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.
