Sexual abuse former president. But also the most important trial of our life times. The United States of america versus donald trump. Tomorrow, trump will be arraigned in a washington, d. C. Courtroom. Hes expected to plead not guilty to four criminal counts, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct, conspiracy to violate the right to vote and obstruction of an official proceeding. This latest indictment of the former president handed down by special counsel jack smith is an incredibly detailed and damning account of an attempt to subvert democracy and forcibly overturn the 2020 election. It pulls from firsthand accounts including people very close to the president and sets up a potential block buster trial with star witnesses, including his former Vice President and countless maga senators and members of the and members of congress. The core of the case is broken down into three parts. The first part details how trump was fully aware that he lost the election. Full stop. He was told point blank by multiple people, republicans who he had hired and who he trusted and who told him in no Uncertain Terms that he lost to joe biden. But he went on to repeat lies about Election Fraud and a stolen election any way. The second part of the indictment describes the harebrained, dangerous scheme to get the Department Of Justice in on the act. Trump and coconspirator number four, believed to be an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department named jeffrey clark, tried to enlist the to tell republican lawmakers in seven swing states that the u. S. Government believed in the Fraud Allegations and they should switch out the real electors who were chosen based on the popular vote in their states for Fake Electors to overturn the Election Results in those states. But it is part three of the indictment that is the most chilling part. That is the coup part. This section goes into dramatic detail about just how Hell Bent Trump and his coconspirators were to corrupt the United States government by whatever means necessary so he could stay in power. To the point where they were casually discussing using Military Force on u. S. Citizens. According to the indictment, on the afternoon of january 3rd, coconspirator number four, jeffrey clark, spoke with a Deputy White House counsel, the previous month, the Deputy Counsel had informed the defendant, trump, that there is no world, there is no option, in which you do not leave the white house on january 20th, inauguration day. Now the same Deputy White House counsel tried to dissuade clark from assuming the role of acting Attorney General himself. And the Deputy White House counsel reiterated to clark that there had not been outcome determinetive fraud in the election. And if the defendant, trump, remained in office nonetheless, there would be riots in every major city in the United States. To which clark responded, well, thats why theres an Insurrection Act. Just marinate on that for a second. This is the man donald trump wanted to flash install as our new Attorney General, casually discussing, sicking the United States military on americans if they dare to go into the streets in protest after their votes were literally deleted in seven states. And the electors they chose replaced by Fake Electors so trump could stay president. Just stunning stuff. And even though this literal coup attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, it culminated in an hours long violent attack on the u. S. Capitol on january 6th, 2021, perpetrated by Trump Supporters that is in itself completely unprecedented. I ever heard the president Say Something to the effect of, i dont fing care they have weapons. Theyre not here to hurt me. Take the fing mags away. Let my people in. They can march the capitol from here. We have to fight much harder. Youll never take back our country with weakness. Three men walking down the street in fatigue they know they have an elevated threat in the tree south side of constitution avenue. Look for the adult flag. Were coming to take you out. Well pull you out by your hairs. Im not combat trained. And that day it was just hours of hand to hand combat. Hang mike pence. Hang mike pence. Get a great fing criminal defense lawyer. Youre going to need it. But beyond the alleged criminality, what jack smith lays out in this 45page indictment is a frightening look at just how close we came to losing American Democracy Two and a half years ago. And yet n our current reality, the same person who has been criminally charged with conspireing to defraud the United States of america, to steal the votes of seven states worth of voters and to maybe sick the military on us to quash any resistance to him staying in power against our will, and who knows, maybe never leaving office again, is the republican frontrunner for president. Just let that sink in for a moment. The likely republican nominee for president has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the country he now wants to lead again. What a world. Im joined now by paul butler, professor at georgetown law school, former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, cater bener, justice reporter for New York Times and msnbc contributor, frank former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi and Msnbc National Security analyst. Frank, its you i want to start with on this. Because the invocation of the