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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
Indicted: The Case Against Trump. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 17, 2023 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Put that man on the broadcast and Hall of Fame, way to go. Thanks very much for joining me this evening. I am Jim Acosta. I will see you again here tomorrow night starting at 5 Eastern. Next, "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper, "Indicted: The Case Against Trump". And as we go tonight, a look at Capitol Hill on this beautiful evening here in Washington. Enjoy it out there, and we'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Whole Story". I'm Anderson Cooper. The indictment of former President Donald Trump marks the first time in history that a former President has faced federal charges. It is now the second indictment for the former President who was criminally charged by a Manhattan grand jury in March on more than 30 counts of business fraud. Now, he is facing 37 federal charges relating to classified documents from his time in office that were uncovered by federal agents. The special counsel has been investigating this case since November of last year. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
What makes this situation, though, even more extraordinary is that Mr. Trump is also the current frontrunner in the Republican Party for the 2024 election, which means he could be taking on President Joe Biden, while a special counsel appointed by the Attorney General is working to convict him. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Over the next hour, our Pamela Brown lays out everything we know about this case, and takes us through the twists and turns that brought us to this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm an innocent man. I'm an innocent person.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump is posting on his own social media site that he has been indicted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, a former President is facing federal charges for the first time in U.S. history.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): This is a very dark day in America. Our country is going to hell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tuesday, you're going to have the opportunity for our court system to do its job, and it could be a circus, because he may as well be organizing another January 6.
TRUMP: This is warfare for the law, and we can't let it happen.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): What we've seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the Department of Justice against the former President.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: You have a document now in front of you, United States of America versus Donald J. Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a bombshell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.
JACK SMITH, SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: January 2021, a moving day at the White House, but not every box should have been shipped out of D.C.
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LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: There were some coordinated effort to collect boxes of documents that had some level of interest to the former President Donald Trump. Now, what the reason for that is, we don't yet know.
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BROWN: According to the 38 count federal indictment, President Donald Trump was involved in the packing process, and so was White House staffer Walt Nauta who would join Trump at Mar-a-Lago as a personal aide.
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ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, & FORMER FEDERAL AND NEW JERSEY STATE PROSECUTOR: Nauta was Donald Trump's valet. He was his body man and he is the other defendant in this case. They are charged, Donald Trump and Walt Nauta, as the two co-conspirators who worked together knowingly to try to, first of all, hide the boxes from the lawyers and from DoJ and from the grand jury, and to lie about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Once at Mar-a-Lago for some boxes, the white and gold ballroom was the first stop of many in the months to come, then the business center, then a bathroom and shower, then a storage room near the liquor supply cabinet. But, why were these boxes from the White House stored in so many different locations throughout Mar-a-Lago, and what did these boxes contain?
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ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR: We're not talking about a few documents that were misplaced and ended up in the President's possession. We're talking about literally hundreds of cartons filled with records, cartons stacked up to the ceiling in the storage room, carton stacked to the ceiling in the bathroom, in the shower, boxes in the President's closet in his office.
LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: The chronology is so important because it tells you what were the intentional acts. When you lay that out in a timeline, you lay out a case for intent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: According to the indictment, one day Nauta found several of Trump's boxes fallen and their contents spilled, including a document marked secret.
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He took two photos.
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COATES: Given the fact that Nauta was really the body man of the then President Donald Trump, he was likely very aware of what the requirements would have been to have documents handed over, to have them in the proper hands of those who were the actual custodian of these records.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Taking secret documents out of the White House and storing them in an unsecured location like Mar-a-Lago is at the heart of the indictment. But, there is more.
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PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: In the indictment, prosecutors alleged that there were two instances where Trump shared classified information in person with people who did not have security clearances.
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BROWN: In July of 2021, the former President talked about a highly confidential document he took with him from the White House about a potential attack on Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REID: This is a meeting at his Bedminster golf club. Present for this meeting were at least two of his aides, and two people working on an auto biography of his former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.
