In keeping with his reality TV roots, the former president preempted any Justice Department announcement of the charges against him in a series of post on his social media network. And one, just a few moments ago, he wrote, quote, I have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday at 3 p.m.. He goes on to say, he never thought it was possible that such a thing like this could happen. Then drifts into boasting about how he won all the votes in the presidential election, which we know is not true. He also wrote in all caps, quote, I am an innocent man. Kaitlin joining us now, our senior Justice Department correspondent, Evan Perez. Evan, what do we know about these seven counts Well, we don't know the details of exactly what these seven counts are. Anderson, we know that the former president was on notice. He knew that he was being investigated for a couple of particular statutes. One is seven 93, the Espionage Act. That's the willful retention of national defense information. We know he was also notified that he was under investigation for 2071, which is a concealment of these documents, government documents, depriving them from the use of federal government officials and, of course, obstruction of justice. The question is what other charges, possible charges? We know that there are seven charges. And, you know, again, the fact is that this has never happened before. And this is something that, you know, the Jack Smith, the prosecutors in that office have weighed for some time before making this decision. Everything, including, of course, the target letter that the former president received only recently had to go through Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland, the attorney general would have had to review this and decide whether to to allow it to go forward. So the idea that this this indictment we don't know exactly when it was returned, if it was returned today, he's certainly the former president says he was notified this evening. It tells us that, you know, the Justice Department had certainly gotten to this stage very recently, that they knew they had enough evidence, they believe they had enough evidence to bring this to a jury. And also just talk about this being in Florida, the change of venue. Yeah, no, actually, Anderson, this is one of the fascinating things for us. We've been following this. We've seen dozens of witnesses go to the federal courthouse here in Washington and and be brought before the grand jury here that was hearing witnesses again, testimony with regard to this and the January six investigation. And it's only recently that we understand that this grand jury in Miami started hearing testimony. What we heard from Trump lawyers, including on our air, was that they believe there was an issue with venue. We're told that this is something they raised with the Justice Department, that they believed it would be improper to bring this case in Washington because any possible crimes, any accusations against the former president happened in the Southern District of Florida. Which is, of course, where Mar a Lago is is located. It appears, Anderson, that Justice Department officials eventually got to that point. They clearly were at some point thought it would be better to do it here in Washington, but then changed their mind and decided that Miami is the place to bring these charges. Again, we don't know the exact details of these charges. But clearly, you know, that's why this sudden change of venue and now we expect the former president to appear on Tuesday for his first appearance before a magistrate in Miami. Yeah, he said 3 p.m.. Evan, we'll check back in with you, though, over the next 2 hours. I'm joined now by our political and legal analyst, New York Times. Maggie, Haberman, former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, former assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Hoenig, and Republican strategist David Urban, one time campaign adviser to the former president. Maggie, I want to start with you. What are you hearing, first of all? Well, I think everyone is still in shock is hearing the news, both people around the former president and frankly, people across the political spectrum, because we have been hearing the drip, drip of this case for so long. His team was prepared for this to happen this week, didn't have information that it was going to. Seven counts is a lot. You know, we don't know exactly what all of the charges are yet. We're going to have to see what the complaint is. We won't know until presumably it's unsealed. So there's a lot of unknowns. But this is obviously not a good development. And it's one that he was hoping to avoid listening. From a legal perspective, what do you think the seven counts are? So what do we what do we know based on what's been presented thus far? The best indicator we have so far is the search warrant affidavit from Mar a Lago. And when the Justice Department went to a judge, they said we have probable cause to believe that three different crimes were committed, willful retention or mishandling of defense information. That's part of the Espionage Act destruction or concealment of government documents. And then third, obstruction of justice. Now, federal prosecutors can break this out any way they want. It's possible we see multiple counts of some of those. It's possible we see any combination of those that adds up to seven it could be that we see other accounts because what you put in your search warrant affidavit may not necessarily be what you indict on an Anderson. Bigger picture, even without seeing the specifics of this indictment. I think it's clear that Donald Trump is in for the fight of his life. This is a man who has been sued, deposed, taken the fifth impeached, twice tried in the Senate, investigated by Congress, even indicted by the state authorities here in Manhattan, but being indicted by the Justice Department is different. This is a whole different ballgame. DOJ has way more resources. The conduct here is going to be, I think it's safe to say, more significant