Request to limit what the former president can say about the case against him. Now accusing federal prosecutors of trying to restrict trumps First Amendment rights. Do they have a case on this at all . Trumps former white house lawyer ty cobb will be with me. Plus, a deadly strike. Russia ramping up attacks on civilian targets. We are learning tonight of a russian plot to assassinate the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. And an alarming scene as a massive brawl breaks out between a black man and a group of white voters in montgomery, alabama. And tonight police are vowing to make arrests. Lets go outfront. Good evening. Im erin burnett. Outfront tonight, team trumps response. The former president s legal team just now responding to a request from the Special Counsel that came after trump posted if you go after me, im coming after you. All caps. Trumps team arguing that his ability to share information in the January 6th Case is covered by the First Amendment. They say in a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights. Trumps team says that im coming after you, all caps. Theres just a generalized political comment, nothing to worry about. Of course, though, the context here is that words spurred others to violence on january 6th. Thats the reality. And, in fact, trump quickly followed that threat im coming after you with a video which included the Fulton County d. A. Fani willis, and the new york d. A. Alvin bragg saying, quote, they were trying to get him. If you go after me, ill get you. Well, prosecutors say comments like this could have a, quote, harmful and Chilling Effect on witnesses. And trumps threats are raising concerns already about the safety of the judge in the January 6th Case. We are learning tonight that security has been increased around the judge Tanya Chutkan who is overseeing the january 6th proceedings. Jack smith met with trump ally Bernie Carric who obviously had a huge stack of documents that smith wanted. Carric was a very close giuliani associate. Cnn exclusively caught carric and his attorney after the appearance Tim Parlatore as they were leaving the Special Counsels office. And here is what parlatore said tried to happen in that meeting. It was mostly about all the efforts in between the election and january 6th of what the Giuliani Team is doing and really just going through all of the efforts that they took at the time to take all the complaints of fraud, see what they can do to chase him down. We begin our coverage tonight with katelyn polantz. She is outfront in washington. What more do you know about trumps argument, and what we can expect from the judge there, right . He post, if you go after me, im coming after you. Reporter theres a couple Different Things at play here. What were talking about, what the fight is in court right now. It is over the material that donald trump has no access to at this time, that the Justice Department has that theyve collected in the investigation and will give to him for trial. The Justice Department, those records, they want to protect all of them. They want to make sure that donald trump is not going to be disseminating them on social media or sharing them in any other way talking about them with others. And the trump team, they just want it to be slightly narrower than that. They want to designate stuff in that pile as specifically sensitive. And so they want provisions over that. The judge, judge Tanya Chutkan is going to have to come in and make legal decisions about exactly what governs this evidence heading towards trial. She could be moving quite quickly on this. She did this weekend. And once there is some sort of order in place on what to do here with disloclosures or nondisclosures of this evidence, then everybody can really move toward trial and start working very hard there. So, that is whats going on legally. But there is this other conversation thats taking place as well, where the Justice Department did raise this trump post in social media about im coming after you. Now, trumps team, in response to that in their filing, theyre saying, that wasnt about sensitive information, that had nothing to do what were talking about here, that is what we call generalized political speech, pay no attention to that, and actually well raise you with a tweet of our own that we want to show you, which was a tweet of joe biden holding a cup a mug that he is selling a cup of joe never tastes better. And the trump team is saying that that is a thinly veiled reference. The reason were talking about all of this is its in court papers. And so now we watch to see if the judge here, Tanya Chutkan, if she addresses any of these Social Media Posts at all, has anything to say about that. That could be really interesting, and at a time where this case is not alone in the dark, there is an ongoing investigation, clearly as evidenced by Bernie Carric going in and talking to the Special Counsels office today about Rudy Giuliani and others. There could be other things that emerge here in the future, potentially before judge chutkan as well. All right, well, katelyn, thank you very much. And the hundreds of people who have been convicted in the January 6th Insurrection and the riot, theyve said it was trumps words that launched them into action. They said so repeatedly under oath. So if you go after me, im coming after you, its a threat. Outfront now, ty cobb, former Trump White House lawyer, is here. And, look, ty, at issue here, youve been on the Receiving End of some threatening posts from trump. He makes comments and threats against people in words. In june he said youll be held legally responsible for what he called false statements. He didnt specify what they were. And in terms of physically following through, thats not something hes ever done. So now hes saying if you go after me, im coming after you. So, is this just a case of prosecutors really arent going to be able to do anything about it . I think the prosecutors with the assistance of the judge will be able to tame this somewhat. Im not sure that trumps lawyers will be able to get him to adhere to whatever limitations they impose. And, as a result, he may be sanctioned and could even be held in contempt and put in jail and have to run for president from jail like eugene debbs did back in the 30s. Its Pretty Amazing to even think that were having such a conversation. There are moments when i hear it come out of your mouth that i pause. So, ty, trumps lawyer is giving a lot of information about his defense, right . Hes been speaking, and he told our own dana bash that trump didnt direct pence to do anything when it came to not certifying the election. Here is what he said. What President Trump did not do is direct Vice President pence to do anything. He asked him in an aspirational way. Asking is covered by the First Amendment. Aspirational, he asked in an aspirational way. He went on to say asking is not speech, its not action. Thats the heart of this, right . Speech versus action. Does that defense fly here . Not at all. Im not aware of the aspirational defense or the Free Speech Defense to a gang