He knew he was being recorded. Now, in this recording, this was back in July 2021, I just found, isn't this amazing? This totally wins my case, except it is like highly confidential, secret. This is secret information.
The second instance is him sharing a classified map with a representative from his political action committee. Now, we didn't previously know about this particular incidents. But, clearly, prosecutors do, and these are two things that come a very high in the indictment, clearly very significant to the investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Trump's boasting came months after a lawyer with the National Archives and Records Administration began seeking return of the documents in this email. "There are also now certain paper textual records that we cannot account for. For example, the original correspondence between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were not transferred to us." It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the White House over the course of President Trump's last year in office and have not been transferred to the National Archives.
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HONIG: So, a law called the Presidential Records Act says that presumably all records made during a President's time in office are property of the government.
COATES: This was a widely known Presidential Records Act, and throughout the entire course of an administration, it would have been reminded it on people. It would have been incumbent on people to do something about it, and truly they would have known.
HONIG: The Archives was remarkably patient with the Trump team throughout. They negotiated with the Trump team for months and months on end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: On multiple occasions beginning in June 2021, the National Archives warned Trump through his representatives that if he did not comply, it would refer the matter of the missing records to the Department of Justice.
In October 2021, multiple sources say National Archives lawyer Gary Stern sought the intervention of another Trump attorney. That fall, a top official in Trump's orbit says they were concerned and warned people not to touch the boxes out of fear that sensitive material could be exposed to those without the proper clearance.
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EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about documents at all of the classification level. Some of them are confidential. Some of them are secret. And then there is some that are top secret. And these are documents that relate to the U.S. National Defense. They are nuclear capabilities, are nuclear vulnerabilities, the nuclear and military capabilities of some of the countries that pose threats to the United States. These are the most sensitive documents that the U.S. government has.
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BROWN: What else did these documents contain, and did the former President jeopardize national security?
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MCCABE: We see there is a top secret document that's marked "Five Eyes", reckless disregard for the nation's sensitive, classified, essential intelligence.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New tonight, the January 6 Committee firing a warning shot after Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said he would no longer appear for a deposition.
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BROWN: December 7, 2021, almost a year after he left Washington, D.C., former President Trump was still making news.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump's social media platform "Truth Social" is largely still undefined, and is already facing serious scrutiny.
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BROWN: But that same day, down at Mar-a-Lago, something major was unfolding, hidden from the public eye. Trump aide Walt Nauta, who would later be indicted alongside Trump, walked into the storage room at Mar-a-Lago.
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PEREZ: And he finds boxes spilled on the floor, including one document that is labeled "secret". He takes a photograph of it and sends it to another Mar-a-Lago employee. And what the prosecutors say is, visible in one of those photographs is a document that they actually based one of the charges on it.
MCCABE: By looking closely at the photograph, we see there is a top secret document that's marked "Five Eyes" that is so sensitive we can only share it with our very closest intelligence allies.
REID: Just seeing sensitive information that was only meant for a handful of our closest allies just strewn about the bottom of a storage closet that was truly remarkable.
MCCABE: Reckless disregard for the nation's sensitive, classified, essential intelligence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Just over a month after Nauta took that photo, a long awaited development.
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HONIG: The National Archives began negotiating with Donald Trump's team in mid-2021. Finally, in January 2022, Donald Trump's team turned over 15 boxes.
REID: We were told these are pretty disorganized boxes of materials. And within those boxes was a mix of presidential records, which are any documents that are created during your administration and classified materials.
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BROWN: The FBI would soon determine that those boxes contained 30 top secret documents, 98 marked "secret", and the remainder of the 197 documents were tagged as "confidential", according to the indictment. Those findings prompted the National Archives to reach out to the Department of Justice to investigate in February 2022.
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KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: That's when the criminal investigation begins, because the intel community, the FBI, the Justice Department, gets called to take possession of those classified records and to start looking into whether there was some sort of improper mishandling.
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BROWN: Then, on May 11, 2022, Trump is subpoenaed.
