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Now literally picking up coverage where we just left off. I'm Chuck Todd. I've been reporting here in Washington on this disorder case. Donald Trump became the first former president in the United States ever to appear in court having to face a criminal charge.
Donald Trump wasn't just a former president when he appeared in court today. He's also an active current candidate for President of the United States. He's arguably the front runner for the Republican nomination right now. And he holds considerable sway over his party.
There are pictures of Mr. Trump inside that Manhattan court room a short time ago where after nearly a week of speculation we found out what charges he would face. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all of which the former president pled not guilty to. This indictment is focused on the Stormy Daniels case.
There is no specific conspiracy count included in it. But in the statement of facts, there seems to be an implication of a conspiracy for what that's worth. Perhaps a more telling document is the statement of facts. It was released alongside the indictment itself.
And it's the statement that describes the so-called conspiracy of a catch-and-kill scheme. It accuses the former president of orchestrating the scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election in an attempt to suppress any negative information about Trump with the national inquire basically. It's the magnet as people tried to sell their stories. They would in some ways almost help catch the story and kill it.
Donald Trump did not speak to reporters as he entered an exit in both the courthouse and the courtroom. It's a notable thing because if he felt so good about this, felt that it was such a positive that bravado might have carried over to the courthouse, he chose not to do that. But right now, he is on his way back to Florida where he has promised to address his supporters later tonight. The district attorney, Manhattan's DA Alvin Bragg, just wrapped up a news conference where he briefed reporters on the case against the former president saying that these felonies are a do matter no matter who you are.
The participant scheme was illegal. The scheme violated New York election law which makes it a crime to conspire to promote candidacy by unlawful means. The $130,000 wire payment exceeded the federal campaign contribution cap and the false statements in AMI's books violated New York law. That is why Mr.
Trump made false statements about his payments to Mr. Cohen. The former president's attorney is weighed in on today's arraignment shortly before the district attorney with the role in-prompt to press conference. I was surprised there were no facts in there.
I mean, normally in the night you have alleged facts, so they said that this was a false business for an entry to aid another crime. We're out staying with the other crime officer. He's frustrated. He's upset.
But I'll tell you what, he's motivated and it's not going to stop him. It's not going to slow him down. And it's it's exactly what he expected. All right, we're going to go around.
We've got correspondence all over up and down the East Coast, Kristen Welker's outside the Manhattan court house, Von Hilliard's down at Mar-a-Lago, and we've got everybody else in between here in T.C., our Justice and Intelligence correspondent, Kendallaney, and also with his Dan Horowitz, former Manhattan district attorney. He's here to answer all these questions that we are still scratching our heads about. And in a moment, I'll be joined outside here by Chuck Rose, a former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official.
But let's start with our correspondence. Kristen Welker outside the Manhattan courthouse. So, Kristen, I like to say, the president called for this big protest called for all of this. It doesn't sound like there was much of a protest.
If anything, it sounded like more of the president's detractors showed up than supporters. Yeah, Chuck, it was pretty remarkable. There were a couple of hundred people gathered sort of to this park outside of the courthouse. Some of them were supporters of former President Trump.
A lot of them were his detractors. It was a largely peaceful crowd. And what really struck me is that the crowd kind of reflected this summer day from the moment that Mr. Trump entered the courthouse behind me to face those 34 felony counts that you just laid out.
The crowd was pretty silent throughout the day, kind of reflecting the heaviness and the weight of this moment for this country. You saw that, I think, in Mr. Trump's face as he sat there, that first image that we got from the courtroom of Mr. Trump kind of listening to the proceedings get underway.
And then, of course, he left as you know, Chuck, without talking to supporters. But what we saw was defiance from his legal team. We asked them repeatedly if he would commit to something that the judge raised this issue of posting inflammatory comments on his social media account. They would not do that.
I asked what their next move was. They won't get specific about that. They said, we're just going to continue to fight this. So Chuck, a lot remains unknown in terms of what happens next.
But this was history unfolding here today. That's for sure. Let me go down to Mar-a-Lago, where the former president is on his way. And there, we do expect a decent crowd of his supporters.
Von Hilliard, is it your understanding how open to the public? Is this going to be? How much of this is an invite-only list? How would you describe it?
It's not as open as Mar-a-Lago is ever. This is private club. It's also private residences. It's an invite-only event.
You can see we just actually just in the last seven minutes got in here, Chuck. And you can see the number of chairs that they have allotted here. This is a campaign of that. It says campaign staff that is putting this on.
You said to deliver those remarks at 8.15 p.m. Eastern time, in prime time. I think it's notable when we're looking at Donald Trump in what statements he is going to be making here. There was no gag order that was put in place here by the judge, meaning that Donald Trump here at this time is likely to speak, not only continuing his effort to undermine the credibility and undercut the reputation of District Attorney Albert Bragg, but also the judge, Judge Mershan here, who over the last 24 hours, Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested his quote, Trump hating, taking direct shots of even members of his own family.
