Continues with ac 360. For the first time in this countrys history, a former president of the United States has been charged with felonies allegedly committed while he was president. Im Anderson Cooper here in new york along with jake tapper. Anderson, the indictment charges former President Trump with four things, one that is antit antithetical. Despite having lost the defendant, donald trump, was determined to remain in power, unquote. We learned of the indictment in the 5 00 hour today. Shortly after 6 special counsel jack smith made a statement. Here it is in full. Good evening. Fod an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters and extending and from disrupting the scene. It sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented situation. It was filed in the indictment fueled by lies, lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a Bedrock Function of the u. S. Government, the nations process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. The men and women of Law Enforcement who defended the u. S. Capitol on january 6th are heroes. They are patriots and The Very Best of us. They did not just defend a buildings or the people sheltering in it, they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our capitol, the Department Of Justice has remained committed to ensuring co counter ability. This was brought consistent with that and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, i must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until Proven Guilty beyond a reasonable dot in a court of law. I would like to thank the members of the fbi as well as the Career Prosecutors and Law Enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6th allegations. It is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you. A short time later camera crews caught up with the Attorney GeneralMerrick Garland in philadelphia and he had these brief remarks. Jack smith, Special Council to take on the mr. Smith and his team of principal leaders will follow the law. Any questions about the matter will have to be answered by the filings made in the courtroom. The form er and paula reid ad evan peres is there. Whats the reaction from the former president and his allies . Of course they were not worried about this. They were bracing for this. They were waiting to see what the charges were. Former President Trump was saying he was the one who was indicted there. They didnt say his names or initials. He was lashing out about it. It took quite some time clearly as weve seen how this has played out. His campaign is referring to the Nazi Holocaust and referring to the 1930s. Thats a comparison they made before the indictment came down. The reality is he is facing his second set of charges. He is very clearly going to tie it back to the campaign. Another defense he is going to make is he is listening to the advice of the attorneys. They are referenced here as unnamed but listed cocon spiritors in this case. That is one thing that the allies are wondering. Why they were named in the indictment they were not done so yet. Weve talked to many of them. They have not received Target Letters yet for the most part. Thats a question his own legal team is asked tonight given the allegations in this indictment. Paula, in terms of the indictment, what was expected . What was unexpected . Anderson, the charges were seeing were very much expected based on the former president indicated was in the target letter. Conspiring to defraud the United States and civil rights charge which was not a surprise. What was a surprise is the fact that under his name theres about 6 inches and its blank. The fact that no one else was charged. They listed sixcocon spiritors. Lastly, theres not a lot of new information here. This has been this issue this day, the leadup Up To January 6th has been exhaustively investigated. Not a lot of new details. You had a pretty or shocking story. This indictment, its pretty difficult if you are not an attorney to really follow the entire conspiracy. Not clear if its going to break through to regular voters. Evan, it is the former president how many people in the former president s orbit explained to him why whaet he ws saying was a lie and factually incorrect. No one reading this document of the people all around the former president from his own attorneys, the department of homeland securitys leader. The Vice President , all of these people explained to him yet he still moves over. Right. Exactly, anderson. Thats part of the focus of what jack smith and the prosecution are trying to portray to prove. Despite the fact the former president has a right or he had a right to challenge, he has a right to lie, right . To say there was a fraud. He has all of those rights. What he doesnt have a right to is to concoct the United States to have this conspiracy to try to deprive the citizens of their right to have their vote counted. So thats what they go through in chapter and verse. What prosecutors draw a picture of, someone being told by his Vice President , by the homeland sec security, all of whom were responsible for securing the election. He picked them. He chose. They were italian satellites or venezuela or china. So thats how prosecutors are trying to draw the picture even if hes claiming to this day, hes absolutely lying. When he was concocting these changes. Do you have any sense