. the department of state and bureau of intelligence and

research. this is serious information. i go back to walt nauta, the only other person named in this. at once, it's the audacity is so flagrant. it's hard to have pity on this person. at the same time, knowing firsthand some of the people who work these navies guys who work as aides to the president. who workers valets, who work as body man. this is the honor of a lifetime for them. the way in which i can only presume donald trump took advantage of this man's allegiance to his president. and the fact that he was willing to lie so flagrantly to department of justice investigators is an american tragedy. >> by the way, there is a moment in this document where they talk about donald trump having a phone call with them walt nauta, for about 29 seconds after which he moves boxes. they are told on may 11th, there's a subpoena, you've got to get them back. --

walt nauta is the one who does these moves from -- he does them on may 24th. he moves three of them. may 31st, he moves another 50. june 1st, he moves 11 more. june 2nd, he moves 30 more. and then on july, in july, the fbi and the grand jury obtained and reviewed surveillance video from the mar-a-lago club, showing the movement of boxes. >> yeah. >> donald trump, and in all things large and small, donald trump's habit, like a mall bus, is to get someone like walt nauta to do the dirty work for him. he's instructing him before each of these movements of boxes. including him talking to -- some woman, it could be melania, or maybe it could be ivanka, we were debating it earlier. he's told, you know what, there's not enough room on the plane. for all these boxes to go to bedminster. he's like, oh, no he's going to go through them. he's not gonna want the whole box. he's the one communicating and physically moving the boxes. he's caught on tape. and then he is the one interviewed by the fbi, and lies. this guy -- i mean, it's hard not to feel a bit of pity for him. he's the little guy, trump

obviously is paying his legal bills. but he faces the exact same consequences as someone who is so rich, and had so much power. >> two men are going to be in a courthouse standing next to each other, like the home alone burglars. on tuesday morning. >> that's an additional legal problem for donald trump. because if he were a stand-alone defendant, i actually think he would be in a better position when and if sentencing comes around. because this guy, people have gone to prison for what this guy has done. >> oh yeah. >> the idea that well, there is no principle that says oh no no, you can't convicting navy veteran of a crime. all of this mythology that surrounds the notion of convicting a former president. actually them having a code upended to his in there, who is by all previous legal precedent, completely vulnerable to serious criminal sentencing here, is actually very helpful. >> rachel, what do you think about that?

that we have to defendants here, and just the story told of this indictment of this individuals essentially being recruited into a criminal conspiracy. not the only one, donald trump tries to rig crude into a criminal conspiracy. basically he attempted to do that with his lawyer. we'll get to that in a moment. that's part of the story in the indictment as well. >> yeah, i think it's a really astute point by lawrence. in every jury, considering a case like this, they are taught about president. they're taught about like crimes. they're taught about the seriousness of the offense, and all of those things, over the course of their participation in it. when they are looking what about someone like walt nauta, who isn't going to have the world rising up and saying that it is the death of the republic if he's convicted of something. if he is plainly a guilty of something, that is going to make it harder to say that mr. nauta ought to be convicted. and that mr. trump shouldn't because of something else mystical about him that makes him a different kind of citizen. i think that's a really astute point by lawrence.

i will also just say, i know in our earlier coverage there was some discussion as to whether mr. nauta might feel like he wanted to play guilty, like he might want to cooperate, like he might want to not be on the, at the sharp end of this stick any longer. i think it's, it's maybe heretical for me to say it. everybody can shut me down. i think we should also talk about the possibility that donald trump might play. donald trump is looking at decades, and decades, and decades in prison. this indictment is very straightforward. and not complicated. and doesn't leave a lot out. it tells you very much what they've got to use against him. if it were you, would you consider pleading guilty to this and exchange for leniency? i might. >> yesterday. >> yeah. we're not contending with that. >> i think, in most of these cases, i think most of the time these sorts of cases and end in

pleas. in fact, when people find themselves on the wrong end of a federal indictment, 90% plus of the time, it doesn't go to trial because they played. precisely because when the feds come for you they have the guts. i want everyone to stay with me. we've got much more to talk about. including trump's apparent obsession with his boxes, and boxes of documents. as i laid out in painstaking detail. as laid out in plain sticking in detail in this indictment, that beautiful minds boxes. next.

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coverage of the second indictment of former president, donald trump. i say second and pause because we may not stop at two. i wanted to direct our attention to one of the themes in the indictment. we've seen subsequent to this, classified documents showed up in the archives of the current president joe biden, and ex vice president, mike pence. clearly, for this to cross over into criminal territory, right, you have to cross the barrier of carelessness, miss class, clerical errors to your underlings for willful-ness. there's a few points in here where what the establish in the indictment isn't just willful -ness, it isn't just what donald trump knows. it's that donald trump as well and truly obsessed, to a degree his employees found super weird. with the boxes and the documents. here's the first example of this. trump employee two, he's referring to trump's courted boxes. he basically is being asked, can you move these boxes? he says, as long as you don't

touch his beautiful mind paper boxes. now that's an employee. i think this is actually a really key detail. that refers of course to the russell crowe movie about the legendary -- and economist john nash. in which he descends into this paranoid schizophrenic delusion, where he says stuffing secret documents into a mailbox. this is the employee being like, the bosses nuts about the box. don't touch us beautiful mind boxes. then, later, trump saying, i don't want anybody looking. i don't want anybody looking through my boxes. i really don't, i don't want you looking through my boxes. then this other example, which i think says a lot. ? just detail wise, enjoy you referred to this. i just want to read this. this, as we think, the former first lady. texting walt. they're about to get on the plane to bedminster. good afternoon walt, happy memorial day. i saw you put boxes to potus room. just fyi, and i will tell him as well, not sure how many wants to take on friday on the

