This is CNN breaking news.
We have major
breaking news, indeed, historic
breaking news right now.
CNN's
Kara Scannell is in New York
for us covering this story.
What are you learning, Kara?
Well, Wolf, three sources
tell me and my colleague
John Miller that a manhattan grand
jury has indicted former President
Donald Trump in connection
with the hush money payment scheme.
This indictment is under seal,
according to sources,
and the exact charges
are not yet known at this time.
But this investigation
has been going on for a long time.
The decision to move and seek
and get an indictment
of a former
president is the first time
that has been done in U.S. history.
This could have a significant impact
on the presidential campaign.
But as as I said, we do not know
the exact charges yet.
We expect those charges to be made public
in the coming days.
And at some point in the near future,
former President
Trump will have to come to
this courthouse and be arraigned Wolf.
The grand jury did meet today,
even though they're
taking a break next week
and for a few weeks thereafter.
They did meet today and presumably
they could have voted on this indictment
today, is that right?
Yeah, Wolf,
according to my colleagues,
we have observed prosecutors
going into the room
where the grand jury meets.
They were meeting today.
We were told
it was not scheduled
to hear any testimony
on the Trump investigation,
but they have been working
diligently since January,
hearing witness testimony.
And it is up to prosecutors to decide
if they were going
to move forward in indictment
and when to ask that grand jury to vote.
It appears they went in
and asked them to vote today
and that they were in there
late this afternoon.
This grand jury meets until 5 p.m..
It appears as though this vote came down
just in the past
couple of minutes,
within the last hour Wolf.
Very dramatic development indeed.
The first time, as you say,
in American history,
that a former president
of the United States
has been formally indicted
in a criminal investigation.
Let's go to our senior
legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid,
who's also following these developments.
What else are you learning?
Wolf, I'm actually texting
with one of the former
president's attorneys right now.
As of several minutes ago,
they had not been told by prosecutors
about this indictment,
but we're talking about conduct
that occurred about seven years ago.
This has been under investigation
for approximately five years.
But in recent months,
this investigation has heated up
once again.
We've seen a parade of high profile
witnesses, close
associates of the former president
going before the grand jury to testify.
And there was anticipation
that this investigation
was finally coming to an end.
And as Kara
and John
just reported,
Piers,
the grand jury has voted to indict.
Now, the district attorney
has been under some pressure.
He has been criticized for
by some for not pursuing
this more aggressively.
And then when this investigation
heated up again,
some people questioned
whether he should go ahead
with this, arguing
that this was
not one of the more
significant investigations
the former president would face.
But clearly today,
they move forward with the grand jury
to get an indictment,
as it has been explained to us
by the DA's office.
What will happen
next is
that is expected to be filed under seal,
and then they will have to negotiate
a self surrender
from the former president.
Now, we've been told by his legal team
that he is expected to fully cooperate.
And the last time we spoke to them,
it appeared that the former president
absolutely wanted to appear in person
and fully participate in the process
of being fingerprinted,
photographed,
going before a judge
as any other citizen would.
The former president
appears to believe
that this is
an advantageous thing for him
politically.
So it'll be interesting
to see
what the terms of this self
surrender are.
So so he would have to actually show up
and be fingerprinted
and go through that entire process
like any normal U.S.
citizen would have to go through
if they were indicted. Right. Exactly.
But there are,
of course,
extraordinary circumstances here
because he has Secret Service protection.
There are significant security concerns.
You can see right there behind Kara.
I mean,
this is a very crowded area
of downtown Manhattan.
That courthouse
is a circus on a good day.
So there are absolutely security
concerns here.
But politically,
it appears a former
president wants to lean into this,
wants to appear in person
and really make a thing out of this,
because he believes
that politically
this indictment could help him.
It's truly a major development
unfolding in New York right now.
Let me get Gloria Borger into this.
Gloria, what do you think?
Well, I think this is historic.
I think we've never seen
a former president be indicted before.
And I think that while the circumstances
of this case, as we all
know, are a bit tawdry and in some,
particularly in the legal
profession, are saying,
look, it's not as important
what might as
what might be coming down the pike
in terms of the Atlanta
grand jury
and election interference
and in terms of the documents at Mar
a Lago.
This nonetheless,
an indictment
is something that Donald Trump
has evaded for years and years.
And it would be the first time
and I think it is something
that Donald Trump clearly intends to use
to his benefit,
at least with his base early on
in this election season.
