He has received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith telling him that he
is the target of an investigation by a Washington, DC based grand jury.
Examining the January 6 insurrection and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
>> Speaker 2: Former President Donald Trump is likely to be indicted for
the third time, this time in connection to the investigation of January 6.
And the Trump campaign's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Now, reporting for the New York Times,
Trump said on Tuesday he was the one who actually broke the news to all of us.
That he had received a so-called target letter from the special counsel Jack Smith
in connection with the criminal investigation into his
efforts to hold on to power after he lost the 2020 election.
A sign he is likely to be indicted in the case.
Now, this is going to be an incredibly difficult case for Jack Smith should Trump
get indicted, considering the fact that there really is a lack of evidence here.
If we had former President Donald Trump on the record, for instance, repeating over
and over again that he was attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
And that he was attempting to install fake electors in his plot to do so,
the case would be a lot easier.
But, I don't know, Cenk, have you seen such evidence?
>> Speaker 3: I think I might have.
I think I might have seen him say about,
I don't know, 488 times that the election is stolen.
There was 2000 mules and massive dumps.
Okay, so none of that is true.
They had 60 court cases, he never presented any evidence.
But this is really good news for Donald Trump, this potential indictment,
one that appears to be imminent because now he can go to court and
prove that the election was stolen.
>> Speaker 2: Perfect.
>> Speaker 3: Perfect, MAGA, you should be thrilled.
This is like the best news there is.
You'll get to bring in all 2000 mules and all that stuff and bring them all in.
[CROSSTALK] >> Speaker 3: And then that way you could
be, not only did we not have fake electors, but
our real electors show that we won the election and we are gonna be redeemed.
MAGA must be celebrating today.
>> Speaker 2: Well, it is strange that it seems as though that is not the case.
For instance, Republican representative Matt Gaetz is furious about this and
just noted that he intends to attempt to defund special counsel Jack Smith,
whatever that means.
But nonetheless, let's go to Donald Trump,
who reacted to this the way that you would expect.
He argued on Truth social, of course, deranged Jack Smith,
the prosecutor with Joe Biden's DOJ sent a letter, again, it was Sunday night.
He seems very upset that this letter was sent Sunday night.
>> Speaker 3: He said it like three times.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah. >> Who cares when you got it?
Why does that make a difference?
>> Speaker 2: So Sunday night, let me continue,
stating that I am a target of the January 6 Grand Jury investigation.
And giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury,
which almost always means an arrest and indictment.
Well, that's certainly the case when it comes to Donald Trump.
And should he be indicted here and it does appear that will be the case,
it will be his third indictment.
So there are multiple investigations happening simultaneously.
One investigation having to do with the hush money payments to adult actresses,
the other having to do with his handling of classified documents
after his term was over.
Some closest to Trump have already spoken to prosecutors.
So, there was already evidence, even prior to today's breaking news,
that indicated that this special counsel investigation was heating up.
It was getting very serious.
Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, of course, appeared before one of the grand
juries in June, according to people familiar with his appearance.
Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump's personal lawyer,
had a recent interview with prosecutors.
Prosecutors have been asking witnesses about the former president's
state of mind.
As well as efforts to fundraise off of his false claims of
widespread voter fraud and whether he knew he had lost.
They have also been scrutinizing efforts to put together slates of so-called fake
electors to cast ballots in support of Trump when
the electoral college tallies were certified.
So, we don't know exactly what the charges will be in this case, but
it does appear that an indictment is imminent.
>> Speaker 3: Okay, so now Donald Trump is trying to recast January 6 as a number of
patriots who went there, and what did Tucker Carlson say?
They were tourists, etc.
>> Speaker 2: I thought they were Antifa.
>> Speaker 3: They're also Antifa.
They're also tourists.
They're also American patriots.
They didn't do it.
But if they did do it, it was awesome.
And if it was bad, Antifa did it.
And yes, MAGA believes all of these things at the same time.
There are a lot of cults now in America, and that's the largest one, right?
And so,
let's find out if they were patriots that were just trying to exercise democracy.
I think we have a tape of these patriots, let's listen.
Yeah, when you're chanting about executing the vice president,
not exactly what I would call tourists or patriots.
But to be fair to those guys, this is also an awesome development for
them because they've been taking the brunt of this.
>> Speaker 3: That's true. >> Speaker 3: And so
there's a woman who's about to get six years in prison.
She's the one of the ones that assaulted the cops, etc.
And she's saying, this is totally unfair.
By the way Donald Trump, never helped them.
Never gave them a dime, even though he raised hundreds of millions of dollars for
himself for legal defense, but never shared it with any of those guys.
But in all seriousness, this is justice.