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POLANTZ: And that's when the Justice Department says turnover everything with classified markings on it in your possession, no matter where it is, find it and get it back to us by the end of June.
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BROWN: Enter Evan Corcoran, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, now representing Trump.
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TIMOTHY PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Evan Corcoran was one of the initial attorneys who came in to respond to the initial subpoena, and he conducted the search at Mar-a-Lago.
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BROWN: Corcoran will become a pivotal figure in the case against the former President. Later, his testimony played a key role in the indictment of Trump and his aide Walt Nauta.
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SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: The striking thing about Corcoran's role here is just how unusual it is.
HONIG: He made audio recordings of his own notes.
WU: He contemporaneously took a lot of notes about his conversations with the client, which makes one thing that perhaps Corcoran was worried about something coming back later about his actions here.
HONIG: A very rare thing happened in this case, which is prosecutors got to break through the attorney-client privilege.
REID: Prosecutors convinced the judge that, look, Evan Corcoran's advice in this situation may have been used in furtherance of a crime, and his note had now become a key piece of evidence.
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BROWN: On May 23, 2022, Corcoran meets with his client. That's 12 days after the subpoena was issued.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Now, upon receiving this subpoena, the former President confers with his attorney Evan Corcoran, and suggests that perhaps they should just not comply with this, or lie to the FBI saying that they have no more documents.
HONIG: At one point, Trump says something to one of his attorneys along the lines that I don't want people going through my boxes.
PARLATORE: As a criminal defense attorney, when you have a client that receives a grand jury subpoena, they have a lot of questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Attorney Tim Parlatore represented Trump in the classified documents case. He left the former President's legal team weeks before the indictment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PARLATORE: They will ask those questions in the confidential attorney- client communication realm of, do we have to comply with this? Do they have the power to really make us do this? Wouldn't it be better to give them nothing?
PEREZ: The President's lawyers and his supporters are going to try to minimize this, because somebody who is facing a subpoena is going to ask his lawyers for advice. Where this crosses the line is where he tells his lawyer, why don't we just tell them there is nothing here? According to prosecutors, he had gone through these boxes himself. So, at the time that he is telling his lawyers to just say, we don't have anything here, he knows full well that there are classified documents that need to be returned to the federal government.
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BROWN: After that conversation on May 23, 2022, Trump and his attorneys agreed that the storage room boxes would be searched for confidential documents on June 2, but something strange, perhaps even criminal habit. At Trump's direction, aid Walt Nauta moved the documents.
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PEREZ: The 64 boxes were moved to the former President's residence, his private residence inside the club.
COATES: The key here is, why did you move the documents in the first place after there was a subpoena?
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BROWN: According to the indictment on June 2, just hours before Corcoran conducts his search, less than half of those boxes are returned from Trump's residence back to the storage room.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLANTZ: There are 30 boxes that Walt Nauta and another person moved back into the storage room. And then, Evan Corcoran does his search. He finds 38 documents with classification markings on it.
REID: It appears that Walt moving these boxes was part of an effort not only to conceal documents from investigators but also from Trump's own lawyers.
COATES: If you move them hoping to evade somehow the scrutiny of the Department of Justice, a federal grand jury, the National Archives, you're laying out a case for something illegal. PARLATORE: The thing that surprised me the most about the indictment were the details of the alleged movement of boxes by Walt prior to Evan's search. The scope that they are alleging there and the backup of texts, supposedly, as well as video, that's something that's far beyond what we had seen. If that's true, then that's a problem that the new legal team is going to have to deal with.
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BROWN: After his search of the storage room on June 2, Corcoran seals the 38 classified documents for delivery to the Archives, and heads to the Mar-a-Lago dining room to meet with his client.
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HONIG: Trump asked, did you find anything of interest? And according to Corcoran's notes, Trump made a plucking motion, suggesting that if Corcoran had found something problematic, perhaps it should be plucked out of the batch of documents that were being turned over.
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BROWN: The day after, on June 3, 2022, Trump's legal team submitted false statements.