than what he was indicted for in Manhattan. The consequences if he's convicted are going to be much more severe than what he's looking at in Manhattan. What about there was an espionage charge as a possibility? Yeah, that that is one of the crimes that was listed and that relates to mishandling of defense information, not necessarily classified information. I should note this also, one of the statutes that was listed in the search warrant application destruction and concealment of government documents says on the face of the law, if a person is convicted of this crime, he's disqualified from holding federal office. Now, big thing we need to know here, that may not be constitutional. That's never been challenged in court. I think there's a good chance that that would not hold up in court. Also, I think it's unlikely. What we don't know whether this case will be tried before the election. And even if it is, nothing is final until the appeal is over, that will not happen. Until after the election. David. David Irving, I mean, you know, the former president quite well. His statement on his social media, it paints a picture of how he's going to portray this, obviously. But it's you know, we saw this kind of played out in an ad that the wolves are coming for me. Right, that the campaign has put together and we've heard this, you know, over and over that I'm standing between you and them. Right. That the Justice Department had weaponized FBI and weaponized. You know, one of the points I think makes it tougher here is this Espionage Act charge right now. And we don't know if that's one of the seven. Well, I don't know what the seven counts, but based upon the search warrant, it's, you know, the Espionage Act when you paint yourself and you and you're a patriot and you you're the president of the United States, I can't imagine a worse phrase to be used with the president, United States than the espionage act, when you hear it. It just it it makes you sick to your stomach. Right. And so I think people will viscerally react to it differently than than anything else that he's been charged with so far. Conspiracy, obstruction. I think those things the president can make go away. And the people who follow the president won't pay that much attention to when you push somebody and say the president's alleged to violate the Espionage Act, that just hits differently. And I think it's going to be tougher, you know? Go ahead. No, I just I mean, I think a I still think obstruction and other charges that might be in here are still going to be problematic for him, maybe not in a Republican primary. You. No, I don't legally. I agree. Yeah. I just but I think that once he gets to a general election, as the the Front-running nominee, that he appeared in front runner for the nominee that he appears to be right now. If that holds, if what happened last time he was indicted happens again. And it basically is a political boy. He still faces a problem explaining this in the general. Now, he will then use it as a political cudgel against Joe Biden. There's no question about it. But if you're standing as a Republican on a debate stage, if you're being asked tomorrow, if you're Mike Pence and you're being asked like, okay, now what? Now there's violation that we still support him in a general election, I think the answers are going to be completely different. That's just my take on it. Well, it may be you know, the one thing that Donald Trump probably has taught us in the last eight years or so is humility in these discussions for six years, I haven't lived inside his head like Maggie has, but I've always but it seems to me there's always been this interplay between his decision to run again and the possibility that he was going to be indicted so that he could actually weaponize his campaign against these indictments. And I think that's what we're going to see just as we did here in New York. He's going to say, as you say, you know, they the they're coming after us. They're trying to take our voice away. And, you know, and no one's no presidents ever faced this before. They do not they're not doing it to Biden. They're not you notwithstanding the fact that there is no real relationship between the two cases here. But so, you know, I think it's TBD. And I'll tell you those not to question the courage of those Republican candidates, but I think they're going to they're going to wait and see how people react to this. And Trump and he's meeting with his political advisers and not just his lawyers tonight. He's going to run a full fledged campaign to try and use his supporters as his shield and his sword. Charging Day was saying about his decision to run made that this may have been a part of that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's the only thing. I think part of it is that if he didn't run, he's not relevant it's a huge opportunity to, you know, continue to raise a ton of money and have events at his clubs and so forth. But it's absolutely the case that he believes that this is you know, this is something that he could use a campaign, a political campaign could be used to say this case is political, that everything is political. We're getting information in dribs and drabs. I want to go to Kristen Holmes right now. Here's some new information Christine, what have you learned? Yeah, Anderson, we have learned that of these seven charges, at least one of them is related to a conspiracy charge. Now, we don't know exactly what that means, but this is something that we believed the Department of Justice was trying to prove. We know they had brought in a number of lower level aides trying to claim to prove this conspiracy theory that there had been a larger conspiracy around obstruction of justice. Now, again, I want to be very clear. We do not know exactly what this conspiracy charge is. All we know so far is that there are seven charges and that one of them at least, is related to conspiracy. And we also know that the Department of Justice had brought in multiple sources trying to prove this point of conspiracy.
