Investigations, this Move Signals Prosecutors could be nearing the completion of their probe. Theyre looking into whether the Trump Organization misled lenders and Insurance Companies about the value of properties on one side, Inflating Income there, and deflated income to reduce their tax burden. Cnns Senior Legal Affairs correspondent paula reid here to help walk us through all this. Paula, theres a lot we know and dont know. The grand jury has been convened. We dont know what comes out of that. What do we know about the time frame . This grand jury has been impaneled for at least six months. There is a mechanism to extend this. This is an incredibly powerful tool for prosecutors. They can use this to continue to build out their case and test it before a group of randomlyselected citizens, usually up to 23 people. The fact they have convened this grand jury two years into the investigation does suggest that prosecutors believe they have evidence of a crime, and they can use this now to issue subpoenas, to gather more evidence and then bring that evidence, bring those witnesses before the grand jury. What makes this different from a Courtroom Trial is the fact that its just the grand jurors, the prosecutors and a court reporter. Theres no defense represented, no public and no journalists. In order to follow whats going on, we need to rely on our sources. We know from our sources that the focus for this grand jury is whether the Trump Organization lied about assets. As you noted, were they telling banks they had more than they did to get bigger loans and were they telling the government they had less than they did to pay less taxes. The potential crime there being fraud. In order to bring charges of fraud, you need documents, you need witnesses. Thats really what theyre going to be focused on. This is very much an ongoing and active investigation. The fact theyve convened this grand jury, it does not guarantee that the former president or anyone else will be charged. Very important to note. Thank you, paula. Lets get right to cnn reporter gabby orr. What are he and people in his inner circle thinking . Hes shooting this down and saying its all politics and a witch hunt. Reporter right, poppy. The former president put out a statement tuesday evening in response to this development calling this a witch hunt, a refrain weve heard him use before to describe impeachment and numerous other investigations into him and into his allies. Hes also taken it a step further and is trying different tactics to shift the attention away from this investigation as it intensifies. In that same statement tuesday evening, he claimed that new york prosecutors are neglecting to focus on rising crime rates in their state, and instead spending their resources trying to target him and his allies. He has also are surfaced former comments by new York Attorney general Letitia James in which she claimed he was an illegitimate president , to suggest the entire investigation is tainted against him. Hes once again been teasing a comeback president ial bid in 2024, using that as a sort of way to rally the troops behind him, get his base excited at the prospect of him making a return to the political stage and to do anything he can to essentially distract from this investigation in mann as it closes in on him and his team. Basically a Greatest Hits of trump defenses. Gabby orr, thank you. Joining us former prosecutor ellie hoenig. This is a former president out of office a few months here, a grand jury impaneled. The prosecute verse a lot of Docu Documents from the Trump Organization. They also have one or more cooperators, in a Michael Cohen, allen weisselberg. Youve prosecuted a lot of cases here. Tell us what you might be advising the president as to the seriousness of this at this point . Its a series step, but it does not mean an indictment of donald trump is certain or imminent. What i read is prosecutors have solid foundational building blocks, the types of evidence you talked about, testimony from Michael Cohen about the general way the Trump Organization was structured and sfungsed. They have a lot of financial documents. We know they have Donald Trumps tax returns. Beyond that, though, i dont see one clear piece of Smoking Gun Evidence. Lets remember, its not enough to indict donald trump to just show, well, the Trump Organization itself was involved in fraud. You have to be able to prove specifically that donald trump or any person you may want to indict knew about it and authorized it. Its not enough as a prosecutor to just say, oh, come on, of course he must have known about it, of course he said it was okay. You need specific proof. Im not aware in the Public Sector of there being any specific piece of Smoking Gun Evidence at this point. Theyve got a lot of power, six months, three days a week, and they have Subpoena Power. They can bring in folks to answer their key questions here. Yeah, and thats vital, poppy. The fact that the two main things a grand jury can do is issue subpoenas and ultimately vote on indictments. The Subpoena Power is very important. These are criminal subpoenas, taken very seriously by the courts. Weve seen, for example, donald trump casually blow off congressional subpoenas in the impeachment hearings. These are different. Courts are much more likely to compel witnesses to come in and testify, compel people to turn over documents an emails. Thats an important investigative tool prosecutors have here. I think theyll use that to flush out the case and find more evidence. And possibly present others with the possibility that they could face