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HONIG: If you look at the indictment, it seems like Evan Corcoran and some of the other lawyers were sort of used as dupes by Trump. What it appears is, Trump had his people move documents in and out of the storage room so that Corcoran would only find certain things, and then certify to DoJ, this is all I found. Corcoran was part of a group of lawyers who put together this certification, saying we've done a diligent search of Mar-a-Lago, and these 38 documents are all that we found. That's responsive. It turned out there was 100 plus more classified documents. The question is, who knew that that certification was false?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Coming up, federal agents search Mar-a-Lago.
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[20:25:00]
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: This was Donald Trump nearly seven years ago.
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TRUMP: We can't have someone in the Oval Office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "confidential or classified".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: On the campaign trail --
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TRUMP: Everyone screams, lock her up. Lock her up. Lock her up. You know what? I'm starting to agree with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: -- Trump vowed to punish Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.
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TRUMP: One of the first things we must do is to enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.
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BROWN: Once in the Oval Office, then President Trump signed a bill into law that upgraded the crime of wrongly moving classified material from a misdemeanor to a felony.
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COATES: It is a great irony right now in the fact that he may be held to account to an elevated crime that he initiated.
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BROWN: The FBI called Clinton extremely careless in her mishandling of classified information, but found no criminal intents.
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JAMES COMEY, DIRECTOR, FBI: No charges are appropriate in this case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Trump's obsession with the possibility that other officials would mishandle classified documents intensified.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH SANDERS, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE: I'd like to begin by reading a statement from the President. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: In 2018, Trump revoked the security clearance of John Brennan, the former Director of the CIA, the former President signing his responsibility to protect the nation's classified information.
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SANDERS: The issue of Mr. Brennan's security clearance raises larger questions about the practice of former officials maintaining access to our nation's most sensitive secrets long after their time in government has ended.
COATES: The strangest part about this all, this is all a self- inflicted wound. All he had to do was return the documents.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Remember, on June 3, 2022, a grand jury subpoena demanded Trump hand over all classified documents in his possession. But, instead, Trump's attorney provided the FBI with only 38.
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REID: Surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago has become such a key piece of evidence.
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BROWN: A month later, on July 6, in response to another subpoena by the FBI, representatives of the Trump Organization handed over a hard drive containing surveillance footage.
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POLANTZ: There is a storage room at Mar-a-Lago that Trump is essentially telling his attorney Evan Corcoran all White House records will be kept inside this storage room, because they had to respond to a subpoena.
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BROWN: But, that wasn't true.
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PEREZ: Investigators obtained surveillance video that shows boxes being moved out of the storage room, which they had promised that they were going to secure, they were going to lock it, and then fewer boxes being moved back in. But, it wasn't just based on video. They had an informant who led them to believe that there was more documents to be found.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Investigators obtained a search warrant.
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POLANTZ: The judge had looked at the evidence they had gathered up to that point in time and said, yes, it is lawful for you to go into Mar- a-Lago.
HONIG: DoJ proved to a judge that they had probable cause of three crimes. Two of them are now charged in the indictment. The two that are charged in the indictment are willful mishandling of defense information and obstruction of justice.
COATES: All he had to do was return the documents. I'm not supposed to have them. Here you go.
RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mar-a-Lago is based really in the heart of the exclusive town of Palm Beach, Florida. It's a stunning piece of property. It's sort of sandwiched between the intercostal waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. It's surrounded by palm trees, very lush acreage. It is really on the edge of what is commonly called billionaire's row, home to some of the largest houses that you've ever seen in the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news we're following right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have the details just coming in as I speak.
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BROWN: August 8, 2022.
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KAYE: There were boxes of items taken during the search. I was reporting from Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump was not here today. He was in New York City.
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We learned that about two dozen FBI agents and technicians had shown up to serve this search warrant and search the property of Mar-a-Lago. They were there for hours on end, going room to room.
