Ashcroft Case News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

professor at the university of michigan and msnbc legal analyst, yamiche alcindor, nbc news washington correspondent. dasha, we're waiting, we're watching this historic moment. set the stage for us outside of trump tower. >> well, we have got a calm before the storm here yesterday. we had a massive crowd, a lot of noise today. it has been fairly quiet this is a business district, a tourist district, a lot of curiosity, a lot of onlookers. we have choppers overhead. we have got some anticipation building there are officers, heavy police presence here, some officers directing traffic r...

Defendant to talk. better seen than heard he has a speech tonight. we don't know if we'll hear from him between now and then but do you always look at if your client says something that it's a potential gift to the prosecution? especially in this case. >> yeah, you're right, leave it to donald trump to be the first person indicted and want to give a speech back at the scene of another crime, mar-a-lago, where he's going to, you know, speak and probably antagonize his defense lawyers. it's only evidence for the prosecutors. but i think from trump's perspective, he's got politics here as well, h...

I argued the ashcroft case which was 9-0, in which the supreme court said unanimously there was a zone of freedom for government actors, and you don't want to go after them to put it differently, it's like really hard for a former president to be indicted but you really have to try it's like tinder wood. yes, donald trump is about to do it, but that's something that we're talking about for future presidents >> we're 20-plus minutes away from what will be the arraignment of donald j. trump 2:15 is scheduled. it's 1:52 eastern time we're waiting for donald trump once he is done with that process...

Trained to shut out what is going on outside the courtroom so i think that in a certain way they will present very calm and collected manner but at the same time, it is hard for them to -- those things. in a normal case, threats against prosecutors are not -- they're taken seriously, but prosecutors are kind of fundable, you can replace one with another i think most criminal defendants understand that and unless you make it personal, they really don't pose such a great danger but in the situation like this, where it is so charged, and it is more than just a threat from a particular individual,...

Talking about the courthouse, when he came out, he said it is a great system, a system that works very different from what we have heard from him in recent years, just this morning, the former president again attacked judge merchan calling him highly partisan i'm wondering as a former ada what merchan's reputation is, how do you expect him to handle this highest of high profile cases, and donald trump, frankly, in particular >> the judge's reputation is extremely good he's a strong judge. well respected judge smart judge. i expect that he'll run this case like he runs any other, which is a lot...