Ashcroft Case News Today

professor at the university of michigan and msnbc legal analyst, yamiche alcindor, nbc news washington correspondent. dasha, were waiting, were watching this historic moment. set the stage for us outside of trump tower. >> well, we have got a calm before the storm here yesterday. we had a massive crowd, a lot of noise today. it has been fairly quiet this is a business district, a tourist district, a lot of curiosity, a lot of onlookers. we have choppers overhead. we have got some antic...

Defendant to talk. better seen than heard he has a speech tonight. we dont know if well hear from him between now and then but do you always look at if your client says something that its a potential gift to the prosecution? especially in this case. >> yeah, youre right, leave it to donald trump to be the first person indicted and want to give a speech back at the scene of another crime, mar-a-lago, where hes going to, you know, speak and probably antagonize his defense lawyers. its only evidenc...

I argued the ashcroft case which was 9-0, in which the supreme court said unanimously there was a zone of freedom for government actors, and you dont want to go after them to put it differently, its like really hard for a former president to be indicted but you really have to try its like tinder wood. yes, donald trump is about to do it, but thats something that were talking about for future presidents >> were 20-plus minutes away from what will be the arraignment of donald j. trump 2:15 is sche...

Trained to shut out what is going on outside the courtroom so i think that in a certain way they will present very calm and collected manner but at the same time, it is hard for them to -- those things. in a normal case, threats against prosecutors are not -- theyre taken seriously, but prosecutors are kind of fundable, you can replace one with another i think most criminal defendants understand that and unless you make it personal, they really dont pose such a great danger but in the situation ...

Talking about the courthouse, when he came out, he said it is a great system, a system that works very different from what we have heard from him in recent years, just this morning, the former president again attacked judge merchan calling him highly partisan im wondering as a former ada what merchans reputation is, how do you expect him to handle this highest of high profile cases, and donald trump, frankly, in particular >> the judges reputation is extremely good hes a strong judge. well respe...

Thats his style i think the main challenge in a case like this is there are so many ways in which it is exactly like any other case. and the judge ought to and will try to treat it as that. but we were just talking about something like the gag order, where you have to treat the case differently. there is -- you cannot -- the historic moment. >> and right now we see the former president is coming out there you see him, the traditional typical red tie, blocked by that nypd ambulance but hes gettin...

>> neal, to the mar-a-lago documents issue. "the washington post" reported a significant story which seemed to advance the number of witnesses that they may have on that case, and how far advanced he may be. if that is the case, we havent confirmed that at nbc, but if that reporting is correct, and it is very detailed reporting, could that case actually precede and go to trial even sooner than this one >> absolutely. i always felt like the mar-a-lago stolen documents investigation is a cleaner a...

Republicans in the senate are dealing with this, theyre much more cautious. thats the dynamic we have seen play out in this party it is even more interesting to watch how congress deals with this as this legal case goes on because lawmakers are going to have to answer questions about this we know having covered former president trump for a long time, if there was something close to a gag order, how could you really stop former president trump from tweeting, from attacking, this is what he does. ...

Give a different way that i think the prosecutors in this case might be looking at it, many viewers, which is there is no question that there is a sadness to what were seeing and having a former president who is under arrest, but -- >> take the person out of it, but the fact that somebody who was the leader of the free world is now under indictment. >> absolutely. but i think the sadness is the -- if youre looking at this from a prosecutors perspective, i think they would say the sadness was the...