PEREZ: They're not wearing any of the usual FBI raid jackets that they typically wear for such a surge. They show up in suits and ties. All of this was to try to understate this, to make as little noise as possible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's terrible. They're physically trying to destroy Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were certainly a large amount of supporters of Donald Trump outside, and of course, they were clashing with protesters, many of whom were already shouting, lock him up. It was quite a scene. DONALD: That's right. Another day in paradise. This was a strange day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Trump issued a statement, reading in part, that the execution of the search warrant was "an attack by radical left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024".
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DONALD TRUMP JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: My father has worked so collaboratively with them for months. In fact, the lawyer that's been working on this was totally shocked because I have such an amazing relationship with these people. And all of a sudden, I now notice, they said 20 cars and 30 agents.
COATES: I could not believe some of the pictures that we saw. I mean, some would argue that the documents were treated kind of like a discarded sock at the end of the day. We're talking about matters of national security, strewn about, available for the prying eye to look at in ballrooms, in bathrooms. Mar-a-Lago is not a skiff. It's not a secure location.
KAYE: The period that we're talking about is from January 2021 until August of 2022. During that time, at least according to the indictment, there were more than 150 social events. There were weddings. There were fundraisers. There were movie premieres. You name it. So, a lot of people coming in and out of the Mar-a-Lago club while these documents were allegedly there. And we just have to wonder, who might have known that these documents were there? Who had access to them? Did they even know what they were looking at if they saw them?
MCCABE: I'm confident there are spy handlers around the world who are beating themselves on the head today, wishing that they had sent their own agents into Mar-a-Lago. It is truly a spy's dream. It's a soft target. We now know it was replete with national defense information. And to think that it was all there for the taking for anyone with the energy and the determination to go look for it, it's just shocking.
HONIG: Trump is charged with 31 different counts of willful retention of defense information. One count is attached to each of 31 different documents. 21 of those documents were recovered by the FBI during that August search warrant.
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BROWN: Are there more documents yet to be uncovered or perhaps destroyed?
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POLANTZ: This doesn't appear in the indictment of Donald Trump.
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BROWN: After the August 8 raid, investigators continued to request surveillance footage.
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POLANTZ: There is this mysterious pool draining. A maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, a person who was not charged with any crime, he drains the pool in October of 2022. And if you ask people in Florida, it's highly unusual to drain a pool. And when the draining of the pool happens, the water from the pool somehow finds its way into an IT room that has surveillance tapes and footage kept within it. So, the technical equipment, the stuff that would be really hurt badly by water in that room. And so, it is not clear if anything was lost, if there are gaps in any of the surveillance tape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: When we return --
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SMITH: We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: -- who is overseeing Trump's criminal investigation.
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HONIG: He is an experienced prosecutor.
PARLATORE: He has a reputation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And later --
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COATES: If you thought this election cycle was going to be all about the policy issues and nothing about political baggage, you got another thing coming.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[20:35:00]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're being told right now that Jack Smith and his team are coming out. So, let's listen in.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: When Special Counsel Jack Smith finally stepped up to the mic on June 9, it was a highly anticipated moment.
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SMITH: Good afternoon.
COATES: I wanted to get a sense of who he was. Who was this sort of mysterious figure in the shadows overseeing such an important case?
SMITH: Our laws that protect national defense information are critical.
PEREZ: Oh, that's what he sounds like, because he has been silent. He has avoided the cameras, by and large.
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BROWN: Hard to imagine that one of the most talked about figures in this indictment was largely unknown until seven months ago.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting an announcement from Attorney General Merrick Garland set to appoint a special counsel.
PEREZ: Nobody knew his name. As a matter of fact, we thought the name was made up. His name is John Smith. And we're like, where did you find this guy from?
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BROWN: They found him November 2022, The Hague in the Netherlands, the home for the International Criminal Court.
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HONIG: Jack Smith went to work as a war crimes prosecutor in The Hague, but shows a certain commitment to justice and the capacity to go after very bad, very usually powerful people.
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SMITH: And based solely on the evidence in the law, we ask that you find the accused guilty of each of the crimes charged.