plane. we will not, capital n ot, have room for them, plane will be full with luggage. thank you. basically like, oh my god, the guys going to bring the boxes to bedminster. make it stop walt. good afternoon ma'am, thank you so much. i think he wanted to pick from them. i don't imagine him wanting to take the boxes. he told me to put them in the room he was going to talk to you about them. >> you forgot the smiley face. >> smiley face. what comes up time and time again, it's not underlings, and it's not even just on a normal level of attention is. it is an obsessive focus on the documents. who has them? where they are, and what is in them. i want to bring in jen psaki, host of inside with jen psaki. former white house press secretary under joe biden. i want to ask you about this precisely. because after the news of president joe biden and vice president, mike pence, there was a sense of oh wait, does everyone just messed up a little bit? there's a lot of documents. >> are they everywhere? >> this is a clerical error. what do you make of these set of facts as presented in the indictment to that point. >> well, a lot of people have

said this already on the panel. i mean, indictments and legal documents can be very sleep inducing. this is not. part of it is because it tells the story of exactly what you are talking about, chris. it's not just about the overarching, you know, this included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities. wow, that's eye-popping on the second page. the fact that where they are, the hallway leading to the storage room could be reached from multiple outside entrances. it's also about, i mean, i can't even right there. that point right there where the door was left open often. let's just pause on that for a second. also the specificity. rachel reference to this. i worked in the state department, in the white house for two different presidents, the specificity to your point of his obsession with these documents, there is a lot more i suspect we will learn about these documents. maybe not all of them. but pages 28 through 33, outline, chris, 31 specific documents. they detail them. right?

i'm wondering, this document that's from june of 2020, that's concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country. which is number five. what is that? which country? is it iran? is it north korea? why did he care about that. on page 30, number 12, pages of undated documents concerning projected regional military capabilities of a foreign country. what is that? it also has a reference to five eyes, which is the countries we have, the united states has a very important intelligence relationship with. the specificity, those pages to me, are so important for us to understand why he cared about this. and why he was holding on to them. and sharing them with people he shouldn't have shared with. which we don't know who yet. but maybe we'll learn more when we learn about what these documents are. >> andrew, you are just noting that there's a theme here in the documents. that the military capability's of foreign nations, and how strange a thing that is to be collecting. >> you know, i was trying --

this obviously is a selected group of documents. but if you are thinking about what with the intelligence community approve? because the intelligence community had to have vetted this as documents that they were willing to have a trial about. military capabilities of foreign countries, over, and over, and over. it's the kind of thing that is such a closely held secret. that is -- just think about foreign countries. if you are a foreign country that is not friendly to us, and frankly, even some that are friendly to us. >> sure. >> that is what you want to know. what do we know about them? this just reads like crowned jewels. jen gave just a small sampling. it just goes on and on. there is more about nuclear capabilities in here. >> and the way it even opens in number two. over the course of his presidency, trump gathered newspapers, press clippings, notes, letters, cards, photographs, official documents and other materials in

cardboard boxes he kept in the white house. among the materials trump stored in his pockets with hundreds of classified documents. that was actually reported before. >> he took them to the residence. >> he's taking them to the resident. there's this idea that he's kind of messy. and he keeps his place messy. at first, i read it as trump is just messy. the stuff is all jumped in there with his newspaper clippings and things. reading through this, it sounds now like it's concealment. that he's camouflaging them with clips about him, and travel stuff. and personal stuff. it sounds like it's less about him being messy with the boxes, but like, stashing classified documents in between the clippings. >> and that they are intense security. rachel, -- that wall keeps saying, oh, he's going to go through them. he's going to go through them. the going through the process. he's got to go -- okay, do i want this, do i want that. there's a duration here that speaks both to the motive and the seriousness of what he possesses. and his knowledge of their value. >> yes, and i think, i mean, i

think one of the shocking things that has occurred to me, that i didn't pick up on when i was first reading the indictment. it was until i heard brandon ran graphic, and experienced national security prosecutor talking about this in our coverage earlier, is that the classified markings on all of these documents, really really eye-opening when you start to look at them. for example, that document that jen was just talking about. it's on page 29 of the indictment. it's number five out of the 31 documents. it is described as document dated to 2020, concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country. right? that's like, it's eye-popping. andrew is totally right. that's exactly the sort of thing that shouldn't be, you know, left in a bathroom. that seems like a really important thing. but then look at the markings on it. the classified markings are top secret, and then the next one, redacted. the next one, redacted. the next one, oh arsenio and. or con? i don't know what that means. then and no f o r in.

no foreign. no other country is supposed to be able to see that. i don't know what or con means. maybe andrew does or jen, maybe you know from your time in the white house. the fact that the classification markings on that are so high, we are not allowed to know what the marking is. just tells you that this was not tchotchkes. this really wasn't stuff that he was taking because he want to he -- thought he looked cute in that picture. this is stuff where the highest levels of classification are brought to bear on stuff that has very obvious international sensitivity. the disclosure of these documents, or the handling of these documents in an inappropriate way already harms our national security by telling our allies around the world, that we can't be trusted to manage this stuff. particularly if someone likes trump gets away with us. >> there is so much more in the indictment, including the meticulous notes of one trump attorney who clearly knew the importance of documenting what he was being asked to do by the classified documents. that could kind of plucking motion hand signal the ex president. all that and more when we come back.