of how that will play out, what hell be doing in the meantime . Will he actually go . I think thats the big question. We dont know the logistics. Weve soon a trial when it was in miami. Well ask john loro who is a new attorney who has been added to the race in the next few weeks. They will be handling this case now that it has been actual charges. I think its a question of what thursday already looks like. I will note whats different here is that the indictment was unsealed almost immediately. You could open it up and see what was laid out. You and i were on air when he told us about the indictment and the documents investigation. There was a vacuum where we had not seen it yet. You can read in this and thats what people are encouraged to do. Paula, you mentioned the coconspirators but not actually charged yet. He said the investigation continues. Is it clear to you what areas hes still looking into . Well, we know from our reporting that they have looked into fundraising. Campaign finance violations and statements and claims they knew were not charged. Its unclear if it will be. The special counsel will be speaking to several new witnesses over the next few weeks. It includes the former Police Commissioner who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani. We also know of one former Trump Attorney is going to go in and speak with investigators. These are not grand jury appearances, these are interviews with prosecutors. Its clear theyre gathering evidence. Not just him saying, yeah, were going to investigate. Firn any of those cocon s spiritors. We have Andrew Mccape as well as abby phillip and dana bash and senior chief legal analyst laura coates. Lets talk about some of whats in this indictment. What is being alleged is nothing short of a criminal conspiracy. We heard from liz cheney about the degree to which this was not just happen stance and not just chaos, it was a concerted effort with many conspiricists coming up with various ways to try to overturn the results of a free and fair election. From state to state to state, from pennsylvania and beyond. The climax of course is what the former president did with his then Vice President. Yes, youre absolutely right. The January 6th Committee plowed a lot of this ground for the special much investigator and mike pence. He did speak to the special counsel are in and about, what happened between donald trump and mike pence. In conversation after conversation including a christmas call saying, mike, youve got to do this pushing the vais president the then Vice President to overturn the election and it said some of the quotes in here were from mike pences contemporaneous notes that he took at the time. Its really, really stunning. Then it turns the corner to the then president not having the sway with mike pence in private and taking it public, and we all know what happened then. Just how dense this indictment is. Theyre really methodically going through point by point, date by date. What struck out to me, Truin Georgia the votes were not being brought in from nowhere, his own Chief Of Staff that a specific claim about Georgia Voegts and then the very next day he goes out and amplifies or spreads those false claims or in some cases very shortly after something was told to people, trump or his coconspirators, Rudy Giuliani whos sort of unnamed as a cocon spirit who are here and calls state lawmakers and says, i need you to do this. I need you to cast more doubt on the election results. And detailing not just words, what we are always hearing from trumps lawyers, he wasnt using his remarkable. What the speed does he was told and then he went out and did things. Hes done things that are alleged violations. One of the things we should note, he did not could Om Perfect Rate with the January 6th Committee. He did sell a book in which he will get his version of this pence issued a statement. He said todayindictment serves as an important reminder, anyone who puts themselves. Our conson is more important than any one mans career. I chose the constitution and i always will. The well note that mike pence might not even make the debate in august. His statement is accurate. I mean, this is not a matter of opinion. The first part is but the idea that the constitution is supposed to be more important than any one mans career, that is empirically clear. Thats true. Clearly political points. He shouldnt be the partys nominee and run for presidency again. Right. What were seeing across the board is the republican talking points. Theres always a phrase you hear, this time twotiered justice system. He didnt talk about the indictment, he talked about hunter biden. Well see that over and over and over again. One of the things i found striking, this is, as january said, with the January 6th Committee laid out. He did not go broad. These are things he thinks he can get a conviction but donald trump is front and center from the very first page. Just the way its here. He is the boss of this. Hes the one in charge. Lets talk about one of those co of con spiritor, 4, yes, Jeffrey Clark, is the individual who were alleged trump had told him he would be acting Attorney General and hes identified as Attorney General clark. Let meust read frothis. On january 2nd, four days after the proceeding, Jeffrey Clark tried Torce The ActingAttorney General and acting Deputy Attorney