PEREZ: Shortly after he is appointed, they win a conviction for a leader of a militant faction in Kosovo.
MAPPIE VELDT-FOGLIA, PRESIDING JUDGE AT THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE HAGUE: Mr. Mustafa is criminally responsible.
PEREZ: The thing that he had been working on for some time finally comes to fruition. And here he gets his phone call from the Justice Department saying, you know, you got to put that aside and you got to come back and do this pretty difficult and perhaps a little thankless job.
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BROWN: Smith had left a post with the Justice Department to take this job at The Hague and reportedly hesitated at the idea of coming back.
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PEREZ: He is having a pretty good life living in the Netherlands. It's a pretty prominent position over there.
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BROWN: And that's one of the things that made him attractive for the job.
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PEREZ: Jack Smith was the perfect person. He has not been in the United States in recent years apart from the politics and everything that's been roiling our -- the Justice Department and our politics here in the United States.
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Today, I signed an order.
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BROWN: Garland made it official on November 18.
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GARLAND: Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even handed and urgent manner.
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BROWN: A terrible bicycle accident that delayed his move back to the U.S. until early January 2023. So, Smith got right to work from the Netherlands, assembling a team of more than 20, and launching a seven- month long investigation via zoom.
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MCCABE: The Attorney General made it clear that when he appointed Jack Smith that he would move this investigation forward without delay, and that is exactly what's happened.
ALAN VINEGARD, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR WITH SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH: It doesn't surprise me that he would rise to the challenge and take on that responsibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Alan Vinegard, Smith's supervisor at the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York City back in 1999, said he stood out since day one.
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VINEGARD: Jack struck me as a smart, experienced, intelligent, hard- nosed, relentless, thorough investigator, and a great trial lawyer.
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BROWN: Known as a tenacious investigator and dogged federal prosecutor, Smith then moved on to the Justice Department in 2010 --
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PEREZ He ran the Public Integrity section at the Justice Department that handles some of the most sensitive political corruption cases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: -- and potentially most difficult to prosecute, high-profile defendants with deep pockets.
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COATES: To head the Public Integrity section means that you are well aware of political optics, and you know how to navigate a way to build a case, to leave no stone unturned, all with an eye towards ensuring people view the investigation as non-political.
HONIG: Jack Smith does, however, have a bit of a mixed record. Several of his highest profile cases ended up failing. He indicted the Governor of Virginia. Then the Supreme Court threw the case out. He was involved in the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey, which ended up in an acquittal, and then that case got thrown out too. He was involved in the prosecution of John Edwards, the former vice presidential candidate. That case also failed.
POLANTZ: They're bringing ambitious cases. They don't want to lose. But, that is one of the things that happens to the Justice Department sometimes.
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BROWN: Losses and failures that team Trump has jumped on, tried to exploit and some might say conflate.
TRUMP: Jack Smith, he is a terrorist. He is a Trump hater.
PARLATORE: President Trump, he has a certain way about him in the way that he describes people. His hyperbole about Jack Smith is certainly is his interpretation of a prosecutor with a career of overstepping, of having convictions overturned and things like that.
PEREZ: It goes to show you that it doesn't matter what your resume is. If you're investigating someone like Donald Trump and if you're living in this very politicized era, you're going to get accused of being political, and that's exactly what happened. Everything was thrown at him.
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BROWN: Smith didn't take the bait.
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HONIG: He only has said a few sentences to us outside of court. You let your evidence speak for itself. It's not about you as a prosecutor. It's about the case you're making.
PEREZ: He didn't want to be the focus of this investigation. And the only pictures we had were him in this robe that they were at the war crimes tribunal, and we begged the Justice Department to give us another picture so we could show it on television, and he politely declined to sit for a new photograph.
MCCABE: He is apparently going to maintain this speak softly and carry a big indictment approach to the case. I would expect that he has had the benefit of learning from his predecessors.
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BROWN: -- like recent Special Counsel Robert Mueller --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is finally here. Robert Mueller testifies today.
