The special coverage. He is of course innocent until Proven Guilty and he will and should mount a robust defense against these charges, and he should be acquitted if he didnt do what he is accused of. But if the allegations made by the Justice Department in this indictment are proven, if the former president did what he is accused of, history is going to ask a different question of this time than what we might have otherwise been expecting. If the allegations in this indictment are proven Beyond A Reasonable Doubt and a jury convict some of these crimes, history will not ask, wow, how did america get to the point where they indicted a former president . History instead is going to ask, how did america get to the point where such a person could be elected to the presidency of the United States. Where actions such as these could be carried out from the oval office directed by a person who was elected president by the American People, along with his advisers. This is a grave day and a serious one for our country. Thank you for being with us here tonight. We know you had every choice in the world. But we are happy to have you here on what will go down in u. S. History as a black weather, bold faced day, August 1st 2023 is the date on which a former president and the leading president ial candidate of the Republican Party was indicted in Federal Court, accused of leading multiple criminal conspiracies to try to hold power by force, after he was voted out of office by the people. In the special coverage tonight, we will talk about all of it. The charges that have been brought, these four felony charges, the unindicted, unnamed, but for the most part pretty clearly identifiable coconspirators whose actions are described in detail in the indictment, alongside the alleged actions of the former president himself. We will also talk about what we know about how the case will proceed, particularly alongside all the other legal proceedings, Including Criminal Proceedings already pending against the same very highprofile defendant. Whatever satisfaction there may be in seeing the country demonstrate rather than just say that we are a nation of law, the laws apply to everyone in this country, no matter how powerful, whatever the sort of Civic Satisfaction is in seeing our country tested on that point and rising to the occasion when it needed to happen, i think everyone will now need to can see that things are about to get complicated. Just in logistical terms. Here we are in addition to the 34 Felony Counts he is facing a new york state, concerning Hush Money Payments made to affect his election to the white house in the first place, in 2016, and it into the 40 Felony Counts he is facing already in Federal Court in florida, related to his handling of Sensitive National security material and alleged destruction of evidence after he left office. Now we have four new federal felony charges, unsealed against the former president for a conduct of his while he was president. He is doing court, washington post, d. C. , four pm on tuesday to be arraigned on these charges. He is charged with obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. He is charged with three different conspiracy counts. He is charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, he is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, and he is charged with conspiracy against rights. That charge has an interesting history. It is section 241 of the u. S. Code. It makes it a crime to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or the laws of the United States. It sounds like a general sort of generic definition of what a crime is like. But what this specifically is something enacted by congress after the civil war, federal agents could go after southern whites, including the ku klux klan, who were engaging, essentially, in terrorism to prevent Black Americans from voting. That is the origin of this part of the u. S. Criminal code. That fourth count against trump, that conspiracy against writes, it is something sometimes called the ku klux klan act, it has really chilling residents because of its historical origins. In terms of how it is used now, it is no longer something so tightly associated with racial terrorism. In the modern era, it has been used more broadly, including especially in cases of voting fraud conspiracies. Vote rigging, casting false votes, conspiring to not properly count, properly cast votes in an election, all the sorts of things but those are the four charges and let us start tonight by how the indictments lays this out. First of, all as i mentioned, it is unequivocally clear, this is not New Territory for us as a country, the indictment is very clear that it is about conduct that happened while trump was president. All four Felony Counts in the indictment have specific dates on them. Overall while trump was president. They all start on November 14th, 2020. The significance of that date, according to the indictment, according to the special counsels allegations against the president , is that November 14th is the day the indictment says trump knew he lost the election. So all four felonies are alleged to have started to be committed as of November 14th, 2020, and the conduct described in the indictments that it ends on a couple of accounts on january 7th, 2021, the day after the attack on congress, and the other two counts of conduct ends on january 20th, 2021, at the inauguration of joe biden. This is all conduct that took place while trump was president. Now, whatever national about whether a sitting president can be held accountable for his crimes and now as of today, we know by this action from the u. S. Justice department that even if the u. S. Justice department does think a sitting president cant have charges brought against him while he is still sitting as president , now we know for sure that the Justice Department is willing to bring charges against someone for actions they committed while they were president. They just apparently insist on waiting until he is out of office to bring those charges. It is interesting. Hes described throughout the indictment as Donald J Trump and the defendant. He is at one point at the very outset described as someone who, quote, was the 45th president of the United States, but hes never again described as president trump, because he is no longer president. He is just a citizen now being charged for having tried to overthrow the government by force when he was president. So i cant do much better, i think, and the indictment does. Here is how the indictment starts. The defendant, Donald J Trump, was the 45th president of the United States and a candidate for reelection in 2020. The defendant lost the 2020 president ial election. Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on november 3rd, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false. More on that in a moment. But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated these claims anyway to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, to create an Intense National atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and to erode public faith in the administration of the election. The defendant had a right, like every american, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he had one. