Another defendant. Also a Special Counsel named in the hunter biden case with orders to investigate the president s son and others. The question now, who are the others . We are live in maui, where the death toll just rose sharply. Some especially powerful new video is coming in, which we will bring to you, along with exclusive reporting on how hawaiian officials may have missed Key Opportunities to prevent a tragedy like this. Good evening, everyone. John berman here in for anderson. We begin with what we learned today about how judge Tanya Chutkan intends to handle what could be the most important trial this country has ever seen. Someone who is held and right now running to reclaim the highest office in the land. And on top of that, hes donald trump. The venue, as you know, was a hearing on how he and his legal teammate handled evidence, some of it sensitive, that prosecutors will be turning over to them, specifically what they are allowed to make public. And on that, judge chutkan granted some if not all of what the side was asking. The former president himself who has been talking and ranting about the case, about her, about the Special Counsel, she was unequivocal. To her, he is not a former president or a president ial candidate. He is first and foremost, a defendant, which she also made clear comes with certain restrictions, including what he can say and post online. What she did not say was when on this already crowded calendar the case will be tried. The government wants january. Team trump wants after the election. Earlier tonight on the situation room, one legal expert told wolf that given manhattan d. A. Alvin bragg, late march looked interesting to him. As for what happened today, Jessica Schneider joins us now. Jessica, walk us through what the judge laid out today with the protective order. Reporter yeah, john. This isnt as broad of a protective order the prosecution wanted. But it does restrict trump and his team from publicly disclosing the Sensitive Information handed over to them during the discovery process. This is Sensitive Information that includes grand jury process information, also information about search warrants. And this protective order, it also governs how trump can get access to this information. For example, when hes not with his attorneys, he cant have his phone or any Recording Device when he views this information. And, john, there is a lot of it. Prosecutors said today at the hearing, theyre prepared to hand over 11. 6 million pages of documents. That also includes recordings of witness interviews that trump will also not be able to share or post on his social media. The judge, john, she said shell be scrutinizing everything that trumps team does say on social media and on media outlets. So, jessica, what else did the judge say about the proverbial elephant in the room, which is, you know, donald trump is not just a former president , but he is the republican front runner in the current election. Yeah. She actually addressed this repeatedly. And she put it bluntly. She said, even though trump is a political candidate, she said, in her words, he still has to yield to the administration of justice. So, she said, if that means his political speech has to be somewhat limited, thats just how its going to be. Judge chutkan said trump does not have the absolute right to free speech as a criminal defendant. He has to play by the rules to make sure the jury pool isnt tainted and to make sure witnesses are not intimidated. What about the timeline . Did the judge tip her hand at all . Shes signaling throughout this process that shes ready to move quickly in this case. And she said the danger to tainting the jury pool is a big reason here. She warned trump. She said him and his team, the more comments you make about this case, the greater chance shell have to order a quick start to this trial to ensure a fair jury pool. And, john, you mentioned it, the Special Counsels team has already proposed the january 2nd start date. Trumps team needs to put in a filing next week to propose their possible start date. Likely, like you said, they wont want to start until the day after the election. Jessica schneider. Great to see you tonight. Thank you so much. With us now, cnn chief correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who anchors the source at the top of the next hour, norm eisen, also jeremy foegele, formal federal judge for californias northern district. He currently is the Executive Director of the berkeley judicial institute. So, kaitlan, i know that the judge, judge chutkan, ruled specifically on procedural issues. But she also really did tip her hand about her overall attitude toward donald trump. You know, hes a defendant here. So, how is the trump Team Processing that . Yeah, this is the first time that they were in the room in front of her before it had been a magistrate judge. This is the first time they were in front of judge chutkan, who, of course, trump has been attacking, his allies have been attacking. Theyve suggested they may ask for her to recuse herself. She made very clearly she is not treating him as a former president or a 2024 candidate but as a criminal defendant. Essentially as they were trying to make arguments about him being on the Campaign Trail, she noted, thats basically his day job like any other defendant. I thought that was one of the most telling comments she made. Its your day