charges, that evergoing effort to get folks to flip. The president is raising, once again, in his flurry of statements on this the idea that he will run again. You hear from folks in his circle and others who cover him, that thats part of his defense, to say, well, im a candidate for office, so clearly this investigation is politically motivated. From a legal standpoint, would that be relevant, him running or holding out the prospect of running . Only tangentially. There is a Legal Defense called selective prosecution. It is raised fairly frequently. It succeeds almost never. What you have to show as a defendant, i was singled out and treated differently than other similar people who committed similar acts because of my politics or for political reasons. Its a defense ive seen raised a handful of times. It almost never succeeds. I think what donald trump is trying to do here is set the stage to make that argument, to say i was singled out. Hell be able to point to, for example, attorney general let tisha james statement that shell go after donald trump. Hes trying to pad that defense, i may run thnext time so this i extremely political. Grand juries are supposed to be extremely secret, not supposed to leak. Often they dont, elie, but sometimes they do. Is it just were not going to know a lot for a long time . I want to be clear here. The grand jurors themselves, cannot come out and make public statements and the court reporter, the stenographer. However, if somebody receives a grand jury subpoena, they can bring it here on cnn and put it in front of the cameras. That is not a requirement of the grand jury. The secrecy only applies to the players. I think it will be a combination of witnesses may say, hey, i received a grand jury subpoena, and our reporters, people like paula, will be successful in keeping a finger on the pulse here. Elie, explain the Legal Standard here. I know these things are hard to prove and you have to prove intent. If they have his tax returns, could it not be a fairly simple calculation, and business records, as to what actual income was and what reported income was . Yeah. Jim, you would think it would be in black and white. You have to show knowledge and intent. Lets say there is such a disparity in the records. You would have to show donald trump was aware of that disparity. You would have to show he intended to defraud. What happens in a lot of cases is you get an advice of counsel or advice of accountant, where theres a piece of paper in the lyle where some lawyer, some accountant said, i blessed it, its okay to do it this way. Thats not necessarily a Silver Bullet defense, but it can help a defendant like this a lot. Isnt there a should have known . You should have known . Not in the criminal context. Its not enough to say should have known. If you can show whats called Willful Ignorance or he said, dont tell me, i dont want to know. Ignorance is bliss. Exactly. If you can show intentional, Willful Ignorance, dont tell me, i dont want to know, im going to bury my head in the sand. Just being sloppy or negligence is not enough. The other thing is, if you can show that accountant or someone bloke the law by the way, youre going to jail. You really want to protect the big guy . Thats part of the back and forth. Thanks, elie. Thats the key player. Thanks guys. How does the grand jury news impact the former president s political playbook . What weight, if any, does it carry for the gop ahead of the 2020 midterms . Can you honestly tell me in all the states that no ballots from people that are already deceased were not filled out and sent in . Wait until you see this interview our kyung lah did with the lawmaker in charge of arizonas socalled election audit. Kyung and her team found her. You do not want to miss this. Facebook issues a new report highlighting which nations are the top sources of disinformation. Its going to surprise you who crazy, remember its a Business Dinner not a Costume Party. On a spotty network this is what she heard. Just wear something crazy, remember its a Costume Party. A Costume Party . Yes anybody want to split a turkey leg . Lactaid is 100 real milk, just without the lactose. So you can enjoy it even if youre sensitive to dairy. So anyone who says lactaid isnt real mk is also saying mabel here isnt a real cow. And she really hates that. A republicanordered socalled audited its not an audit by any measure, at least a real audit, 2. 1 million passed in arizonas Maricopa County is moving forward this week. It comes amid a growing fight between republican county officials who are calling the audit a sham. Thats right, republican officials there, and Arizona State senators who order it and continue to defend it. So Arizona StateSenate President karen fann is the key elected official behind this controversial, to say the least, audit, and someone who has spread disinformation about it. She declined dozens of requests for an interview by our colleague kyung lah, but kyung tracked her down. Watch. I dont know whats legit, what isnt legit. But why wouldnt we want to answer those questions. Youre questioning democracy. No. Im questioning the integrity of the election system. Which is the backbone of democracy. Thats right which means we should have full 100 confidence in our democracy and in our election system. If youre talking about trying to disprove conspiracies. If i have to, yes. Why wouldnt we . If somebody says something is out there, i would love to be able to say thats not true guys. Arent you raising more questions by giving rise to these Conspiracy Theories if. No. Im answers questions. Okay. Let