Insurrection Act the reason i really wanted to start with that tonight and that part of the indictment because i think that is the scariest part of the indictment, the Insurrection Act essentially says that to enforce laws of the United States in any state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the president may call into the federal service such of the military of any state and use such of the armed forces he considers necessary to enforce the laws or suppress a rebellion. The idea that there was a real consideration of using the United States military because per the indictment john eastman acknowledged to donald trump Senior Adviser that no court would support the proposal to switch out the electors for fake ones. And trump and his advisers were told youre going to cause riots in the street. So which eastman also responded, just like clark, previously been points in the nations history where violence has been necessary to protect the republic. These guys were contemplating using the military on us, frank. Your thoughts. Yeah. That is perhaps the most chilling part of these 45 pages. Although there are certainly competing pages as well. Those who say, look, i dont understand why smith chose not to charge the actual breach of the capitol not inciting the riot, not Seditious Conspiracy, not insurrection, hes masterfully chosen as a strategy to stay away from saying trump made that happen and rather say trump and his cohorts were fully prepared for violence. They actually seemed to have welcomed it two, as you said, two of the coconspirators there that you identified were perfectly fine with violence and specifically with leveraging the violence. Which is really what the 45 page indictment said. Trump leveraged that violence that day and, yes, it appears he was fully prepared to call out the military per what we see here. You know what else the Insurrection Act allows a president to do . Its not just military troops. Its militia, to call out, quote unquote, the militia to suppress an insurrection. You know what stewart rhodes, the leader and founder of the oath keepers told all of us about what he was doing on january 6th, he was waiting for trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. And many, many of those arrested for january 6th violence will tell us the same thing. I was waiting for the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. So, yeah. Chillingly close. A fragile experiment in democracy is what we are. And we came perilously close to seeing boots on the ground, u. S. Troops either seizing voting machines, suppressing the socalled insurrection but they were fine with it. They were ready for it. And the president was willing to use it as leverage against pence and others. And katie, i think that is what its hard for people to wrap their minds around that this wasnt just angry people at the capitol who were upset over the results of an election. There were people there who have now been convicted of Seditious Conspiracy who were leading literal militias between the oath keepers, the proud boys, the three percenters, whoever else was out there and some have already been convicted of this. As we put all of this together, youve got that, plus the weaponization of the Department Of Justice. And somebody who was the person donald trump wanted to be the Attorney General, being a leader of the idea that the Justice Department should participate. And i wonder what you make of the fact that given that the Justice Department was so central to the conspiracy, it did take a long time for this Justice Department to kind of react to that with indictments all the way at the top including to donald trump. So i think that this Justice Department had to be very careful as it proceeded because what had happened before biden became president. As you saw the Justice Department weaponized in these really extreme ways, especially at the end of the administration where donald trump was trying to use the Justice Department to validate his false claims of Election Fraud and maintain power. This is inherently political stuff. We can say that its just a matter of following the facts and its as easy as that and cleanse this country and the Justice Department of all the politicization and all the deep, deep suspicion of the department, both inside the department, there are people inside the department who are having clash, and outside the department, the American Public is very divided over what this doj is and what its about. So before Merrick Garland and special counsel jack smith to be as cautious as possible and try to put all the evidence together they felt would be compelling to show that these federal statutes have been violated, that was something that had to be done with extreme caution. And as carefully as possible because ultimately this investigation will be picked apart. Reporters are going to try to put together tiktoks of how it was done. If a republican wins, you can expect that there will be some sort of, you know, attempt to reconstruct this investigation, to see if there are holes, to see if there are moves that were made that were sloppy, not careful or somehow violated somebodys civil liberties. This will be highly scrutinized for years to come. So i dont think it should be a surprise that it did take two and a half years to put together this indictment. Yeah. And paul, lets go to the indictment. Here it is. It