Where the guy who planned it is now finally going to be brought up on charges,
and not just the little people who executed it.
I'm not saying that as a defense of the people who were chanting to murder people.
I'm saying, yeah, they should be prosecuted, but
the guy at the top should be prosecuted, too.
And so, finally, we're pursuing justice here.
>> Speaker 2: Now, one person who decided to take advantage of this situation today
was one of Trump's political opponents, specifically in the Republican Party.
Someone running against him in the Republican primary for
the 2024 presidential election, and that's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
He was asked about this, and here's what he had to say.
>> Speaker 4: Difference between being brought up on criminal charges and
doing things, for example, I think it was shown how he was in the White House and
didn't do anything while things were going on.
He should have come out more forcefully.
Of course that, but to try to criminalize that, that's a different issue entirely.
And I think that we wanna be in a situation where you don't have
one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail.
And that, unfortunately, is what we're seeing now.
>> Speaker 2: Look at Governor DeSantis putting his big boy pants on and
going after Trump.
>> Only halfway, though, he's only got one leg of the trouser on, and
he's jumping around.
>> Speaker 2: He's nervous about it.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's, as they were threatening to murder his own vice
president, perhaps he should have spoken up.
But he shouldn't be tried for that, he shouldn't be tried for it.
So, okay, well, I guess that's manning up halfway,
if that's a thing, that's possible.
Look, guys, one last thing that's important here.
So it's easy to get excited because, A, Trump's getting indicted, and
finally we're seeing some degree of justice.
B, most importantly, let's protect our democracy, and
this is a step going in that direction.
At the same time, this case is not going to be super easy to prove, right?
There's a difference between did he do it and can you prove criminal action, right?
So, when the MAGA guys say Trump didn't do it, what do you mean he didn't do it?
Why did they invade the Capitol?
For Dukakis?
That doesn't make any sense at all.
Of course they did it for Trump.
On the other hand, when he says, look, I said raise hell,
I said fight like hell, or all these, these are kind of vague terms.
I didn't tell them to go break the law.
I didn't go tell them to break in the window.
I knew that they were trying to murder my vice president, and
I told my chief of staff that I kind of liked it, but I'm not on tape saying that.
And I didn't tell them to go kill people.
They just got carried away.
So is it me?
And then when you gotta present overwhelming evidence to get a guilty
conviction, that's not necessarily going to be easy.
>> Speaker 2: I agree with you.
I don't think it's necessarily gonna be easy.
It really depends on whether those closest to Donald Trump are willing
to turn on him.
And I think that these three indictments on three separate cases really
will test whether Teflon Don is really a thing, right?
I think the hush money payment indictment is the weakest of the three.
I think the indictments having to do with the classified documents pretty strong.
But again, I don't know if it's actually going to lead to the accountability and
the consequences that an ordinary person.
Or maybe a low level individual from the White House would have to deal with.
>> Speaker 3: So I have a slightly different ranking, so
I have easiest to prosecute.
I've got the documents case cuz it's a slam dunk.
He definitely took them.
>> He's on tape.
>> Speaker 3: It's definitely illegal.
He's on tape admitting it, and he definitely didn't classify them.
That's on tape.
All of it's on tape.
That is super hard to get out of.
So I think a guilty conviction there is very possible, but
is it gonna happen before the election?
The timing is super important.
So I think that's the easiest to prosecute.
I think the hush money payment is the second easiest to prosecute.
That's also slam dunk.
The only question is,
even if he's convicted of that, I don't think that moves any voters.
MAGA will be like, he had sex with a porn star while his wife was nursing
their baby, and then he paid hush money and broke campaign finance laws.
Sounds awesome to me, right?
That's not gonna bother them, 1%.
In fact, they might like him more because of that.
They're like family values.
We were kidding, man.
We love this kind of guy.
But that's very easy to prove.
The third one is this one, this indictment.
This one is the most important cuz it's addressing the attempt at coup that
happened on January 6.
But I think it's the hardest one to prove,
saying that he definitely directed them to do that kind of violence.
Now, to me, the most important,
and this is why I'm really excited about Jack Smith.
And what he might be able to get him on is not saying to the writers,
go get him guys, go kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, etc.
But to say to the fake electors, hey guys, write your affidavits, your legal
documents saying you are the real electors even though we know you're not.
And that, by the way, is the actual coup, not the riots.
The coup was the fake electors.
That scheme could have worked, overturned our democracy.
If Jack Smith gets him on that, he's an awesome prosecutor and
saves the democracy, not just because of hey, getting rid of Trump or whatever.
No, that's a sign that we desperately need for the rest of time.
Do not try to do a coup in America.
If you do, you're gonna go to prison.