job. It shed a lot of light on what the next few months could look like here and how she is going to proceed on this. Thats what weve been looking for. We did it with judge cannon. Judge chutkan obviously looking to see who is going to be her style here. That will determine the date, the scope on this. This is a routine thing, asking for this protective order. Its not a gag order. She did amend to go with what trumps team wanted about sensitive materials. But this just shows you there are going to be so many battles going forward. Ambassador eisen here, sensitive material, restricting donald trump, what he can say about sensitive material, which are materials containing personally identifying information. What does that look like in practice for someone like donald trump . Well, john, its five, six categories of materials that theyve designated as sensitive. And what that looks like, its grand jury materials. Its the key evidence, really, that theyre going to use to prove the case against donald trump. Theyre legally required to provide that to him. And in practice, what that means is his lawyers will show him the most important information. Theyll talk to him about it. Theyre probably not just going to leave him in a room to read. Hell be able to react to them. But if he hears the danger, the redline, if some of that information is trapped in his brain that isnt otherwise public and then he lets it out in whole or in part in a social media posting, in a speech at one of his rallies, when hes talking to journalists. That is where theyre going to go to court and say, hey, donald trump has breached this order. And depending on how often he does it, there is potentially very serious penalties for that. So, with an undisciplined individual like trump, theres danger that its breached and danger of those penalties. Okay. Judge foegele, what happens then if donald trump does cross one of those red lines . What options are available to judge chutkan . Well, i think most judges in the situation like this would use what people would recognize as progressive discipline. If it happens once, they would try to understand why it happened and what the motivation was, whether it was inadvertent or intentional or even if it was a violation. If it happens repeatedly, then it becomes more intense of an inquiry. You also have to look at what the nature of the breach is. If its something thats really critical like Witness Intimidation or revealing information, which is clearly confidential and the defendant knows that its confidential, thats pretty serious. That affects the integrity of the process. What the judge is trying to do here, i think, is balance mr. Trumps rights as a defendant and every defendant has the same rights to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. Shes trying to balance those rights against the need for the integrity of the process and prevent things like confidential information being leaked, jury pools being tainted, witnesses being dissuaded or intimidated. Thats the balance shes trying to strike. So, if a defendant does something thats particularly egregious, or if they do things over and over again that are clearly prohibited, the judge has the option to impose sanctions. Sanctions could be a fine. The most extreme sanction could be revocation of release. The defendant could go to jail. I think the chance of that happening are very remote at this point, but it really depends how things play out. Kaitlan, i want to go back to this Day Job Comment when judge chutkan said running for president is Donald Trumps day job. She also said to the defense counsel, you are conflating what your client needs to do to defend himself and what he wants to do politically. So, do you think that and his defense team, that they understand and or care about that decision . I think the point of frustration that we saw from john lauro, trumps defense attorney, was over mike pence. Obviously hes at the center of the january 6th investigation. And john lauro, kind of, raised this idea of mike pence being on the debate stage and trump defending himself. The judge dismissed that. She did not say that that was she said it was giving her more concern that she was raising that kind of a point than it was alleviating her of her concerns. I think that is something you could potentially see. And going back to, you know, what information does he learn from these documents, they could get transcripts and everything. And what does he say publicly . I think that is where the issue is going to be. Because, i mean, he could very well be on the debate stage with mike pence. Hes been attacking mike pence, pushing back on his claims that he asked him to overturn the constitution. So, i think that is where the intersection of this could be. His attorney, they were very frustrated, it seemed, at those points in the hearing. One other way to look at that Day Job Comment, ambassador eisen, if the Iowa Caucuses are your day job, theres nothing special about the Iowa Caucuses. Between that comment and saying literally, if this guy keeps speaking out, im going to have to start the trial more quickly, how do you think he is dissupposed to set the trial date . She is going to set the trial down in the calendar for the first part of 2024. Thats clear. Number one, theres a legal presumption under the speedy trial act. 70 days. That would give us october. The government is already allowing