POLANTZ: Robert Mueller had that disastrous time before Congress, testifying about what his investigation found.
[20:45:00]
ROBERT MURLLER, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: The finding indicates that the President was not -- that the President was not exculpate -- exculpated.
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BROWN: -- or former FBI Chief Jim Comey.
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COMEY: Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information --
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PEREZ: But, they wanted someone like Jack Smith who was going to have a much lower profile, somebody who was going to put his nose to the grindstone, help the team that was already doing the work.
SMITH: We very much look forward to presenting our case.
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BROWN: So, to hear him finally speak surprised many --
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POLANTZ: Really unusual to see a special counsel make a public statement like this.
COATES: Many people might be enticed to, in that role, make sure everyone knows who they are, almost be drunk with the power of it, and wanting to be out in the forefront. And hey, look at me, the fact that he didn't seem to revel in it and wanted the indictment to speak for itself, might buttress his credibility.
SMITH: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: -- despite all efforts by the former President to tear him down.
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TRUMP: Jack Smith, what do you think his name used to be? I don't know. Does anybody have it? Jack Smith. Sounds so innocent. He is deranged.
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COATES: If you were to think about, on the one hand, Jack Smith did not use the podium or a bully pulpit in any way. Contrast that to the person that's one of the defendants in this case, somebody who has honed his skills in being able to use these platforms to act as a kind of Marionette to pull the strings on different narratives. What a contrast. I wonder how that's going to play out.
MCCABE: This case will follow Jack Smith around for the rest of his life, no matter how it comes out.
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BROWN: Coming up, will this case affect the former President's status as the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 election, or will his supporters double down on their candidate?
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[20:50:00]
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you concerned about the Trump indictment?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I have no comment at all. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: As the Justice Department tries to convict the Republican frontrunner on criminal charges, the President is staying out of it.
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BIDEN: I had never once, not one single time, suggested the Justice Department what they should do or not do relative to bringing a charge and not bringing a charge. I'm honest.
PEREZ: I think Biden really does believe that he has to stay out of this. He has to remain quiet for the Justice Department to have any legitimacy. After all, this is a prosecution of the person who is running against him, the leading candidate against him.
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BROWN: But, some Republicans like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allege Biden is weaponizing his Justice Department against his likely opponent in 2024.
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MCCARTHY: They treated President Trump differently than they treat others, and it didn't have to be this way. This is going to disrupt this nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all.
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BROWN: And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is attacking the DoJ, but not the former President.
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RON DESANTIS, GOVERNOR, FLORIDA: We will once and for all end weaponization of government under my administration. That will happen.
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BROWN: Asa Hutchinson is the only GOP candidate calling on Trump to end his campaign.
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ASA HUTCHINSON, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR, & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: These are serious charges that merit serious consideration by the public.
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BROWN: Former Attorney General Bill Barr appeared on Fox News, criticizing claims by his former boss and many of his allies that Trump is being treated unfairly by the federal government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BILL BARR, FORMER U.S ATTORNEY GENERAL: This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous. Yes. He has been a victim in the past. But, this is much different. He is not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has.
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BROWN: Trump's former lawyer, who left the legal team after the indictment, talked about Trump's state of mind on ABC.
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JIM TRUSTY, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: President Trump, this won't be a newsflash, he is a pretty resilient guy. He is a pretty tough hided person. So, he is not crumbling in fear or anything remotely like that.
TRUMP: As far as the joke of an indictment, it's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing for this country. I've been indicted twice now in a couple of months. When I was studying and when I was very, very successful businessman, I never heard the word indictment. What does indictment mean? Sure, that's when you're extremely dishonor, sir. No. These people are conmen.
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BROWN: Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley's early reaction came in this tweet. "This is not how justice should be pursued in our country. The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards and vendetta politics". But, after having time to digest the detailed unsealed indictment, she sang a slightly different tune.
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NIKKI HALEY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security in.
SCOTT: And in America --
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BROWN: Republican Presidential candidate Senator Tim Scott's early reaction was this.