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aspects of the indictment is the tale of how one of trump's own attorneys deftly avoided being recruited into the criminal conspiracy. on june 2nd, 2022, trump attorney, everett corcoran, goes to mar-a-lago to review these boxes. and he goes there, and he's the one who's going to search the storage room, find the

classified documents, to turn them over to the government. now, what's happened in the intervening two weeks since the subpoena, is that walt nauta and trump have gotten rid of a bunch of boxes. corcoran goes in, he passes through, finds 38 caused by documents. he puts them in a folder. he binds them with clear duck taped. he goes into mar-a-lago to meet with donald trump who says, innocently onshore, did you find anything? is it bad? >> unbelievable. >> okay, corcoran, they talk about what to do with the folder. i'll read from the indictment here. trump attorney discussed what to do with the red willed folder, the folder containing classified documents. with classification -- should bring them to his hotel room, put them in a safe there. during that conversation, trump made a plucking motion, as memorialized by trump attorney one. he made a phony motion as though, well, okay, why don't you take them with you to your hotel room. and if there's anything really bad in there like, you know, pluck it out. that was the motion he made. he didn't say that.

so, this is what happens. this is the best part. alex, i want to get your reaction to this. >> yeah. >> corcoran knows that this is not -- and yet corcoran is the lawyer who has to turn to the fbi and certify it is on the level. so what evan corcoran does, which is pretty smart, trump attorney won contacted a another trump attorney. [laughter] trump attorney three. and asked her if she would come to the mar-a-lago club the next morning and act as a custodian of the records and sinister defecation regarding the search of documents with classification markings in response to the may 11th subpoena. trump attorney three, who had no role in the review, agreed. >> i wrote in the margin there, christina bobb thrown under bus. that is what happened there. although, she shielded herself from the liability quite skillfully. that christina bobb. but the story of the way in which trump lied to his lawyers, put them in harm's way, expected that they would do his dirty work, it's stunning. it bears mentioning, because there's been so much news today, the two lawyers, john raleigh

and jim trusty, who were handling all of this, resigned this morning. that leaves trump -- >> can i just on the question of resign, in trump world, resign, fired. >> same thing. >> fine line. they are gone. >> they are gone. tim parlatore is on cnn all the time. and msnbc, talking about this case. lindsay haugen is left on the team. she has very little experience on this level at all. and todd blanche is also representing boris epshteyn. evan corcoran, who is a source of so much of this damning material, is still representing trump, and the january 6th. >> lawrence, this is what you get here from what corcoran is doing the most to file. it's the james comey thing. comey, these are lawyerly

tactics. you have a conversation with donald trump, you immediately go look over's notes. because it's like handling -- material. it is so dangerous to be around this guy, that you need >> this thing already plays as goofy and silly. but also clearly, very, very dangerous. >> an incredibly damning. rachel, the part of this that

is different and already made this point earlier, and others have, it's that corcoran piercing the attorney client privilege. because you tried very hard to recruit your lawyer to criminal conspiracy. which again, he managed to dodge. it provides a level, a window into activity and conversations that happened and maybe not one out of 1000 criminal trials. you don't get the client talking to the lawyer. >> yeah, there's the quotations in the indictment where trump is saying as you mentioned earlier, wouldn't it be better if these documents weren't there at all. do we have to hand these things over -- >> those are the kinds of questions that you can ask your lawyer. between you and your lawyer you can ask all sorts of dominant cremating sounding questions. the only reason that you should ever have those things made public beyond the relationship

between you and your lawyer is if you try to engage your lawyer in the commission of the crime, so don't do that. it's really a bad thing for us to have, a window into it but we have a window into it for specific reasons. i do have one admittedly dumb question here and maybe andrew weissmann is best to answer this. i thought it was surprising that when we got the indictment unsealed and we learned that trump was indicted, also his lawyers resigned. is there anything about this indictment that says why two of his lawyers had to resign? was it in obvious consequence of this indictment? what did you make of the fact that that happened and coincided? >> i didn't think that it was about the substance of the charges. i thought there were two possible explanations. one explanation is that when you are handling the investigation and you have a

client who's not to get indicted. when the indictment comes in the client says thank you so much you didn't accomplish, quiet blames the lawyers. usually the problem is the quiet, the client not the lawyers. that's one possibility, he's honestly upset that they didn't do their job. when they in fact could have. the second is that once you file a notice of appearance, once he was a lawyer up here in a criminal case not just in the investigation. when you say i am representing donald trump in a criminal case could not withdraw without court permission. and a lot of times judges will say you are in. so what do people do, they do something which i referred to when i was a baby prosecutor and somebody said, well i'm not yet in the case and someone said why not? he said i'm waiting for mr. green. and i didn't know what that

meant and mr. green is a reference to money. and it's just sort of a euphemism that certainly was used in brooklyn all the time. so here you can imagine the two defense lawyer saying look, if i'm going to stay in the case and file an appearance there's a certain amount of money that needs to be paid me now if i'm going to be stuck representing you for what could be a lengthy period of time. >> and trump is no not to pay his lawyers. >> he very much as but he keeps finding them. do you know what's strange about this photo of trump's boxes in the court documents? apart from the fact that the boxes are in a bathroom cram next to the toilet under a chandelier, something else is in this photo that i think is incredibly telling, we'll explain next. she gets exactly what she wants and only pays for what she needs. she picks only the perks she wants and saves on every one! all with an incredible new iphone. act now and get iphone 14 pro on us when you switch. it's your verizon.

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i've got hot dog buns! and your cut-rate car insurance might not pay for all this. so get allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me. roar. (sfx: family screams in background) >> welcome back to our ongoing special coverage of the first federal indictment, second indictment of the ex president donald trump. with me tonight rachel maddow. along with alex wagner, joy reid, and moyes macdonnell. can we show that picture, this is now sort of instantly iconic picture of the boxes stored in a bathroom in mar-a-lago? this was done, we think at the ex president's direction. here's the thing that stuck out to me aside from the just strangeness of the image and the chandelier and the sponsors. look up above the line of the shower, right. you see the little white box

peeking out up there, there's more boxes in the shower. the room is so packed with boxes that behind the shower curtain there are yet more boxes. these boxes are sort of taking over mar-a-lago. >> this is not the kind of paper you want to be stacking because this is classified paper and he lied about it. so the photos and the evidence and all the incriminating material from the lawyer which you guys were just discussing is really bad for donald trump. he's presumed innocent and he will be afforded his defenses. but i want to be very clear. donald trump has extinguished so many of his potential defenses. he has played himself in public, obviously, when he says i can do that if i want, i basically did that and sean hannity tries to stop him. but he's also played himself in private and on tape. that is why sometimes people talk about manifesting something in your life -- >> yes.