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states, or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases the defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the Election Results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. Shortly after election day, the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the Election Results. In so doing, the defendant perpetrated three Criminal Conspiracy. And then the defendant lays out the three Felony Conspiracy counts, all described with reference to those statutes i just described. And it continues. Each of these conspiracies, which built on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating for pervasive and destabilizing lies about Election Fraud targeted a Bedrock Function of the United States, of the United States federal government, the nations process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the president ial election. On page three of the indictment, we get the sort of narrative explanation of the first conspiracy count, and this indictment, in total, it goes on for about 45 pages. The explanation of that first conspiracy count does basically all the work of the plot of this movie. It sort of spells out the bulk of everything that jack smith and his Prosecutorial Team have brought in this indictment to levy against donald trump. In that part of this, it starts off with this. The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 president ial election by using knowingly false claims of Election Fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified. We defended enlisted coconspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 president ial election and retain power. Among these coconspirators were then it gives you descriptions of six unnamed coconspirators. These are people who are not named in the indictment, as far as we know they themselves have not yet been charged. More on that later. But given the descriptions and a lot of really specific detail about what these folks allegedly did, it is not that hard to figure out who most of them are. Coconspirator one is clearly Rudy Giuliani. Coconspirator number two is rightwing lawyer john eastman, the man in the fetching had here, his lawyer has confirmed that tonight mr. Eastman appears to be coconspirator number two. Coconspirator number three appears to be the kraken, trump lawyer sydney powell, Coconspirator For is jeffrey buster clark, the Justice Department official who trump had tried to take over the Justice Department to enlist the Justice Department itself in this coup effort. Coconspirator five appears to be a man named kenneth chesebro, chesbrough, i dont know. Looks like chesebro. Its also awkward because wisconsin, cheese. He is a Trump Campaign recount lawyer in wisconsin who we know spearheaded the Fake Electors schemes in multiple states. And then there is coconspirator number six, all five, those five i just mentioned, all the five of them are all lawyers. Only coconspirator number six is apparently a non lawyer, at least not described as an attorney. This one isnt quite as clear who exactly it is. This is a person described in the indictment as a, quote, political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent states, slates, excuse me, of president ial electors. So we know of at least one trump ally who was involved with all these folks who fixed that description in the indictment, but we dont to be blunt, we dont exactly know Who Coconspirator number, six at least not comfortable enough to confidently speculate. There is nothing so clear as the rest of them. But the five lawyers, yeah, they are all cast pretty specifically. The indictment gets us to other operative descriptions before it gets to these pinpoint allegations of who said exactly what and who did exactly what. The first is what is called manner and means. Quote, the defendants conspiracy to, impair obstruct, and if the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud, and asit included the following manner and means. This then lists kind of the meet of trumps alleged actions from the basis for these charges. Its basically five main things that trump has described as having done for the basis for all these conspiracy counts, all four of these felonies. And the one pressuring State Officials to overturn Election Results in the state, number two, setting up those slates of Fake Electors. Number three, trying to get the Justice Department to get State Officials to overturn the Election Results and use the Fake Electors, the effort to use the Justice Department to effectuate this plan. Pressuring mike pence the Vice President to count the Fake Electors instead of the real once, or to otherwise mess up the counting and certification of the electoral count. And number five, this is what the indictment described as, quote, exploiting the disruption. This is about january 6th itself and the violence that day. The indictment accuses trump and his allies of exploiting the disruption that was caused by the mob attack on congress on january six. To try to get this thing done, to try to further delay the certification even beyond what was forced by the violence, and ultimately to flip the results and keep trump in power. So that is the manner and the means. And the last thing before we get to the long, detailed, point by point narrative of how trump and coconspirators allegedly did all these things. One last section of the indictment and that i didnt necessarily know what to expect. It is here in very great detail, its at the front of the indictment. It appears to be key to this case. We will talk with some of the lawyers hear about this to get more clarity on it. But you will see immediately and what they are getting at here. It starts on page six of the indictment under the headline, the defendants knowledge of the false city of his Election Fraud claims. This is he knew it was all a lie. Quote, the defendant, his coconspirators, and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the 2020 president ial election. The specific lies about Election Fraud included dozens of specific claims that there had been substantial fraud in certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, nonresident, noncitizen, or otherwise and let ineligible voters that had cast ballots, or that Voting Machines had changed votes for the Defendant Trump two votes for biden instead. These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false. And then it goes on immediately through a litany of trumps specific false claims about fraud in the election and how it can be documented, how it has been documented by the prosecutors who brought this case that trump knew those things were not true when he said them. And that is apparently a Linchpin Contention of this prosecution. And then we are off to the races. We get all the details. Trump and his alleged Coconspirators PressuringState Officials in arizona, starting on page, ten in georgia, page 12, michigan, page 17, pennsylvania, page 19, wisconsin, page 20, the Fake Electors scheme in detail starting on page 21, the effort to get the Justice Department involved in the plot. To get doj to tell the states that it would be okay for them to throw out lawful Election Results. That whole plot starts on page 27. The pressure against Vice President mike pence, that starts on page 32. And so, we are in special coverage, weve got a lot to talk about in terms of the strength of this evidence, the nature of the charges, the decision about how to charge this, what it means to have these alleged coconspirators, to have them not themselves charged, and the closeness of these findings to the contours of the Blockbuster January 6th Investigation in congress and how they may have changed what we we have a lot to get through. But i just want to note for the record that when you at home have a chance t