As you are looking live there, Special Counsel jack smith will make remarks at a News Conference from the Justice Department shortly. We will bring those to you here live and we have a full show of reaction to all of the developments and the specifics on the charges for that Griff Jenkins has the details outside the courthouse. Griff good evening. Donald trump has been ordered to appear in court behind me for First Court Appearance and possible arraignment. That is the news breaking at this moment. It will be on thursday at 4 00 p. M. Now Special Counsel jack smith has laid these allegations out in the form of Speaking Indictment where prosecutors lay out a detailed time narrative events surrounding the january 6th, 2021 capitol ri ri. How they dealt with his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 president ial election. The indictment alleges, bret, that trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, that he pressured State Officials to nullify Voting Results and sought to interfere with the certification of electoral votes by congress on january 6th, 2021 in the indictment it says each of the conspiracies built on the mistrust of the defendant was creating pervasive and destabilizing lies about Election Fraud. Bedrock function of the United States government. The nations process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. Now, look at the specific charges. They involve, you see them Conspiracy To Defraud the u. S. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Now, trumps legal jeopardy has grown more serious. He was charged, you may recall, by a team in june with illegally hoarding classified documents at maralago and concealing evidence from investigators. He was also indicted in new york in march on charges of falsifying Business Records in connection with an alleged Hush Money Payment to a porn actor and prosecutors in fulton county, georgia, are precinct tg to announce charges relating to the efforts to subvert the 2020 election in that state. Meanwhile, as you can see in the bottom of your screen, we are watching this statement on camera being made by jack smith. Well bring that to you. Meanwhile, the Security Preparations, you can see the federal protective services, bret, behind me. They came here earlier. We know that Security Preparations will certainly ramp up between now and thursday at 4 00 p. M. We expect trump to make that First Court Appearance. We expect a similar situation as we saw in june in the miami federal courthouse. Bret . Send it back to you. Bret Griff Jenkins outside the courthouse. Thank you. Looking live again at the doj. We expect the Special Counsel to come out. He is in the Special Counsels office, were told we will get a twominute warning. Our producer is in the front row there and ready to ask questions, if we get a chance. With that, lets bring in our analysis our legal eagles. Former assistant United States attorney andy mccarthy, George WashingtonUniversity Law professor Jonathan Turley. Gentlemen, thanks for being here. To repeat, two conspiracy counts, to obstruction counts. Conspiracy to defraud the u. S. Conspiracy to obstruct a official proceeding. Obstruction of a official proceeding. Conspiracy against rights. What do you see and what dont you see . First to andy. I think, unfortunately, bret, this is as weak as it was foretold to be you see a lot of deceitful conduct. The problem jack schmitz has is that congress has not enacted statutes that directly criminalize the behavior that smith is talking about. So what he has to do is it distort statutes in order to try to pigeon hole the behavior into them. For example, the Supreme Court was very clear in may in two cases where they threw out convictions against cro cronies former governor andrew cuomo. Defraud out of money or property, you know, tangible assets. To the extent that congress has tried to expand that into this idea fraud that creates deceptive practices. Statutes on the books now are vague and otherwise congress hasnt criminalized that i think what you have is the case comes down to can he prove that trump believed the things that he was saying notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary even if you can get over that hurdle which is daunting, he has extravagantly stretched the statutes in order to try to capture this behavior. Thats because this is really a proxy for what should have been a political impeachment process. They are leaving to the criminal Justice System the failure of congress to carry out a successful impeachment. Bret jonathan, you go through this and been reading through the pages here whats not here folks dealing with the january 6th rioters. Remember some 1100 people have been charged with that in relation to that rig riot on tht day. 445 of them have been sentenced. And that continues, that prosecution. But that direct tie to this indictment and these four counts, doesnt seem to be here. No. There is less than meets the eye in this indictment. I thought the last indictment was a very serious threat for donald trump. When i take a red pen through material that is protected by the First Amendment, it reduces much of this to a haiku. Many of the things that the prosecutor is charging here is protected speech it repeats allegations in the various states. Trump in his speech encouraging people to go to the capitol hill. Like the January 6th Committee it omits where he says you should go peacefully. And i think thats a mistake, quite frankly. Because it undermines your credibility when you sort of hide the ball on things like that. Bret as you mention that i have that. This is the president at the time the january 6th rally it starts with Fight Like Hell take a listen. I said something is wrong. Cant have happened. And we fight. We Fight Like Hell. And if you dont Fight Like Hell, you are not going to have a country anymore. We have come to demand that congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated i know that everyone here will be marching over to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Bret since we had that i wanted to put that in there for context for that day. Right. Its a mistake to omit material like that. The most jarring thing about this indictment is that it basically just accuses him of disinformation. This is a disinformation indictment. You were spreading false lose. Falsehoods. Undermining the intee election. He might have a fair shot with a d. C. Jury and maybe a d. C. Judge. He is going to have a harder time with the courts. And this reminds me of sort of the mcdowell complaint where he took the virginia governor, got a conviction, and then was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court it was a bridge too far. I assumed smith had this type of ah ha moment that there is something in there that the January 6th Committee didnt find that supported. We heard about witness tampering. Its not in there. I mean, everything in this indictment is basically what has been discussed in the news. Now, by the way, the other thing that is not in here is conspiracy for incitement. Not in here is Seditious Conspiracy. Those were the claims the democrats used in the impeachment and said that the evidence was absolutely clear. People like schiff and others said he is clearly guilty of those crimes they are not in here. Is he using the favor of prosecutors. I think there are serious legal problems with this indictment. Bret what in here, andy, at one point are descriptions of