is i hope people will read it, 45 pages and double spaced for a slow reader like me. The other person who will get criticized is the judge. Lets talk about her for just a moment. You know this judge. Her name is tawnya, jamaican born. Sounds very no nonsense, confirmed 950. So obviously she had bipartisan support when she came in. I can first say ill petition the special counsel to see if you can do the Opening Statement in the trial because your opening to this show got me hyped. Youre right. This was about any kind of grand scheme or grand theory, i dont feel sorry for the almost 2,000 people, the foot soldiers who have been charged for january 6th by the end of this year. But it wasnt about politics for trump. It was about his ego. And he was willing to risk lives and, in fact, did cause deaths based on his ego. Yeah. Judge chutkan. Known her for 20 years. She was a Defense Attorney when i was a prosecutor. Fortunately i never went against her because shes brilliant. Yeah. Lets think about two kinds of justice. Legal justice, poetic justice. Poetic justice, presiding over Donald Trumps trial will be a black woman immigrant. Trump doesnt like being challenged by anybody. Thats right. But he hates being challenged by black women. You experienced his brunt of his wrath as as our colleague kristen walker. Not just an immigrant but from jamaica. We remember the vulgar way that trump described caribbean shole countries. Joy, the legal justice means that none of that will matter to judge chutkan. A former public defender. She will make sure that trump has all of the process and all of the fairness that any criminal defendant deserves. Yeah. If, in fact, a jury finds him not guilty, she will be happy to say to him, as defendants love to hear, mr. Trump, you are free to go. Yeah. But if he is convicted, based on her Sentencing Practices in other january 6th cases, shes going to send that man to jail for a long time. Yeah. 24 judges in d. C. Federal court have had january 6threlated cases. Judge chutkan has sentenced more of those people to more time than any of those other judges. Shes sent people to prison for january 6threlated crimes even when the prosecutors didnt ask for jail time. Right. And one of the criticisms ive had this criticism, a lot of these judges have been sentencing people to relatively light sentences that were below the guidelines that the government was asking for. They went really light. Shes actually gone the other direction. Shes actually been pretty tough. Really quickly before stay with you for a moment. One of the arguments that Donald Trumps supporters are making is a free speech argument. And i note that jack smith was very careful in this indictment to get to that right away. This is from page 2, i believe. The defendant had a right like every american to speak publicly about the election and even to claim falsely that there had been outcome determinetive fraud during the election and that he had won. What do you make of that argument . Its bogus. Two things, the argument from trumps defenders is bogus on the free speech front. First of all, not all speech is constitutionally protected. You cant threaten people. You cant famously say fire in a crowded theater. And you cant use words that conspire to subvert democracy. Yeah. And the other piece is that jack smith doesnt care about trumps words. He cares about trumps actions. Right. And thats what those four Felony Counts are focussed on. Not what trump said. Yeah. But what he did. And frank, you said this before. I mean, you can say i think the bank, you know, did me wrong and robbed me. That doesnt mean you can rob the bank, right . You can say you can say whatever you want. You cant do actions that are illegal. Yeah. I love the fact that were getting a glimpse of the defense this fast because mistakenly trumps attorney decided to go on attorney and blab incessantly. Were getting the two prong defense. Were hearing the fervent belief defense. Hey, trump actually really believed that there was fraud and he needed to take action. And as you said, what ive been telling people, look, i might have a fervent belief that my local bank ripped me off, but i cant go rob it at gunpoint to get my money back. Its a crime. And you know, the other crime of the defense were hearing is the free speech prong. Again, you know, free speech can become a crime when it turns into criminal conduct. So if were going to do away with all crimes that have to do with free speech, lets toss the entire Fraud Section of the u. S. Code out. What is fraud . Fraud is a lie, right . Lets toss out Money Laundering because really what at its heart Money Laundering is a lie about where your money came from, right . How about lying to the fbi . Title 18 section 1001. Lets toss that out because, you know, lying is free speech. You know who would love us to toss those things out . Steve bannon, the folks who led the build the Wall Coalition who pled guilty to Money Laundering and fraud. How about Michael Flynn who was convicted, pled guilty to lying to the fbi. They would love for lies to be free speech. But theyre not always free speech when they turn into a crime. You know who also would love it, walt nauta, who is on tape lying to the fbi and who doesnt have Donald TrumpsMillion Dollar lawyers. He couldnt find a lawyer locally in miami. Hes probably going to get got because he, you know, hes not the form