>> you can manifest becoming a billionaire, you can manifest a summer in france. that's nice magical type thinking. you cannot manifest declassification when you are no longer the president. if your argument is, well i swear by the 1920 when i left office i did all this and it was a magical process. now you're on tape after the day you said you did that which is a weak defense to begin with it meeting otherwise as we've reported. you've a big problem on your hands. i think donald trump's biggest problem here is somewhat different than some other cases. where he went on the attack, he denied and obfuscated. he's admitted and confessed to so much which means he's facing a jury that's looking at evidence of what he said in public, what he said in private and trying, even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt to say well, if you're best defenses you are always lying that's no good. >> rachel, on that point, we've gotten some reactions from republicans. there's mitt romney at one end of the spectrum and folks like

clay higgins on the other. i do wonder about the sort of national security apparatus, particularly in congress. and what you get from sort of the intelligence committee, what you get from the folks on foreign affairs and defense. once these facts are laid out what do you think you will see? >> i think it's important to zoom in on it and again you go back to the indictment, you go back to the description of the documents that are being charged. the classification markings on those documents and nobody is going to be able to argue that this is -- this is just inadvertently stuff that shouldn't be. we've been overclassification problem in this country, true, right, but the nuclear capabilities of foreign countries is not something that is overly classified. i do think that it's by virtue of the specificity of the indictment and the seriousness of the stuff he is alleged to have held. it's going to cut through a lot of that. >> our special msnbc coverage

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msnbc's continuing special coverage of the special counsel 's indictment of donald j trump i'm alex wagner and i'm joined here but my colleagues ari melber, joy reid, chris hayes, and lawrence o'donnell. for the first time in our nation's history the federal government has charged former

president with multiple crimes. and for the first time since this investigation began america heard directly from the man in charge, special counsel jack smith. >> today, and 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. adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the department of justice in our nation's commitment to the rule of law sits an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country, and they've let everyone. >> the 38 count indictment against trump and his personal and now codefendant walt nauta accuses the former president of 30 accounts of willful retention of national defense information, three counts of withholding or concealing documents in a federal investigation, two counts of false statements, and one count

of conspiracy to obstruct justice. according to the indictment the classified documents trump stored in these boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the united states and foreign countries. united states nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the united states and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. the indictment paints a vivid in damning picture of how former president handled some of our nation's most closely held secrets. he kept them in a bowl room, he kept them in a bathroom, and a shower. he kept them in an unsecured storage room, all within the reach of many members of this private club, the government says hosted offense for tens of thousands of members and guests during that time. at one point a trump employee found the contents of several boxes spilled close to the floor for anyone to see. but trump didn't just unlawfully retain these documents. according to the indictment, after the fbi ordered the return of all these classified information trump him self personally sifted through it.

he had all of it moves around his florida property and when it came time to finally give it up trump gave his own lawyer access to less than half the boxes in his possession. it notes taken by one of trump 's lawyers trump's had to have told them i don't want anybody looking, i don't want anybody looking through my boxes, i really don't. i don't want you looking through my boxes. wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here? >> i want to turn on my panel. chris let me just with you. in terms of the sense of kind of childlike desperation around all of this, and the degree to which trump himself is physically blowing through all these boxes to the degree that it one point walt nauta his coconspirator has to access for new bucks tops. aubrey from the night indictment, on january 15th 2022 nauta sent trump a plea in four consecutive text messages. one thing you asked for is new cover for these boxes for monday morning. >> can we get new box covers before giving them on monday? these boxes have too much writing on them, i'm mark too much.

when can only assume that those markings were indicative of what trump wanted done with the boxes. >> and i think that this because, and this comes through once a few points of the indictment, most clearly in the part where he's attempting to get back at mark milley by referring to a classified document. he's waving it around at the table in bedminster. the documents are valuable to donald trump for precisely the reason they are valuable to the united states government, and they would be valuable to foreign governments. they are secret information that in their secrecy contain a kind of power. that power is the thing that he wants to wield. for whatever and. to pursue a petty grievance with mark milley, in the other case he's talking about a map,

he's talking to a person proofs super pac, politically. my hunch here is it's a map of afghanistan and has to do with political faults of whose fault the end of afghanistan's, but that's my best guess. what does example show is that it's specifically curated information that has some kind of value or power for donald trump that he wants to keep anyone's government not to have because he wants to use them for whatever end, whatever token he might pay, whatever vendetta he might pursue. >> do we have the video, can show can tell me, of the wall street journal tour that trump gives up his office. let's play that. this i think, let's just say the motive actually doesn't matter in an espionage case. but this is the video where you get a sense of what a pack rat donald trump's. how he holds on to these important mementos.

and at this point 2015 the import mementos are shaq shoe, world wrestling federation bell, various trophies. there's a lot of stuff there, joy. and i think it is indicative of a certain psychology and mindset, again, the motive doesn't matter in an espionage case. but people wonder why did this man keep all this stuff? >> if you think about why he wanted to be president, right, it wasn't because he had some great passion for america. he ran saying america is basically in-esque whole country under obama. he didn't express great patriotism or love of country. he essentially wanted to be president to aggrandize him self. everything he's done in his career is to aggrandize i'm self. it is logical to assume he just wanted things to further aggrandized him self. the thing that is frightening is that donald trump's associations are not just meant

to make him feel better, like he likes putin because putin says he smart. but he also likes putin. right, he has a son in law who couldn't get a security clearance -- jared kushner to mar-a-lago. he's associates himself. he had not seen the lunch. there are a lot of people that donald trump associates with because they aggrandized him. but he also associated with a lot of people who were pretty dangerous. so i think the thing is even when he's being silly and a goofball and what did you call him, gollum? but the precious is to have the documents. he's literally having the moved in little pieces, 30, here ten there, 15 there. he's having them moved in a weeklong exodus of these documents then when the actual documents -- he's obsessed. but he's also dangerous. you have to balance the comedy that in this, which it is quite comedic, with the fact that his associations and the people he's obsessed with making