I think it's important whenever we say that, though, Chuck, that Donald Trump has a long history of doing that against anybody who has ever investigated him, prosecuted, attempted to prosecute him, or any judges that have overseen his case. This is not new out of his playbook here, but for Donald Trump, he will be here later this evening. And I'll just say, you know, it was his own attorneys that fought having cameras in the courtroom here and for the criminal proceedings ahead. Of course, inside of the courtroom, Donald Trump, unless he takes a stand, can only control the messaging so much.
But when he is here at a podium, a microphone at a campaign event, it's a whole different story, Chuck. It is, but it will be fascinating to watch his remarks tonight and see if we can glean whether you're thinking, huh, if the judge hadn't admonished him, what would he have said in his remarks? But anyway, that'll be something for all of us to follow tonight. Von, stick around for me here for a few minutes.
Ken, before we get to our two legal experts here who have certain written their share of indictments, I want to ask you, the difference between the indictment itself and the statement of facts, it's amazing how many statement of facts are not included in the indictment, or even alluded to in the indictment. The biggest thing being the Karen McDougal part and the American media and national inquiry and David Packer, I mean, you read the statement of facts and it looks like David Packer might be the single most important witness they have, not Michael Cohen. You read the indictment and you think Michael Cohen's the single most important witness they have. So have you ever seen something like this as a reporter covering the legal community?
Never, Chuck. Can you put your finger right on the heart of this? This is an incredibly ambitious case, but it also appears to be a very challenging case. You're absolutely right.
It's the statement of facts, which has all the moral force. And let's face it, criminal justice is about right and wrong and ethics at the end of the day. And a lot of the outrage, if you're talking about the conduct that's being described here that maybe people could get mad about, it's in the statement of facts. It's about described as a scheme to conceal these affairs from the voting public.
But guess what? Greg's not charging any of that as crimes. He's just using that conduct to elevate these business records, falsification misdemeanors to felonies. And people are going to come in here and say, wait a second, you're alleging violations of federal campaign law, state campaign law, potentially New York state tax records.
But you're not even saying which statutes are violated or whether or naming the crimes. And so that is the conundrum here with the heart of the case. They may ultimately have to do that as this thing proceeds and they're going to be challenged on these points. But you know, and the issue here is are people really going to be that upset about falsified business records that never went anywhere?
Probably not, right? But they are, some people are going to be outraged that Trump paid people to kill damaging stories and hide that conduct during the election. All right. So let me move to our two lawyers here in our conversation.
Dan Horwitz, the former Manhattan district attorney, Chuck Rosenberg, former US attorney. Dan, let me start with you. You've worked in this office as an assistant district attorney. Square the statement of facts with the indictment, how unusual is this?
How had you done something like that? Were you surprised that the allegation of conspiracy, which is certainly part of the narrative, it seems, is not actually in the indictment? So it's not unusual over the last several years in Manhattan to have an indictment with a statement of facts. This goes back to Mr.
Bragg's predecessor, I think Cy Vance, who was the former DA, he began doing it. I have several cases pending right now, where I have indictments just like this one, bare bones. And I'll explain that that is not unusual in a state case to have a bare bones and indictment, an indictment that simply tracks the law without a lot of facts. But the office has had a practice more recently of accompanying those kinds of indictments, especially in complex white collar cases with a statement of facts.
Now, will the defendant have an opportunity legally to say, please spell out details in the indictment that are not there, but that are in the statement of facts? Yes. In criminal in several cases, federal and state, there's something called a bill of particulars. And that's something that a defendant will ask for as part of their motions, please district attorney, provide me with a bill of particulars so we know what the particulars are behind the indictment.
So that'll get spelled out for sure. Chuck Rosenberg, is there a legal way that Donald Trump could claim all of this? Everything that they say is true. I was worried about my presidential campaign.
Is the only part that made this illegal, the falsifying of the business records or not? As charged, yes, through a Dan's point, there is more stuff that is alleged, but not charged in the statement of facts that seem to conceal, reads like a conspiracy, even though the word conspiracy isn't included in it. But if you're talking about what is Mr. Trump charged with, it's the falsification of business records.
And each time that they made a payment through Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, it sort of affected another business record, a check, an invoice, a ledger. So they've taken a dozen or so instances of making a payment and charged it in almost three dozen different ways. By the way, I don't think that's unsound as an illegal matter. But it's so interesting to me, because at least in my federal practice, you would simply take the statement of facts and sort of merge it into the indictment.
Yeah, it would be one longer speaking indictment. But I respect that in New York State, and particularly in Manhattan, they have a different procedure. So Dan, based on reading both the indictment and the statement of facts, would you assume that David Packer of American media is perhaps the single most important witness for the district attorney and not Michael Cohen now? Absolutely, Chuck.
David Packer clearly takes center stage. You've got specific allegations of several meetings, including a one-on-one dinner, I believe, that took place after defendant Trump was elected. But before he was inaugurated, were they specifically talked about one of the payoffs, there is no question that he is star with us. And it is going to be very difficult for the president to attack the credibility of Michael Cohen if the jury hears the story from David Packer as well.
