let's go back to blaine alexander, who is with us from outside the fulton county courthouse in atlanta. lane after ask of you having that weird thing where the test is over and, immediately you get really tired and get the flu because even working the story for months and months and months, and had his just hit its apogee with it this indictment. i know you are in the room for fani willis's remarks today. says to be kind of a benchmark moment for you, considering how much time you've covered this story? >> i appreciate that rachel. fortunately the flu is not set in yet, i'm still running off on adrenaline. it was very surreal to see this all kind of come to this conclusion because when we were sitting in that room with fani willis just now, a couple of things stood out to me. one, the fact that she said she plans to try all 19 defendants together. i do need to make a note about the. that's more defendants than we were likely expecting. we certainly expected this to be a sprawling indictment with defendants numbering in the double digits. when i spoke with emily cora couple of months ag

joining me now, blaine alexander and vaughn hillyard. blaine, you've been covering this from the very beginning. donald trump has already attacked fani willis on social media this morning. what's the latest and how is she dealing with that? >> well, she's dealing with it the way she has all along, andrea, which is to tell her teammates to tell county officials here not to be bothered by it and basically put out a message that we have a job to do. you know, the fact that trump is attacking willis is nothing new. it's something we've seen come from campaign rallies. from his truth social. his social media posts, but what has changed in recent days as we get closer to a potential indictment is that we've seen those attacks pick up. interestingly, there's an ad that was airing on atlanta television stations attacking fani willis from the trump campaign. so we've seen an uptick. you see some on your screen in his latest post calling her phoney fani willis. she's staying focused on this, but what's interesting, we spent the better part of today

. >> i want to bring in blaine alexander and charlie sykes. lisa ruben is an msnbc legal analyst. there's a difference, lisa, between coordinating and communicating. what do you think is going on between jack smith and fani willis? >> i agree there's a difference between coordinating and communicating but in this case, i actually don't think either one is happening. i really do think that fani willis and the department of justice are pursuing their investigations on separate tracks. once either one of them or both indicts, do i think there will be some sort of communication? probably. i do think there will be communications between and among the various prosecutors here to try and determine a schedule. in particular, alvin bragg, manhattan d.a., last week said to a new york public radio show host that just because he was the first to charge doesn't necessarily mean he'll stand on ceremony and insist that his case be first to be tried. that's the order in which it is now. it sounds to me like he'd welcome a call from the department of justice or at least be open to it. my sense is

joining me now is blaine alexander outside the courthouse in atlanta and greg bluesteen, political reporteral constitution. blaine, how's it look around the courthouse? i guess a lot less traffic. >> reporter: less traffic, more security. that's what we've seen since the beginning of this day. you've seen me in front of this courthouse for the better part of two and a half years. rarely does it look like this. more orange barricades, metal barricades. both sides of the street are blocked. that's one indication we need to be watching closely but the other is we know fulton county district attorney fani willis is preparing her case. we know subpoenas have gone out for people to appear before the jury here. in fact, just within the past 30 seconds, i confirmed another person, another former lawmaker here in georgia has received a subpoena. b. wen. she was another lawmaker who was inside that panel, part of that panel that heard the presentation from rudy giuliani in the days following the 2020 election when he came to georgia, made a couple of false statements about state farm arena. she's rec

. >> nbc's blaine alexander is following all of the developments out of atlanta. laura jarrett is here along with andrew weissman, former fbi general counsel and former senior member of robert mueller's special counsel. also an msnbc legal analyst. blaine, i want to ask you about the judge in this case. what do we know about him? >> reporter: yeah. a couple of things, one, this came as a surprise to those of us who have been watching and following this case for quite some time because there has been a single judge who all along had been handling all of the developments from top to bottom. he was the one who was on the bench last night when the indictment was unsealed. that judge is not going to be handling this case. so certainly that came as a surprise, but again, again, we know this judge is going to be overseeing a number of different aspects. one, what the terms of surrender look like. two, this judge is going to have the final say as to whether or not cameras are allowed in the courtroom. it's something we've been talking about a lot. but the judge ultimately

joining us from atlanta, nbc news correspondent, blaine alexander. hear in the fulton county sheriff about the security plans? >> reporter: well, it's clear they have been preparing for the possibility of indictment. they've been preparing for months and he says they have been having near daily meetings about this. he wouldn't list the number of agencies or the different agencies but says nobody's been left out when they talk about discussions around security. he's gone to other places where they've seen indictments. he's sent deputies to miami. to manhattan. he says that if there is an indictment in d.c., he's going to send team members up there, too, just to kind of watch this process, to observe and see what worked, what didn't work and what intelligence they can bring back here in fulton county. i asked him about that. >> talk to me about what preparation looks like. how are you going to be securing this area and are these streets going to be passable? >> we had an opportunity to visit new york, visit miami then prepare accordingly. some of the s