several private phone calls between the Vice President at the time, mike pence and President Trump as we know former Vice President pence testified to the Special Counsel and to this effort. For the grand jury here. It talks about getting him to try overturn the election. You are saying, both of you, that this is protected speech and that its going to be hard to get to conspiracy . Its even beyond that criminalize ago legal theory. Eastmans theory may have been a bad one, i think it was a bad one. It was something that he was allowed to rely on and generally speaking in this country what why we do is figure take care of it or the political system will. We dont criminalize them. Ands that what this indictment attempts to with with the incrime. Stuff, this is stuff that prosecutors are not supposed to do. If you have got evidence that trump committed incitement. Then charge him with incitement. Of course i can say as somebody who actually successfully prosecuted a Seditious Conspiracy case they dont have a prayer of a creates like that for precisely the reasons that jonathan was laying out. So what do you do . You are supposed to put it aside and plead what you can that actually do. What smith does here is a nod and a wink. There is a exception called exploiting, you know, the violence of january 6th. I forget exactly how its articulated but he talks about exploiting it because he cant accuse him of actually aiding and abetting it or committing it in an actual way. Bret this is downtown d. C. At the Special Counsels office. We have we are now under two minutes for jack smith, the Special Counsel i want to bring in former Chief Of Staff marc short to mike pence. I dont know if you are hearing any of this. Your thoughts on this moment and what it means. Well, bret, i think its a pretty tragic moment for our country that the former president has been indicted three times. Im not a lawyer and cant comment about the criminality but i do think you have quickly seen kind of the former president s Defense Shift to now saying well, look, lying and defrauding the public isnt necessarily a crime. I do think that has been a dramatic shift where we have been in debate over the last couple of years. There has been testimony from people inside the campaign who testified that they told the president there was not sufficient Election Fraud that would have changed any results. I think there has probably been testimony from people like mark meadows and others who told the president the Vice President never had such authority and that never in our history in 250 years has a Vice President been able to overturn Election Results nor do we as republicans want Kamala Harris to have that north in 2024 and so i do think that you have seen a shift in what the coverage is. Whether or not its criminality, i think it is a different standard. And i do think there is concern among many republicans that there has been a two Tiered System of justice and they see that Hillary Clinton getting off. They see hunter biden differently. I do think there is a difference the way this has been covered. Bret marc, stand by if you would. Special counsel jack smith speaking to reporters about this indictment. Good evening. Today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the district of columbia and sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full the attack on our nations capitol january 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american ddemocracy. Its described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies lies by the defendant targeted as 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 they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building 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 principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our capitol the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so our evidence can be te tested in cot and judged by a jury of its 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 yard in beyond a reasonable doua court of law. I would like to thank the members of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation who are working on this investigation with my office as well as the many Career Prosecutors and agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6th investigations these Men And Women are highest order and it is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you. Why didnt you charge any of the other . Will this effect the election . Are you going to bring any more charges against more individuals . Bret Special Counsel jack smith, a short statement there on the four counts. Again, the 45th president of the United States indicted for a third time on four counts, Conspiracy To Defraud the u. S. , conspiracy to obstruct official proceeding. Obstruction of official proceeding. Conspiracy against rights. Back with andy and jonathan. Jonathan, there was not a lot of substance there as far as anything else. We do know there were six coconspirators listed in this indictment. Your thoughts on what he said and how he said it. Well, i think he established that this is the criminalization of disinformation. Thats what he was referring to. I think he is going to have a hard time with that i mean, this looks like basically the a complaint that follows oscar wilds rule the best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. It does not appear that this was motivated by new evidence and in order to get a conviction, he will have to use material that, in my view, is clearly protected by the First Amendment. He is allowed to follow bad advice. I was doing part of the coverage on that day. I criticized the speech when trump was giving it. I disagreed with what he said about pence. That doesnt mean that he is a criminal for following that advice or taking that view. And, more importantly, you have democrats that challenge the certification of republican president. Were they also engaged in a criminal conduct when they did that . I think this is going to face very severe scrutiny. The question is whether the Trump Campaign can get this into the Appellate Courts quickly. Where i think smith is going to have a hard time. Bret andy, about timelines, we dont know this timeline specifically. We know the judge has been appointed, but you guys both say the other documents case seems more troublesome for the Trump Campaign, the trump team and the former president. And, yet, we have other legal hurdles to go in georgia. And in new york. Your thoughts on the timeline and what you heard from the Special Counsel . Just to start with that was one of the most demagogue jake i have ever seen. Anyone who listened to that any normal person reacting to that would assume that trump was alleged to have carried out the capitol riot, the entire not about what the core charges in his case are it was about the capitol riot and the Security Personnel injured in the capitol riot and fight to defend the capitol riot. Then you turn to his indictment, is he not charged with the capitol riot. So, if that is what he has to resort to in order to sell his case to the public thats compelling. As far as the timeline is concerned, i think is he going to have if its a good judge, we will have to see, he will have a very hard time getting this case to trial because having decided to already indict him on the mauller case is he not a good position to go court as he said in his remarks that he wants a speedy trial and he wants to get this case