On felony charge, this time for alleged crimes against democracy itself. Good evening in new york. Im Anderson Cooper and jake tapper in washington. And anderson, unlike the first two arraignments in new york and florida, this one was held within view of the crime scene. The u. S. Capitol at a federal courthouse where dozens of members of the violent mob that he incited, he incited hundreds really have already been convicted and sent to prison. The actual proceedings which were led by a Magistrate Judge took 27 minutes. The four counts connected though his attempt to overturn the election that he lost. His next Court Date Set for the 28th in front of the trial judge, tanya chutkan, who is expected to set a trial date. Now a short time later after the sentencing on the tarmac at Reagan National airport, holding an umbrella handed to him by his bodyman and documents case codefendant walt nauta, the he made the following remarks about the nations capitol. This is a very sad day for americ
months is going to require us doing something that we re just not that good at as a country, which is nuance. it is in fact true that we re progressives working to delegitimize trump from the very beginning. it is true. and they were not prosecuted that is true. and there were conservatives working to delegitimize obama from the beginning, including donald trump, who said he didn t have a birth certificate. and they weren t prosecuted either. it turns out there is a lot of speech that s not prosecuted. but what you won t be able to show is a democratic president sitting in the oval office trying to hold on to power in the way that dald trump did, or frankly, a republican president, or frankly any president in the history of the country. and that s the truth. and so the problem is, to your point, adam, there is going to be a lot of stuff thrown out there, online, on social media, et cetera. we re going to have to sit here and look at it. two things can be true. yes. a lot of horrible st
a point 3 in the indictment where and remember, this is an indictment, this is from a grand jury, right. that s right. so this is from american citizens, and they give this to the special counsel. i m just going to read. the defendant, donald trump, had a right like every american to speak publicly about the election and even to claim falsely that there had been determine tif fraud during the election and he had run. he is also allowed to challenge the results such as seeking recounts or audit of the popular vote in states or fighting lawsuits challenging ballot procedures. indeed, in many cases the defendant did pursue these methods. his efforts to outcome the outcome in any states were uniformly unsuccessful. so they re saying, they say right here is the third point, he s not in trouble for lying. that s right. let s be very clear about this. the federal criminal code has many statutes that criminal ize
president. and gloria, one of the things that s interesting is so they re pushing forward on this first amendment defense. who knows what they re actually going to do, the trump lawyers when it comes down a courtroom. but in the court of public opinion, they ve been talking about a first amendment defense. they re prosecuting him for things he said, and you can t do that, his first amendment rights. here is what trump s then attorney general bill barr, not on january 6th, but in the days and weeks leading up to january 6th told kaitlan collins last night when asked about this first amendment defense. as the indictment says, they re not attacking his first amendment right. he can say whatever he wants. he can even lie. he can even tell people that the election was stolen when he knew better. but that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. all conspiracies involve speech. and all fraud involve speech. so, you know, free speech
speech that s not protected. every fraud requires a statement as part of the crime. so if i call you up, jamie, and lie to you on the phone for the purpose of stealing money from you, that s wire fraud. my lies to you are not protected speech. if i threaten you, gloria, and in return to force you to coerce you to give me something of value, that s extortion. my threat to you is protected speech. that s not the case they re making in this indictment. his speech not protected because it is part of a crime. just to put a period on it, there is a different channel, fox, $787.5 million they paid to dominion electronic voting systems because of the defamation. that s right. the defamation that they platformed and made themselves. some of their hosts against that