dangerous >> you use the word power, the weather you are authorized to have this at the type of power or not. the country is now facing this and there will be people who are so extreme in partisan but they already think he is guilty and convicted in their mind, that's not how our system work. he has to face facts in court. there are others that don't want to look at the facts and think that he can do no wrong. but in the main, what our test is going to be in court and as a nation is dealing with all of the evidence and facts that he was trying to wield unauthorized power he no longer had. we see these words, no one's above the law. what does that mean? go you can have access to high grade weapons that are not otherwise available and when you leave the military you can't get back in. i don't mean to make light of this it all e -- a person who's in a military scenario has that access to those powers including the power to even potentially kill abroad. and the day that ends is over. yes they might have been in

service, he was through the. electoral college robert's. i would like in this to the other probe, jack smith, that we see how he acts. there is a commonality we haven't discussed a ton tonight between the mindset of january 6th in the mindset of trying to hold on to nuclear secrets. and both of them was that he wanted to literally overthrow democracy first on the sixth and second by still doing what chris describes but nuclear secrets. >> lawrence, the collateral damage here is not just american democracy, it's america's role in the world. because we basically need to prove to our allies that we can keep secrets again. and in that way, what happens here is going to have geopolitical impacts. >> i strongly suspect that certainly our major allies are actually pretty relieved when they read the details as their intelligence communities will of this indictment. because i think it expresses to

them very clearly this is the kind of stuff that was there. they knew all the stuff, there's probably nothing in there that are major allies wouldn't have themselves one way or another. and they see, okay, you have this kind of renegade operation going on in florida with your national security material and you guys grabbed it. you took care of it, you won't work on it. you appointed a special prosecutor and six and a half months later he is indicted, the former president of the united states. it took him six and a half months to master the entire case and say here it is, and we did it. so it's actually, i think, a very impressive demonstration to the french, to the british, to the major allies we have around the world who know that possibly some of their material was there. but we really handled it thoroughly and well.

>> just to say what are you said about the office, it's the office not the man, it's the peoples documents. you can't say i was president on january 20th, i want to fire up the nuclear codes in the 23rd. you can't say i want to order a drone strike -- >> the only caveat is this man is still running for president. it is an open question about what this does to his candidacy. he wants to be back there again which throws into sharp relief the stakes. this is what he's doing when he doesn't have power. >> and his legal strategy is in this case is to be president again and to survive it by being able to be president again and pardon himself. so now there's an increased intensity to his need to be president. he wants to be president because he wants the power back, now he needs to be president to survive. >> one of his impeachment

lawyers said on air today said if he wins back the white house he can just dismiss this. she'll order his new a. g. to dismiss this case. >> we knew that before he announced his candidacy. we knew that basically the rest of his life was going to be spent as defendant trump, either as a criminal defendant appealing convictions, and certainly as a civil defendant which is going to be for the rest of his life. so his next presidential campaign now already underway was always going to be a campaign to re-zoom the pardon power for himself. he was always going to do that. but i'm so struck by where we are at this hour tonight. because 48 hours ago, 48 hours ago i was 45 minutes away from conducting an interview with the most recent former member of the trump criminal defense team. there are now two new ones today. and in that interview and our interview with the same lawyer

before that here is what couldn't be established, from him. when did donald trump ever look at the contents of any of the boxes? he didn't know. what was the document that was -- every question you asked, he wanted to spend a tremendous amount of time which i understand because in all the exchanges with the archives before you get to what is the beginning of this criminal case, in the beginning of this criminal case is the defiance of the subpoena. and once he tried to talk to him about anything that takes place after the defiance of the subpoena he offers you absolutely nothing. including the possibility that donald trump never looked at any of these boxes at all. this document today just erases literally races every single thing that is trump's criminal defense lawyer has said on television prior to last night. every single word they have said has been erased. >> and yet he will probably get

some new lawyers whoever they may be for whatever reason. the person who has a stake in that donald trump reelection is e walt nauta. we will talk about him coming up, he's probably the de facto chair of a new reelect on trump super pac at this point. lawrence o'donnell, i heard you had a show at ten pm on msnbc, so -- so i'm going to let you go get ready for that show. >> take as long as you want when it rolls up to ten pm don't feel any -- >> will traditionally do. >> it's nothing religious about that ten pm. >> you will get it on time tonight sir. the rest of you stay seated please i special coverage continues after this break.

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going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. we can have someone, we can't have someone in the oval office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified. we also need the best protection of classified information.

no one will be above the law. >> when donald trump, the man who ran a campaign in 2016 promising to strengthen laws concerning classified information is now, as a former president, facing 37 federal charges for his mishandling of classified materials after leaving the white house including 31 alleged violations of the espionage act. trump is being charged specifically under the espionage act, the part that goes against whoever willfully retains national defense information and failed to deliver on demand to the officer or employee of the united states entitled to receive it. free to be a violation of the espionage act information does not have to be classified which is important to consider given that central to trump's defense here is the idea that at some point somewhere he declassify the documents he had in his possession although recently unearthed evidence on tape suggests he didn't know such thing. and once again joined here by my colleagues, joy reid, chris hayes -- i want to bring back the

hardest thinking man in hollywood enter weisman. today on trump's truth social donald trump has this to say. strange, he's talking about this picture of classified documents on the floor. everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean. did the fbi tip over the one box the way they staged the papers on the floor during the raid of mar-a-lago only to apologize after getting caught? you pointed this out, andrew. none of the information in the indictment is from the fbi. it's from trump's own people. that seems deeply meaningful here. >> absolutely. and not only is it his own people but it's not his own people with a lot of baggage like michael cohen where you are putting someone on the stand were you on the what you're getting which is a guy who speaks to the media all the time and has admitted to committing perjury. that's not an easy witness to have on the stand. here, let's see, you've

