So Donald Trump has been indicted.
That's right, Jake.
A somber day for the country.
Former President Trump has been indicted,
connected to efforts
to interfere with the democratic process
and overturn
the results of the 2020 election.
This is historic.
This is the third time
the former president has faced
criminal charges this year alone.
Now, right now,
we do not have the exact counts
or the exact charges in front of us.
We are waiting for the judge to unseal
possibly this indictment.
There's also information
that our team is able to gather
from inside the federal court records.
I can sort of hear them over my shoulder.
I believe they're trying to put together
exactly what we can learn about
the specific charges.
But yes,
we have learned
that the former president
has been indicted
in the special counsel's
investigation
into efforts
to overturn the 2020 election.
This was very much expected.
He received a target letter
in recent weeks
informing him
that he could
very likely be charged
in this investigation.
He declined to appear
before the grand jury,
and his lawyers
met with
Jack Smith and his team late last week.
While they did not expect
they could stop an indictment,
they hoped to delay it.
It appears they were unsuccessful.
So we have the indictment here.
There are four counts.
Count one,
conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Count two,
conspiracy to obstruct
an official proceeding.
Count three,
obstruction of an attempt to obstruct
an official proceeding
and count for conspiracy against.
Right.
Evan Perez,
tell us more about this
indictment of
the former president
of the United States, Donald Trump.
Right, Jake.
So these are the four counts.
Again, these match up
with the ones that
that we had seen
reported were in his target letter.
It appears that that's what
the special counsel has decided to to
to bring the indictment on.
So this is now out in public.
The former president,
the former president has been indicted.
And they
the special counsel has announced that
now we are still
trying to go through this.
But, you know, obviously, the
the conspiracy to defraud
the United States
is one of the charges
that, you know,
used to be very rarely brought.
And we saw it more used more recently
since the Mueller investigation
by the Justice Department.
And, you know,
it can cover
a broad number of
of of of alleged crimes.
And so what
what the what the
the special counsel is doing here
is looking at the conduct
of the former president
in those days
between the Election Day, as he tried to
to overturn
those election results up to
and including,
of course, the events of January six.
I think the
conspiracy against rates charge
which is a civil rights
era, some sort of a civil rights law
is also one
that I think is going to garner
a lot of attention.
Again,
this is having to do
with the former president's
effort to deprive the rights of citizens
by trying to overturn
the election, is trying to
push the former vice president Mike Pence
to discard the election results
in a number of key states
as a way for him to remain in power
despite the fact that he had lost
the election.
Again, Jake,
we're still going through this.
It's a fairly lengthy document
that just popped up on the
on the PACER system just now.
And so we're
now going to have to go through
and read to see what the allegations,
what these
what this investigation,
more than two years old,
long found as a result of this, Jake,
All right.
Turn to your computer
while I talk to Paula
Reid about some of the items
as we all go through this.
Paula, one of the things
that's interesting here on page
three of the indictment
it mentions that Donald Trump
has six coconspirators.
So these are other individuals
presumably who have been alerted
or are being alerted,
but their names are not in here.
There's coconspirator one through six,
coconspirator one.
I'll just run through this with you.
An attorney
who is willing to spread
knowingly false claims
and pursue strategies that the defendants
2020 reelection campaign attorneys
would not.
Any number of individuals
that could be based on
what we know about the case
including Rudy
Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell
coconspirator to another attorney
who devised
and attempted
to implement a strategy
to leverage the vice president's
ceremonial role
overseeing the certification proceeding
to obstruct the certification
of the presidential election.
That's almost certainly John Eastman
coconspirator three and attorney
whose unfounded claims of election fraud
The defendant
privately acknowledged
to others sounded crazy.
That's got to be Sidney Powell
could coconspirator
for a Justice Department
official who worked on civil matters
and who with the defendant attempted
to use the Justice Department
to open sham
election crime investigations
and influence state legislatures
with knowingly false
claims of election fraud. That is.
Who do you suspect that is false?
I would expect him to speculate,
but it certainly sounds like
Jeffrey Clark.
Jeffrey Clark. Exactly.
That was the guy who was in charge
of like environmental rules
brought up from the depths
of the Justice Department
because
Donald Trump and his allies thought
that he would be able to push the states
to illegally overturn
the elections
only in battleground states, of course.
Coconspirator five
and attorney
who assisted in devising and attempting
to implement a plan to stop
fraudulent slates
of presidential electors
to obstruct the certification proceeding.
So that is somebody working with Jeffrey
Clark, presumably Yeah.
These last two
there are more
general terms are not as specific
as the first four that you read off.
So I'm not as comfortable guessing.
But what's
so interesting about this, Jake,
is that we have been wondering
if the former president
would be the only one to be charged.
I was quite surprised
when I spoke to Rudy
Giuliani's lawyer
multiple times over the past month
since he's been interviewed.
And he insisted
that Rudy Giuliani would not be charged
and take it just that
that was very hard to understand
based on his role in this alleged scheme.
But it appears, based on this indictment
that he is mentioned as a coconspirator,
but he has not been formally charged.
So it appears that
instead of at this point,
instead of
indicting seven different people,
they have charged the former president
and then listed these six coconspirators,
several of whom
the prominent folks
that we've just named.
And then there were other people
that it wasn't clear
if their names
or if they would be mentioned
in this case.
But Rudy Giuliani,
John Eastman,
was someone that we did
expect would be charged.
Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell.
At this point, though,
it does not appear
that they've been charged,
but they are listed
or described rather
very similarly to coconspirators.
Right. Coconspirator.
One our guests would be is Rudy Giuliani.
That's a very safe guess.
Yeah, but
but you're saying that these individuals
have not yet been charged with anything.
Evan Perez, is that is that is correct.
That's right.
Well, as they say in this document,
they're not being charged
with the former president, Jake.
It is possible that we may yet
see indictments
that they are being charged separately.
That's something that we know
certainly in our reporting.
We were prepared to
to see when this
when this finally came to pass.
We are expecting to hear in the next hour
from the Justice Department,
from the special counsel, Jack Smith.
The Justice Department is going to
have him issue a public statement,
Jake.
And so that is
something, again,
we don't expect that he's
going to answer any questions,
but at least,
you know,
again, puts the face of someone
from the Justice Department
who is going to speak
to the American public
and explain
why they've taken this
extraordinary action,
which is to indict the former president
for things
related to his effort to overturn
the election.
I'll read you I'll draw your attention.
Just a part of of where the indictment
looks at the former president's
state of mind.
Jake,
that's one of the things that obviously
for all of us, we've been wondering,
the Justice Department,
you know, for them to
to bring a case against Donald Trump,
they would have to say
that he knew what he was doing was wrong,
that what he knew
was what he was doing was false.
And what they say
here is
the defendant and his coconspirators
and their agents made knowingly
false claims that there had been outcome
determinative fraud in the 2020
presidential election.
And they say that these prolific lies
about election fraud,
including dozens of specific claims
that there had been substantial fraud
in certain states.
And then they go on,
Jake, to describe
all of the different ways
that they were trying to pressure
the former vice president, Mike Pence.
They talk about the effort, obviously,
to get those fake electors.
This is all in support of the key charge,
which is to to defraud
the United States, again,
using the powers
of the Justice Department.
This is where Jeffrey
Clark comes into play.
They were trying to pressure
the Justice Department to say
that there was enough fraud to cause
legislators, legislatures
and state legislatures
to discard
their voting results
and to try to seat their fake electors.
And so all of this is is being wrapped up
in one narrative
that the special counsel says,
explain why Donald Trump
is being charged with
the conspiracy
to defraud the United States.