But we're going to have
to watch this play out before our eyes
as he has to be booked and charged.
And I think that
I think that's going
to be
remarkable for the American public
to see.
People are going to have different
interpretations of it.
He's going to claim
he's the victim, etc., etc..
We need to look at the indictment.
We need to look at what it says.
But it is a moment in history, Wolf.
It certainly is a very,
very dramatic and historic moment indeed.
Kaitlan Collins has covered Trump
for several years now. She's joining us.
What else are you learning, Caitlin?
Wolf, I mean, the president's
legal team had been bracing for this.
The former
president's legal team,
they knew that this was likely
something that could happen.
He himself,
of course, has been bracing for it
ever since.
He said that he believed last Tuesday
he was going to potentially be arrested.
Obviously, it did not happen.
At that time,
they didn't really have a window
into what the timing here
was going to look like.
They obviously were operating
under what we had
heard as of yesterday, which was that
there was potentially
going to be a hiatus for this grand jury.
But now, obviously, this has happened.
And so the question is what happens next?
Because his attorneys have said
that he will surrender,
that he will fly his plane here
to New York to go through the next steps
where he's going to be
fingerprinted and photographed
for the next steps
of what an indictment looks like.
We don't know how soon that will happen.
It could take several days.
But they have been planning to do a very
delicate,
intricate detail, I
should note level of what
that is going
to look like, talking
about the kind of facial expression
he has as he's
walking into the courthouse,
if it is in front of the cameras
as typically
is the case here in Manhattan,
because they know
that that is going to be an image
that is broadcast around the world.
They know it's going to be something
they believe, as Paula was saying
to his political advantage
that he can use as he is running
this third campaign for president.
But I think we have heard this refrain
from some people in recent days
that say
he actually wants to be indicted.
They think it will be good for him.
He does not want to be indicted,
certainly not for this case.
This is one of the most personally
sensitive situations for him.
It was ever
when he was in the White House.
There was reporting on this
on a daily basis
on who made these payments
and who knew about these payments,
because it involves allegations
about an affair.
And it was something
that greatly bothered
the first lady,
Melania Trump, at the time.
And so it is a very sensitive case
actually for Trump.
And I think the idea
that he wanted to be indicted
does not match
with any of the reporting that I've had.
But it is a historic nature
that he is now the first U.S.
president, former U.S.
president, to face criminal charges.
Yeah, it's
really a dramatic moment indeed.
Kristen Holmes,
our national correspondent,
is also working her stories,
her sources for us.
What else are you learning, Kristen?
Yeah, I've just heard
from a number of members
of Trump's inner circle
who are all trying to figure out
exactly what's going on.
As Paula said,
they have not yet heard
from their attorneys.
They have not gotten the information yet
in order to proceed.
But we are waiting
for a statement on that.
And I do want to talk about what
Caitlin just mentioned,
which is this intricate detail
of what it looks like
to bring Donald Trump to the courthouse.
They are looking at how exactly
this is going to play out.
There is a huge security component.
There is also a optics component.
They are talking about, as Caitlin said,
facial expressions.
They're also talking about
when is he going to make a statement?
Who is he going
to make that statement to?
Where is that going to be?
And, you know, last week
we reported that in the heat
of all of this,
that Trump
had really run the gamut of emotions
and he had sort of resigned himself
to the fact
that he was likely to get indicted.
However,
some of that did shift in recent days.
I talked to
some people who are close to
Trump, would talk to the former president
who said
because of the fact that the grand jury
wasn't meeting because of this reporting,
that they were hearing another case,
because all of that came
after Costello's
testimony in front of the grand jury.
There were some hope there
that maybe this meant this wasn't
going to happen.
And again,
as Caitlin said,
this is not something
that the former president wants.
And even though we hear spin all the time
from Republicans,
from the former president himself,
who says that
this is going to help him politically,
which it does appear in some cases
it might in a contested primary.
There are still a lot of Trump
allies and advisers,
people who are close to him,
who want him to win the nomination
and the presidency in 2024,
who don't think that
this will help him in the long run,
or at least are very concerned
about what this is going to do
with his political career Wolf.
Yeah, it's clear.
Go ahead.
Well,
let me just add that I've just heard that
not only was the president
not informed us,
as you guys were reporting,
but also Michael
Cohen's team
was not informed of this in advance.
And so I think
everyone's been kind of kept in the
dark on both sides of this.