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SCOTT: And what we've seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the Department of Justice against a former President.
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BROWN: But then, he later said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT: This case is a serious case with serious allegations.
[20:55:00]
But in America, you're still innocent until proven guilty.
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BROWN: Other Republican challengers to Trump also started talking tougher.
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MIKE PENCE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Highly sensitive classified material could have fallen into the wrong hands even inadvertently. That jeopardizes our national security. It puts at risk the men and women of our armed forces.
COATES: If you thought this election cycle was going to be all about the policy issues and nothing about political baggage, you got another thing coming.
PEREZ: This is going to be front and center. It is going to be part of his campaign. He is going to fundraise against it. He is going to attack the institutions. It's not something that prosecutors are ever comfortable with when they're trying to do their jobs.
COATES: I think Trump's legal strategy is going to be a page from his own playbook, try to kill the messenger, undermine the credibility of those who he perceives as attacking him, deflect, disparage, and encourage people to look at this as part of a collective witch hunt.
WU: The indictments alone are going to start to peel off more moderate folks who think that even if I like his policies this is too much of a distraction. Nobody can face up to four or five criminal trials while they're attempting to run the country.
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BROWN: From a legal standpoint --
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HONIG: This indictment will do nothing to stop Donald Trump from running for office. In fact, there is nothing in our law or any of the laws charged here that would prevent a person who has been convicted or even imprisoned from serving as President.
COATES: He has now been twice indicted, one at the state level, one at the federal level, twice impeached as well. This is not part of the qualifications and criteria at the framers of the Constitution contemplated as disqualifying.
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BROWN: How this plays out could depend on who wins the election.
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POLANTZ: If Donald Trump were to win the presidency and was to be convicted of the charges that the Justice Department levied against him, we could be in some real constitutional quagmire that there have never been before in American history.
HONIG: Trump might lose the election, in which case, go ahead and try him at will. Trump might win the election, in which case he is going to be the sitting President. Again, there is no way there will be a trial of a sitting President. There is no way there will be conviction or imprisonment of a sitting President.
WU: If Trump were to win the presidency again, he is going to pardon himself and perhaps pardon a lot of other people that have been convicted. I think for another Republican, if they win, I think it's quite likely that they'll end up pardoning Trump.
HONIG: If Trump becomes President, again. I think this federal case, one way or another, is doom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got this.
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BROWN: On Tuesday, former President Trump's motorcade took him to federal court in Miami.
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UNIDENTIFIEDF MALE: The former President will be placed under arrest. He will likely be fingerprinted electronically.
PEREZ: Todd Blanche is one of the -- the lawyer who stood before the judge. When he was asked to enter the plea, he said "We will certainly enter a plea not guilty, Your Honor".
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BROWN: After traveling back to his golf club in New Jersey, Trump said this about his most recent day of arrest and arraignment.
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TRUMP: Today, we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country. Very sad thing to watch.
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BROWN: Trump has become the first former President to face criminal charges by the government he was once elected to lead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HONIG: This indictment is remarkably well put together. It is clear and concise, and every important assertion, allegation of fact in this indictment is backed up by a specific piece of evidence, by an email, by a text, by an audio recording, by a photograph. These are not far- flung allegations. These allegations are all backed up by hard evidence.
COATES: No one should rejoice in the fact that a former President of this country has now been indicted. It's an awful notion to think about the substance of these claims, and what it would mean to the people whose lives may be in peril if national security related information, if defense information, is haphazardly handled, disseminated or even available for people to see who don't wish us well.
WU: It raises the question of, is it good or bad for the country to go forward with the prosecution of Trump? People can differ on this. I think it shows people in this country and generations ahead of us that the law really doesn't favor the rich and the powerful, but it's applied equally to people.
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COOPER: Special Counsel Jack Smith isn't done investigating the former President. He is also looking into Mr. Trump's involvement in efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election. A prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, is also probing if the former President's actions around the elections broke any laws, which means he could face even more charges. I'll see you next time on the whole story. Thanks for watching.