me ask you a question. Are you 100 confident that every vote that came in in arizona or any other state, or can you say emphatically 100 that no dead people voted, that ballots werent filled out by other people, that the Chain Of Custody from the minute people voted, their ballots, that the Chain Of Custody was accurate and on target the entire time . Can you tell me that . I can say that what the data shows us no, no. Is there was no widespread fraud. I didnt say there was fraud. You said Chain Of Custody, dead people. These things are all fraud. Well, i asked you a question. Can you honestly tell me in all the states that no ballots from people that are already deceased were not filled out and sent in . I can tell you what the data has shown overwhelmingly, that this was the most secure election in american history. Okay. You cant answer that question either, can you . Im answering it. No. Youre telling me what the data says. Data is what we should be driven by. First of all, when we talk about transparency, from day one, the entire process has been Live Streaming on oan with cameras controlled by oan. Are you saying oan is not a credible news source . Yes. Okay. Ill remember that. Cnn is saying oan is not a credible one. Were paying the 150,000, some of the security and the cost of the coliseum. Were paying for our fair share. I know from the getgo there was a lot of grassroots people. I have been told there are people sending in 10, 50, 100 because they want to see this audit done. Do you believe this is helping democracy . Absolutely, absolutely. Will you do this every election . It will be a lesson in democracy that we answer peoples questions, and i want the people i dont care if youre in arizona or any state across the nation. If we have those kind of doubts, we owe it to them to answer their questions. This will be the basis of a gold standard. Listen, no one in a position of power republicans in that state, deny that. Whats interesting, poppy, as you watch it, that claim about all these dead voters, its not new. Trump said the same thing about losing the popular vote in 2016 and set up a commission which found nothing. Its a standard goto play when he loses votes. Oh, they must all be dead people. I think the scariest part of that kudos to kyung and her team for asking the important questions and getting her to answer some, she indicated its going to keep happening. This is what weve got as long as shes Senate President in arizona. The other piece of this is beyond feeding the big lie and feeding doubts. You do have a good half of Republican Voters who buy the lie about the election. Partisan legislators can overrule those unbiased that, if you want to call them that, Election Officials of any party in the state. Thats in the law. They can do it if they dont like the result. Certainly in georgia, thats a big part of it, too. Our thanks to knung. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is holding a key vote tomorrow where senators will decide whether to send the january 6th Commission Bill to a final vote. Whats happening is Senate Republicans will filibuster a bipartisan plan for a bipartisan investigation. To overcome that, you need 60 votes, therefore, ten republicans. Cnns man no raju on capitol hill. A lastminute effort here. Susan collins suggesting changes. Based on your reporting, is it going to get to ten . No, its not. Those changes shes suggesting, in fact, have gotten resistance from the most powerful man in the senate, Chuck Schumer himself, who is concerned about what shes suggesting. The concern she has is the staff on this commission, if enacted, would be democraticleaning. The new Democratic Appointed Chairperson would have undue influence over that staff. Nevertheless, they may not get to the point where they can amend the bill on the floor because the first test vote tomorrow is to open up debate on the senate floor to break a filibuster, they need 60 votes to do that. They dont have ten republicans willing to break ranks, just a handful. Its unlikely to grow beyond that. This proposal, if it were to become law, would be models after the 9 11 commission. They would have to have a report done by the end of the year. Republicans are very clear that theyre concerned that this could become an Election Year issue, it would hurt their ability to take back control of congress. Mitch mcconnell said clearly yesterday, he wants the 2022 elections to be about looking forward, not relitigating donald trump, and the concern is, even though this would be an evenly divided commission, that this could bring the issue back into the forefront here. Theres no path for democrats. Theres talk about once the republicans filibuster this, perhaps theyd change the rule to allow the bill to move forward on a simple majority vote. Theres resistance from namely joe manchin of West Virginia who reiterated to me yesterday that he would not agree with any efforts to blow up the senates filibuster in order to get this passed, even though he does support the commission going forward. The end result here, guys, the Senate Republicans are going to block this tomorrow. The democrats are going to have to take matters into their own hands, potentially setting up a select committee in the house to investigate things on their own. They would lead the investigation. It would not be a bipartisan one as this legislation proposes. Remarkable use of the filibuster after members of gop leadership called for a Commission Like this in the aftermath of january 6th. Thats quite a change. Manu raju, thanks very much. Reports that a Special Grand Jury