attorneys 12 and three, that would be his personal attorney 's. you've employees one and two. the photo that we just saw was taken by an employee. that's not taken by the fbi. so donald trump can sit there and say, was this taken by the fbi? no, that would be by one of his employees. and there's going to be metadata to prove that. in other words, on the phone where they push got that information is going to say this is taken on this day in this time. you can't make that stuff up. >> there's a connection between the cohen case, you had trump's lawyer being induced to participate in a crime, and then donald trump like the scooby-doo villain that he has signed the reimbursement check in the oval office with his big magic marker. in that case as well, whatever you want to say about michael cohen, he's got receipts to. in this case you've got tapes, you've got the fall guy in this case doing all of the box moving and there's a security for its surveillance video when you've got the lawyer who's playing the michael cohen in this case, mr. corcoran, who is schumer's attorney number one

rating contemporaneous notes saying he's asking me to crime, let me go ahead and take notes of all the crime-ing but he's asking me to do. >> evan corcoran still investigating donald trump and it blows my mind. >> it reminds me of the prime minister of england where the joke was is she going to last longer -- i think with mr. corcoran you can say how long do we really think he is going to continue recommending, representing him. donald trump has to read this and say one of the governments star witnesses -- >> is my lawyer -- >> exactly. >> a cabbage looks like it has a long shelf life compared to -- i want to bring in john brennan, former director of the cia and now msnbc intelligence analyst. sir, thank you so much for joining us. i would like to know what it is like for someone who is the former director of the cia to see these photos of the sensitive documents stored in showers, in bathrooms, splayed out on the floor, what is your reaction to that?

>> looking at those photos and the indictments i shuttered throughout. especially when i saw the classification markings. and a very clear careless and slipshod way that these documents were left unsecured for so long. it contains some of the most highly sensitive intelligence this country has for potential mass security. i will point out that the indictment listed at 31 documents but according to the indictments section see it says that in august of last year the subpoena there were over 100 documents that we see. so this is just a subset of documents that are listed actually in that indictment. but that is because the great sensitivity, you can see a very short synopsis of what it contains because the contents of it themselves are so revealing.

at the top secret level, the highest classification, the highest handling procedures in the u.s. government has these documents involved. >> i have a follow-up to that which is there is some talk about the sensitivity of some of these documents, is so extraordinary, is it your sense that the most sensitive documents aren't even accounted for in this indictment because it would be hard to litigate them? >> well, and i would defer the answer on that as far as how to litigate them. it's going to be very hard to present them and it's been talked about before, the classified information provides the mechanisms that some of the very highly sensitive information can be shared in chambers with the judge, with the court, with defense attorneys. but i'm sure the intelligence committee is trying to keep as much information out of even those areas because of the high sensitivity of it. but what i think the intelligence community is going to do is try to be as forthcoming as possible. they are not going to declassify this material --

they would have sensitivity of this information and how much damage will be done because it's unsecure. i do think that jack smith and his team are going to be working to determine the exact procedures in place if they are going to be able to either rely on classified summaries or the heads of the intel community and maybe show some of them in chambers, but i'm sure they are keeping that under observation because it's just so revealing. -- human networks, collection systems, other things, it would be really devastating i'm so concerned that this information was left for so long i'm sure mar-a-lago was on the target list for a lot of foreign intelligence services that could've easily gotten in there. but investing the --

staff, visitors, members of the club. if they go in there they are not going to steal the documents but they will take photos of it and try to make sure that they are able to gather as much as possible without leaving anything, any evidence of what might have been compromised. >> john, this is chris hayes, i want to ask you about the. there is reporting about mar-a-lago counterintelligence concern from very early on, when he was the president of the united states. you worked a career intelligence, can you think of any analog or precedent for a place like mar-a-lago, this strange mix of public, private porous location with holding top secrets. >> none whatsoever. the u.s. government has a lot of facilities, and a lot of those facilities contain classified information. but these are important facilities. they have saved, they have

rooms with alarms, they have guards. they will be protected because of the nature. but to leave it out like that in a private club and just strewn about indifferent rooms, ballrooms in bathrooms or whatever. that could be accessed easily but just any normal person. but sophisticated intelligence services overseas they have amazing amount of ways that they can find to get access to this facility and giggling information from it. so that's why it's going to be so hard for the intelligence community to determine what actually has been compromised and which of those collections systems might need to be turned off or suspended for a while or which sources need to be infiltrated in order to protect their lives because, again, these things are just so sensitive. it takes billions of dollars, many years, and some real

courage and bravery on the part of foreign nationals who work for us as well as cia officers -- >> director, one more question on that front. republicans in congress have been sort of hiding behind the fact that the intelligence community assessment regarding the implications, the fallout from the retention of these documents. that assessment is not complete and they are saying we don't know yet what damage, if any, has been done to national security. you are suggesting that assessment is quite complicated. is your outside guest that this is going to take quite some time longer? i know that it's hard to sort of predict but give us a sense of how long that can be a line of argument from opponents of this indictment? >> quite frankly i don't think the intelligence community will ever be able to determine what has, or might have been compromised. there wasn't coverage in the areas where the documents might've been held. we don't know what might have happened during this period of time. be intelligence community is going to have to make some

judgments about whether or not there are any indications that sources have been compromised, collection systems are now known to our foreign adversaries. so they are going to have to do the best they can but it's going to be over the course of i think many years to determine whether or not, whether the documents down there were in fact compromised to the detriment of our sources and the intelligence community. >> former cia director john brennan with some valuable analysis of what is happening here. really appreciate it. >> chris hayes, thank you for having this long. coming back from far flung places to be part of this moment in news, really appreciate it if you to be back with more special coverage of the federal indictment of former president donald trump right after the break stay with us