leader saying to two of his subordinates i need you two to please rob a bank for me and they do it. Thats aspirational. But it leads to a crime. And thats exactly what trump did with pence. The aspirational it is interesting. I mean, what do you make, ty, of the fact . I know john lauro was a very respected lawyer. But what do you make of the arguments hes making and i guess the way hes making it . Right now hes making it through the media. So ive been in his position before where he represented a very difficult client under great pressure whos concerned about the possibility of going to jail. I think one of the dangers and john is respected and he has a good reputation and he certainly knows his way around the courtroom, former federal prosecutor briefly. But, think about it. Hes been in this case for less than three weeks. Theres no way he could have mastered the nuances of the record. I mean, theyve got a lot of Talking Points to work from. But most of those Talking Points are false, just like the big lie is false. And so john getting out there trying to go toe to toe with other professionals whove lived this stuff for two years, and thats difficult, thats hard to do. He also admitted a couple of things that i think will come back to haunt them in terms of requests of pence and acknowledgment that they did want to delay the vote. So, i think its dangerous to be out there. Trump has needed somebody in charge. John seems to be taking charge. But he also needs somebody who can effectively communicate with the media with a finely honed message. And this message is a little awkward so far. Yeah, its certainly an aspirational defense, an aspirational request is certainly, even to a layperson, reads a little odd. I do want to ask you about the maralago case because the trumpappointed Aileen Cannon issued an order today asking federal prosecutors to explain the use of a washington grand jury. And shes asking for this even though a grand jury in south florida, of course, saw evidence and indicted based on the evidence that they saw. So as far as we understand, the defense in this case is not asking for this explanation, but the judge is. Do you understand why, is this a normal thing . No, its not. This is a highly unusual request for most judges, although its typical of the conduct that the 11th circuit came down hard on her previously for Insinuating Ideas that even trump hadnt raised in his defense when she bungled the Search Warrant and the Special Master Issue and they finally forced her to dismiss the case. I think this is a jumptheshark moment. The reality is the Defense Attorneys are capable, nobody asked her to raise this issue. It suggests the possibility of misconduct by the Justice Department where theres absolutely no basis for it. The law is you cannot use an existing grand jury to investigate existing charges, previously brought charges. But theres no reason that a grand jury in d. C. Cant share information with a jury in florida. In fact, its specifically authorized under rule 6 e 3 c of the federal rules of criminal procedure. And it was the florida grand jury after receiving and reviewing that information that issued the indictment. So theres no hand of impropriety and no sophisticated prosecutor would commit the one area of misconduct that is prohibited in a grand jury in terms of continuing to investigate in existing charge. Thats not really whats at issue here. Her concern is can a grand jury in d. C. Actually investigate additional corruption that may have occurred in her district, and the law is clear that they cant. I dont think the Justice Department is going to warrant about this. Theyll brief it for her and hope she understands. But its a highly unusual thing. And its the First Time Since the case was assigned to her that she has done anything thats remotely like the way she handled the initial issues that got her in trouble. All right, well, ty, thank you very much. My pleasure. Nice to be with you. You too, ty. Of course as ty and i are speaking, live pictures of the Fulton County courthouse. 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Dont cha . get a free Storage Upgrade when you preorder at verizon. These are live pictures of the Fulton County courthouse in georgia tonight. Any day, there a grand jury could vote to indict donald trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election in georgia. And a major sign tonight that the d. A. , fani willis, does intend to seek indictments, a source confirming to cnn that former georgia Lieutenant Governor geoff duncan has received subpoenas to testify before that jury. What else can you tell from these subpoenas, and i know they would come in terms of fani willis giving a final presentation to the grand jury. What do these subpoenas tell you about how close we may be to a decision . Well, yeah, erin, i think the reason they send such a strong signal that she is likely to seek indictments, whether that be of the former president donald trump, or a number of his allies, that she scrutinized in this case, you dont sit there putting together a full presentation that you would put before a grand jury with multiple witnesses, people like geoff duncan, the former Lieutenant Governor who told cnn he didnt sanction the appearance of people like Rudy Giuliani showing up before State Lawmakers, and another former State Lawmaker who was there and witnessed this Rudy Giuliani presentation, you wouldnt craft that kind of narrative and prepare it to go before a grand jury unless you were intending on seeking indictments. And obviously, theres been a very serious Security Presence around the Fulton County courthouse. Fani willis has instructed her staff to work from home on a number of days, all of these things, of course, point to major indictments, potentially, of the former president , although we dont know that for certain yet. When you look at the timing in this case, one of the interesting things about the subpoenas going to these witnesses is it says we will give you 48 hours notice when we need you to appear. Multiple witnesses told us they have not received that notice yet, an indication that probably later on this week or next week would be the soonest she would start presenting this case. And our understanding is that the grand jury seated today, which meets on mondays and tuesdays, heard the regular array of cases you would expect to hear in Fulton County, nothing particularly special, no indication of a trump case. So i think we could still be a couple of days or into next week. But its clear that whatever this Indictment Decision is, its going to be coming soon. Just one quick followup to that. Weve all spoken to people whove been subpoenaed. But does that necessarily mean that shes going to use them all in her presentation . Or is this just giving her the right . Ive subpoenaed you, ill give you 48 hours notice, but just because you dont get the notice, does that mean its not happening, or maybe she just doesnt mean that individual . Theres certainly not a guarantee that if those people dont get called, she could just decide to change course entirely and learn her ow