. >> nbc's blaine alexander at the courthouse, blayne, we've been following your every important syllable all day long. thank you so much. we will be back with you as this night continues to unfold. as we follow this developing story out of georgia, again, the status right now is that the fulton county courthouse did not close at five as it usually does today. it is still a hive of activity. around 9:00 this evening, we saw ten indictments brought from the grand jury proceedings to judge robert mcburney. he briefly and basically silently flipped through them, seemed to have signed off them. and then he handed them back to the clerks office. and the clerks office now has them. we've been advised now that it could take from 1 to 3 hours, it's now been a half hour that the clerk's office has had that. before that, before they are prepared to release those documents, as rain exam there was just reporting, that fani willis, the district upper attorney fulton county all in this investigation and who led this presentment of grandeur, we are expecting to hear from her. and that very well maybe th

nbc news correspondent blaine alexander has details. >> reporter: the former president of the unitedrump. >> reporter: fani willis announced she is charging 19 people with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in georgia, an effort she says was led by mr. trump. the former president is facing 13 felony counts, including multiple conspiracy charges. >> the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise. >> reporter: willis has charged all of the defendants with violating georgia's rico act, a statute first used to prosecute organized crime. it includes a fake electors scheme, breach of voting machines, and the phone call from trump to brad raffensperger. >> i just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. because we won the state. >> reporter: this is the fourth indictment mr. trump is facing, but the case could play out very differently. georgia law will likely allow the trial to be televised, and authorities have said there could be a mug shot of the former president. because these are state charges, the former president, if convicted, cou

interesting about what happens is that the fulton county sheriff, and elected democrat, told our blaine alexandero go forward with that mugshot. because as you recall, come on the other bookings, to federal and why new york, authorities determined that they did not need to do a monk shot, because the purpose mugshot is to be able to publicize the image. if they, fleet that wasn't going to happen here. there are million and a half photos of donald trump. so the federal government, commercial use existing photo for the booking photo. in the end, the fulton county folks decided that they're going to treat him like any other defendant in that respect. and that was so jarring about the procedure. one of the other bookings and arraignments that took place in the courthouse, this one was in fulton county jail. and it was the stuff of rappler x. and it's a nasty place. and emits of die under questionable circumstances. but he had to go through that place where there are signs saying emits this way. and here we go through the indignities. i don't believe he actually was a way. we are told that his staff f

let's bring in blaine alexander.ere last night? >> reporter: well, willie, good morning to you. it was certainly very busy, very crowded, and very locked down with security. that's the best way to describe it. he entered through this gate you see right here behind me. i timed it. i was standing right in this very spot, saw his motorcade zoom past. he went in at 7:30, and came out at 7:56. those are the times the motorcade came in and out we're talking about 21 minutes. less than 20 minutes inside the building. so when you consider the fact that willie, if you or i or any other person were to be booked into the county jail here at fulton county, it can run anywhere from 12 hours or so to get in, get out, get fingerprinted and go through much of the same process we saw from the former president last night. the fact we saw he spent less than 20 minutes inside the building is stunning. it shows how expedited this process is. we spoke with people inside the jail and they said, this is the fastest booking they've ever seen

. >> joining us now from the fulton county courthouse is nbc news correspondent, blayne alexander. blaines good to see you. where do things stand at this hour. what can you tell us? >> reporter: well, symone, things are certainly moving. i have been in touch with a source of mine, with direct knowledge of these proceedings. and i'm told that that grand jury is currently convening right now. we know that fulton county d.a. fani willis wanted to wrap this up tonight. we know that she got through at least seven witnesses. the grand jury took a break, and as i mentioned, i've been told now that they are voting right now. this is an acceleration of the timeline that we were expecting, a case of this magnitude, we expected it would take at least two days to present. there were two witnesses that were lined up for tomorrow. in fact, for whatever reason, the d.a. and her team decided to call them in the middle of the day, basically saying, hey, listen, i know we told you to come in tomorrow. but come in today. we want to get your testimony today. one of those witnesses is george chidi, an indepen

joining me now, blaine ale er in -- blayne alexander in manhattan and phil rucker.yne, start us off. the focus on rudy giuliani. >> reporter: we are standing by and waiting. we are expecting his attorneys to show up at the courthouse any minute and go into a meeting with the d.a.'s team. what we have seen today is a flury of activity in the form of consent bond agreements for other co-defendants. that means that we can expect to see a flury of activity at the jail. we have seen a bond agreement for misty hampton. her bail is $10,000. 45 minutes before that news came out, i was inside the courtroom. i saw attorneys for misty hampton walking with one of the top prosecutors. they were walking from one wing of their office and led down another hallway and into a stairwell. she was very -- her attorneys were very likely going into a meeting with the d.a.'s team. that matches the cadence. the attorneys will go behind closed doors. they will hammer out the terms of the agreement for surrender. that's what we are expecting to see with rudy giuliani's legal team as they make

and also correspondent blayne alexander who is also outside of the fulton county courthouse for us. and nbc news justice reporter ryan riley. blaine, we're getting more of thieves consent agreements, bond agreements for more of the indicted co-conspirators. we're seeing some of them go in, so far two including john eastman. what you can tell us about what you are seeing there at the courthouse? >> reporter: we're seeing a sort of flurry of activity. just as we're seeing a flurry of activity at the jail, we're seeing a flurry of activity here at the courthouse in the form of the consent bond agreements and also in the form of attorneys for some of these co-defendants going in either entering through the courthouse or being spotted in the d.a.'s kind of waiting room going in, so we believe to discuss the terms of surrender. these are the eight people that you see on the screen right now that we are expecting to show up and surrender at the fulton county jail really at any moment. really at any point. of course these are the people who already had their consent bond agreements in place. so at the top of that list of course is former