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i had no idea how much i wamy case was worth. c clinically proven to remove skin tags call the barnes firm to find out what your case could be worth. we will help get you the best result possible. >> this is going to disrupt ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ this nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all, which is not being seen today, and we are not going to stand for it. the republican party has violence to behind donald trump, as he faces today's multiple felony count indictment as well as other looming investigations. today before the indictment was unsealed, congressman jim jordan sent a letter to attorney general merrick

garland doubling down on the house judiciary committee's request for additional information regarding the fbi search of mar-a-lago. other republicans took it to another level. representative clay higgins of louisiana sent out this tweet, where he used what appears to be military code words to tell trump supporters to buckle up, and even clearer message came from representative andy biggs of arizona who said quote, we have now reached a war phase. eye for an eye. i am once again joined here by michael leagues choi read, andrew weizmann, are in alberta and i want to welcome to the desk stephanie role, who was the 11th hour. hey staff. >> hi. >> so trump, when the alvin bragg indictment was looming, he had sort of sent out the clarion call for his supporters to come to new york en masse, and do whatever trump supporters do which is sometimes violence, oftentimes loud. what is your expectation in all

of this? given a clear cut this indictment is, given the gravity of the information we are talking about being compromised? is this a signal moment for trump supporters? should we be focused on that? >> listen, trump's hard-core base is going to be his hard-core base for the foreseeable future. what i'm looking at our, we are the big, big donors going to go? at the end of the day, the big donors basically hold their pants, and hold their checkbook's, and really try to figure out, we don't care about the incidents and politics. they want to know who is going to be in that white house, who is going to take my call and get what i needed on, and he was going to keep my taxes low. so they are sitting back right now and watching this, because when you look at what donald trump is doing, he is in a classic donald trump playbook, right? the true thing we have ever heard him say is i could shoot someone on fifth avenue and get away with it. and since then what happened? two impeachment trials, he keeps on trucking. right? he's in the white house continue to comingle his private business with being the

president. they leave the white house, he continues to raise money. he's going to voter fraud from that we don't know that money is spent, and while his daughter and son-in-law make more money than they have ever thought of in their lives. the question now isn't is he going to lose his supporters? they are going to stick with him, because politically, he knows how to play a game. now he is facing the law. and he is facing the doj, which is essentially the biggest, most powerful law firm in the world, and he doesn't even have a big powerful law from defending him. he's got one guy from here, one guy from there, and he is looking for a third. i was just saying to andrew, when tom barrack was on trial, he had two major law firms locked arms, right? with extraordinary lawyers there where it is a role. trump's got a circus with people falling off the circus train day and day, out and that's what's astounding to me. you're going up against the doj with what? >> yes, with what? huge question mark. to your point staff about what, there's a question about trump's violently calling supporters in around miami, there's a question of his supporters in terms of their voting habits, and the donor

question, the power question. is this the moment -- i can't believe i'm asking this. but is this the moment where republicans say, you know what? we do have other alternatives. chris christie today, on cnn. this conduct is particularly awful for someone who has been president and who aspires to be president again. it is a very, very evidence filled indictment. that's as far out as anybody who was ever run for presidency in 2020 has gone on the republican side of the aisle. i just wonder, joy, how do you think the ron desantis of the world play this? if you had an opponent who is facing several -- 37 counts you will probably talk about on the campaign trail, and yet, open question about similar ron desantis? >> asa hutchins will give him credit, that also kind of several like chris christie. but chris christie, and a citizens have been former prosecutor. >> mitch mcconnell's here? >> mcconnell is quiet. the problem is, all the

incentive structures in the republican party still favor donald trump, and so we should mention chris christie did prosecute jared kushner's dad. so you know, he's got some feelings and emotions that are involved here. but the problem for desantis is not only that he does not know how to pronounce his last name, but his incentive structures are crazy. they are just off the charts. on the one hand, he is the only person pulling in double digits. so in a way, trump going down is great for him. but the problem is, his whole strategy has been to try to co-opt trump space by going

even further right than trump. trump's mean, i am meaner. trump does not like schools? i am going to chase teachers into the coat closet and slam the door behind them. i am going to persecute lgbtq people, i'm going to persecute black folks, i'm going to because you know jared kushner squished in the last time he. one >> yeah, chris christie raising us have a cabinet position. wherever seen that before? joy reid, and my friend. thank you for being for here, tireless, thank you sister. thank the rest of, you also tireless, also brilliant. msnbc special coverage continues right after the. break stay with us. with sensitivity, i see irritated gums and weak enamel.

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preside over the federal criminal case against former president donald trump, at least for now. it is judge alien cannon, and if that name sounds familiar to you it's because this is not the first time she has been involved in this. case it was judge cannon who earlier in a documents investigation, appointed a special master to review the thousands of documents seized from mar-a-lago, stalling the

governments investigation. higher court later overruled her. and it will be judge cannon who oversees trump's arraignment next tuesday afternoon, and determines whether to set a trial date before the 2024 election. i am joined again by my esteemed colleagues, stephanie ruhle, andrew weissmann, and -- i want to welcome to the desk the great nbc senior legal correspondent laura jarrett. laura and, andrew this questions especially for you, laura. but aileen can, and controversial figure in judicial circles and media circles, and just casual onlookers. how did she get assigned this case? and truly, how much power does she have at this moment to derail it? >> to hear it from the public information officer down the, this is supposed to be around him assignment. despite the fact that she does has some past history with this case, there is not some related case doctrine that was a civil case, this is a criminal case. this was random. there is some issue about exactly what the pool of judges

might be? i know there's some reporting out there that suggested who might be as many as 15, we think it actually might be a little bit smaller than that. put that aside. the point is, the justice department has to be feeling a little bit of heat about the fact that this is the judge that they pulled, on this might be that judge that they are stuck with, on this might be the judge that does have the power to either slow this case down a law, or dismiss the whole thing. >> yes, and that is a dramatic amount of power, andrew. as much as people are saying, look at this indictment, it's artful, it's watertight. aileen cannon could basically squashed this whole thing. >> she has enormous power.