general, richard clarks draft letter which contained false statements to State Official alzheimers. He told them that the president that donald trump was considering making him, clark, the new acting Attorney General if they would agree to send the proposed letter to the targeted states but they refused. That is an allegation of a criminal act. R to commit fraud against the United States. Indeed, it is as part of the factual predicate, as they say, behind all of this. Sometimes cases come down to one question, why . Why did you engage in all of this behavior . Conspiracy, you talk about that phrase, the meeting of the mind. A conspiracy at a core asks the jurors to understand the why . What was the purpose . Why did you agree . The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate rejections. Why would they go along. There is a bit of a carrot at the end of the stick. If i buy into this i have skin in the game. Part of the reason youre not seeing the charges is here is a First Amendment defense. You have every right to at times even lie, if the purpose was to answer the why. Every cocon spiritor that was named or unnamed at the moment is going to go back in that continued thread. Why . Why are you part of this . He now in terms of allegation becomes increasingly clear that he had some benefit of that bargain. Whats interesting also about this, andy mccabe, former Deputy White House deputy fbi director is the allegation of the fake electors. The idea this is not an organic protest. I feel like i support trump and, therefore, im going to pretend to be an elector. That it was organized. And it talks about how trump, this is on page 5 of the indictment, how trump and the cocon spiritorsized these slates. They didnt spontaneously happen. They organized the they said that the strategy, quote, includeusing the fraudulent electors to meet when they were to gather and cast their votes,ast fraudulent votes for trump, Sign Certificatesalsely representing that they were legitimate electors and then it says some of these fake electors, im just quoting here, were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if trump succeeded in the lawsuits within their state which he never did. So this is not only i mean as always with donald trump, he is often committing these offenses against the American People but against his own supporters. Thats right. Thats why the election or the elector scheme is so fascinating. There are so many specific tangible acts that took place in the course of that scheme. Didnt rely specifically on coercive phone calls. They started with, if you believe the allegations, a legal theory, right, which evolved into an overt plan were having issues with your microphone. Lets keep talking about this, dana bash. The idea of the fake electors is fascinating because its beyond just Rudy Giuliani going out and lying which we saw a whole lot of or donald trump on twitter or wherever going on and lying. It is lying to specific groups of people in order to have the conspiracy succeed, lying to legislators, lying to fake electors and trying to get all of the stage set so that either Vice President pence or some legislator, some member of congress could object and say, hey, you have these fake electors here. We need to send this back to the states. It is stunning especially with a group of people that didnt necessarily seem like they could get it together to, you know, find evidence or to get a scheme together that was this elaborate, but they certainly did. They tried to the way this is described in state after state after state. The slate of fake electors is one of the things i agree with you that is the most troubling for the basics of democracy, not only because they lied to the people who they were talking to and they thought this would only happen if they won in court but also because this was an early move to get to the point where they hoped they could convince, going back to mike pence, him to throw out the real slates of electors and put in these fake elect organization and therefore keeping trump in the white house. Why is it, do you think jamie, that the only legal action weve seen against these fake electors has been as of now in michigan, the Michigan Attorney general nestle, she has brought charges, but there were fake electors in arizona, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania, like why havent we seen the attorneys generals in those states doing the same thing . Although Fannie Willis in georgia may well do so in her atlanta legislation. I would stress the words as of now. Right. We are beginning to hear that other investigations have picked up. Weve heard that in arizona the Attorney General there has now started an investigation. So i think we will see more of those. And those can be very important because if there are charges against donald trump in a state, if you can connect donald trump and he becomes president again, he cannot pardon himself if he is convicted in a state case as opposed to a federal case. Andy, im told your microphone is working. The point you were making about the depths of the conspiracy and how much is in this document. Let me take a step back. Now having read this 45 page document, what are your impressions . Its vast. Its detailed. Clearly took a strong roadmap from the January 6th Committee. A lot of the things were reading here have heard i