more time. Number two, she said that she cannot and will not factor in the effect on political campaigns, john. That means shes going to treat him like any other defendant who has a day job. And then that comment, the more inflammatory remarks there are, the faster ill schedule this trial because of the potential effect on the jury pool. Who makes more inflammatory comments than donald trump . All indications are that we are going to see this trial, i think, probably the first of the major criminal trials of donald trump that will take place. Thank you all for being with us. A quick reminder, kaitlans guest at the top of the hour and abby lowell, Hunter Bidens attorney what it could signal about prospects of a trial. That interview will be fascinating. Also Breaking News out of maui. The Death Toll Climbing steeply tonight. A federal Public Health emergency just declared. We have new images from the scene, which we will bring you along with new reporting of what may have been missed, missed opportunities, to prevent this growing tragedy. Oh, oh, oh. Ill be the judge of that. Oh, thats nice. Oh searchable, verified reviews. Thats better than thham, and ive never said that. Booking. Com booking. Yeah jardiance its a little pill with a big story to tell. I take oncedaily jardiance, at each days staaart. As time went on it was easy to seee. Im lowering my a1c. Jardiance works 24 7 in your body to flush out some sugar and for adults with Type 2 Diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. 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Clearchoice Network Doctors have changed over 100,000 lives with dental implants, and they can change yours, too. Because a clearchoice day changes every day. Schedule a free consultation. Republican lawmakers today got what theyve long been asking for, if not as quickly as they wanted. Hunter biden got a heap more to worry about and the longtime prosecutor whos been investigating the president s son. He got a new title, Special Counsel david weiss. Whats more, quite literally, he asked for it. Here to explain, cnns sara murray. Sara, what more do we know about what attorney general garland decided to elevate david weiss to Special Counsel. There arent a lot of straight answers on this right now. We saw Merrick Garland give the Press Conference where he cited the extraordinary circumstances under this case. Of course the president s son being investigated is extraordinary. This has been going on for five years. He said david weiss just came to him earlier this week and requested this Special Counsel designation. We saw a couple weeks ago there was a plea deal were hunter biden that went sideways where he was going to get slapped with Tax Misdemeanor Charges that he would plead guilty to. That still doesnt fully explain why at this Point In The Game Weiss wants the full powers of a Special Counsel, although it would allow him to bring charges in any venue he wants, not just delaware, where hes the u. S. Attorney. What is exactly the new Special Counsel saying about the status of the hunter biden case, because, as you said, he was minutes away. I mean, hunter biden at one point a few weeks ago was perhaps minutes away from completing this plea deal. And things, again, spectacularly fell apart. We learned david weiss essentially saying behind the scenes they have not been able to reach a new Plea Agreement with Hunter Bidens team. So, weiss plans to go to trial. And in order to do that, hes not going to do that in delaware. He wants to do that in one of these other jurisdictions, likely d. C. Or california, where crimes were committed or where hunter biden has been residing. As you know, john, once youre designated Special Counsel, you have more powers. You can investigate essentially anything that comes up in your investigation. So, there has to be some concern, i would imagine, on the part of Hunter Bidens team about this potentially ballooning this as goes on. Perspective now from evan os knows, author of joe biden the life, the run, and what matters now. Also with us, ashley alison, and defense attorney shan wu. Shan, how big is this news, the appointment of the Special Counsel and maybe even bigger the fact that Plea Deal Negotiations have collapsed . Well, you know, substantively, john, it shouldnt change things really. Sara has been pointing out, theyve been investigating this case for a half decade. Its hard to imagine theres some surprise that just come up. It is a bit puzzling what garland has done here. He could have appointed Special Counsel from day one if he wanted to do that. Its just not clear what has changed here. And interestingly, the better designation would have been to make him a special attorney under the doj ranks, which also gives him the ability to go to other venues. Usually Special Counsel is someone chosen from outside doj, a former dojer because you want the point to be an appearance of impartiality. So, like john durham, who barr installed as a Special Counsel, weiss is also a current doj employee. So, thats not the normal pick. Its pretty puzzling whats going on. The main reason we were told, at least, why he did it was because david weiss, for the first time, we think, asked for it. Evan, you know, President Biden is obviously running for reelection right now. How hard is this going to be for him not to address this on the Campaign Trail . Yeah, john, you know, sort of his nat