i do think that there are limits on, could she get rid of the whole thing. that's -- where >> or delay it until it becomes -- >> exactly. if she's smart, so far have to say her rulings have not been. her rulings were reversed twice. by a conservative court of appeal. so she is not really shown, you know, her best. but it would be -- if she did the dramatic step of just dismissing the indictment, you have to have a reason for that, and that can be appealed. so i am less worried about that. there is another way to do it which is much easier, and very hard to appeal, which is just delay. >> yeah. >> and so you essentially accomplish the same thing you are saying, usually you know? my calendars really busy, we're gonna have a love discovery, we will have a lot of motions, and this gets put off. that can be a big bottleneck. >> isn't the type of thing trump? lawrence >> of course. any dependent once delay, you've assume that when you are defendant, and adjournment is an acquittal. this is -- no defendant is really loyally thinking. >> yes, exactly. >> not only in the room, but around the country. >> that's your audience right there. >> an audience of maybe one.

so, i do think that one of the things that has to be thinking now, and really jack smith, what are your options? one is to really drill down on how this actually happen? you know, is it truly random within the pool of judges, you know, who are in the right location, and could hear a case that is at least this long? so there's reasons to think that it could've been random within a very small denominator. so, that's not what happened. but, because of her prior rulings, and just how bad they were, and that's not me, that's the 11th circuit twice saying that. does that give enough ground for the government to try and say, you should recuse yourself. that is a hard route to go down. >> can they force a recusal, or canada's request it, right?

i would like you to recuse yourself? >> no. >> it holds nothing. >> you could make a motion for. or, you could make grounds for, you should the judge -- themselves >> does she get to decide? >> he gets to decide, by the chief judge also gets to decide. but again, it is not something that first the government has unilateral power at all. and it is very hard thing to do. >> just to point out, the special counsel's office has proven itself to be way ahead of just about every one. nobody even knew they had the second grand jury open until recently. nobody knew they had the corcoran tapes until the new york times advance that in the past weekend. we've learned a lot in just the past two weeks. and andrew has pointed out that they also had heavily researched the circuit split for the possible venue appeal if there were double jeopardy claim, which is very arcane. i had that one purpose, which is to say they have been ahead of a lot of things. they know about her because of the history recorded, alex. they obviously have to have been ready for it. if we bring us in florida, we

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>> we are back with more coverage of the federal indictment of donald trump. and laura jarrett, as we were going to break, he started talking about one of the crucial roles that the judge assigned to this case, alien cannon. one of the crucial things she can oversee which is the sufficient evidence, which evidence is allowing into. this talk to me a little bit more about what she might want to stop from being presented as evidence? >> so one of the things we now have a better view of is exactly what prosecutors wanted evan corcoran for.

we knew that they were able to pierce through the attorney client privilege, which is viewed as sacrosanct, that is not a small thing to be able to pierce that privilege. in order to do that, they have to show that the advice was used to for the crime, and we now understand much better than i think we did even before, there was so much great reporting. obviously, trump's attorneys want to keep that out. that is very damning evidence, and they will file motions to try to exclude it, and on those motions will go to judge cannon. and so she takes out all of the notes that he transcribed in this narrative for him, and he was clearly disturbed by some of his interactions with his current client. let's make it clear, he is still a client. he may not be a client on this matter, but he is at least, as far as we last checked, still representing him as it relates to january 6th. >> and andrew weissmann, you pointed out. will he be a lawyer for donald trump longer than are ripe peach can sit on a grocery store shelf? to borrow a metaphor. you know, it seems like there

could be an appeals process involving judge aileen cannon. >> yes, but to that point, she makes a crazy ruling that keeps something out, they have to appeal. it >> delay? >> delay. she makes another crazy ruling, they have to appeal it. and at that point, if it goes past the election in many ways, donald trump gets what he needs. which is the trial not happening before the election. and just to be clear, that is something that the american public is hurt by that, and the american public, whichever way the jury goes really should have a decision on this. and frankly, even if you are a donald trump, you would want that. you want to be, like you know what? i want to be cleared by this. so that really should be fewer, an honest broker. you would be trying if you are judged to say, with consistent, with the process to the defendant, this should go as fast as possible, because the public has such a vital interest in knowing what happened. here >> let's just also say, this is not the only investigation, jack smith probe of the donald trump's role in

the january 6th insurrection is ongoing, there is of course phony will as the dea down atlanta, there's a lot of calendar ring that has to happen, presumably, on the coming months. plus, oh yeah that thing, a 2024 presidential. bridge >> you are from jack smith today, he spoke briefly, but he made a point of saying. the defendant for his own rights deserves a speedy trial. and this will also be another testing point. yes, as we have discussed, there are people who are fully bought in, or mines close. there are a lot of americans who want to see what is happening. if you are running for president, and also try to run out the clock, rather than deal with the facts, that is a bad sign. that is separate from your legal process, but again, this is not someone donald trump, who was lonnie last time, exactly one people over, or one over independents, or independent minded veterans and national security folks. so he is legally presumed innocent, and if he can win in court, glass. but running up the clock to avoid your day in court is not the right look. >> you had said all moments ago that jack smith was prepared for this, that it could be a lean.

how much of a blow is it to jack smith that she was in fact selected? >> well base -- is a great question. stephanie based on the rulings we are whereof, as well as what we know what federal judges, she is probably one of the toughest, most adverse federal judges you could draw for this -- >> for jack smith? and he was willing to risk, that he was clearly more willing to risk it, more willing about venue, more worried that this case would get tossed out by not filing it in the right place that he was willing to take a gamble on judge cannon. >> jack smith as a gambling man. lawyers, stephanie ruhle, andrew weissmann, and ari melber. thank you for being here, and lending your expertise, that does it for our special coverage of the indictment of donald. trump now it is time for the last world with lawrence o'donnell, getting in. lawrence >> this is a special katie