Because then it's not just one person. And by the way, this is somebody who had soured grapes with me, who was interested in getting his name in the newspapers, and he wants to be a media star himself, and he was disgruntled. And whatever Donald Trump is going to do with Michael Cohen, it is very different when the publisher of the National Enquirer, who has done that job for decades, gets on the witness stand and said, yes, I had these conversations too, and not just one, but several. Let me go down quickly to Von Hilliard.
I know you've got some other reporting to get to, but I'm very curious, Von, how nervous is the Trump world about a discovery with David Packer? I mean, this could now go to places he does not want to see go public. Right, certainly the conversations around David Packer that we're being enlightened to that happened during the transition at Trump Tower, but also during the time of his own presidency here. We're dealing with an individual with a witness here who Donald Trump had viewed as a credible ally for so long.
These are good questions. Let's be frank here. Trump's top campaign team are on the plane with him right now coming back here to Florida. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump over the last 30 weeks, was working and doing his best to try to undercut the credibility of Michael Cohen.
And that's where now suddenly you have a potential corroborating witness, which Michael Cohen kept repeatedly going back to, was that there was evidence that backed this up, frankly, a lot of the evidence. I don't believe that we have seen as a public year yet or has been entered into this year. But for the campaign operation, you know, that is, I think, why Donald Trump has a history of not getting to the facts. I asked him specific questions just 10 days ago when I was on his campaign plane about the Michael Cohen payments of when he became familiar about the Stormy Daniels arrangements, and he continually sidestep my questions.
I asked him if it wasn't for Stormy Daniels, would you think you were paying Michael Cohen for? He sidestep the question again and told me I had no further questions to ask him. And so this is somebody who has always sort of weaseled his way around answering specific questions, which really goes to the heart of question. Was he aware?
Was he not? Yeah. And this is what fascinates me about having David Packer as such an important witness. Chuck Rosenberg.
David Packer's relationship with Donald Trump goes back years. There are all sorts of, I guess the question I had is there's all sorts of historical schemes that they've done together that have been alleged in the past. How relevant and could that stuff end up going on the same? And the reason I ask is there a way that Trump's attorneys could keep Packer from not talking about other stuff?
Well, so you're talking about a rule of evidence in the federal system. It's called prior bad acts and New York state has an analogous rule. So the notion is that if you've done a lot of bad things in the past, Chuck, but you're on trial for something else, can prosecutors pour that other bad stuff into the trial in front of the jury to say, Chuck's a bad guy. Look at all this other stuff.
So prosecutors have to use it for some to show intent, to show pattern, to show absence of mistake, to show motive. If those other bad acts connect in some way to the current charges, then prosecutors will typically be permitted to reduce it. And if it doesn't, then they won't. Your defense attorney now, would you be advising your client to make a plea and get out of this?
Well, if he wasn't the former president of the United States, he's thinking about running for president again, I absolutely would be. But look, I mean, in all seriousness, and that's important to keep in mind, which is that there are certain people that you represent where they cannot plead guilty. And it's not a question of whether or not you have a defense. It's you've got to go to trial because of your position, because of your prominence, because you are in a position of power and importance, whether that's in a company or somewhere else or the former president.
So I just don't think that's, I don't think that's a realistic scenario here. And look, I mean, let's just be honest here, these are serious charges. But in New York's scheme of criminal laws, they are the lowest level felony. And a question becomes, if the president was to go to trial and get convicted, would he, would he be sentenced to jail?
And I think that anybody under these circumstances, with a low level felony, with no prior criminal record, there's a pretty good chance that they're not going to go to jail. And so there's a lot of reasons why, for this particular individual going to trial, is the only option. Very quickly, Ken Delaney in 30 seconds, we got the aging Carroll trial, the Atlanta indictment. If we don't see it in a couple of months, are we not going to see it?
That's a good bet. But I think the Marlago case is really picking up steam. That's moving the federal documents case. That's the one to watch right now.
All right. And Kristen Walker, again, I go back, I just know the way Donald Trump thinks David Packer being the key witness here has got to have him more nervous than ever, because the politics of what Packer knows could be real problematic for him, both in his own personal life, but also his professional life. There's no doubt, Chuck, you are now talking about a broader set of facts and potential circumstances that could be underlying these 34 felony counts. And so, look, again, I think you saw the weight of this on Mr.
Trump's face when he was sitting in that courtroom. And of course, the uncertainty of the politics of all of this, what will he, this mean for his presidential campaign? We've really seen Republican's closed ranks around him right now. But if there are more indictments, Chuck, I'm told that that could change, that his rivals could start to argue this baggage.
And this goes back to the point that you and I've been talking about, which is who is the voter who voted for Trump in 2016, voted for Biden in 2020. How does he win that person back? Yeah, hard to imagine that this indictment gets somehow a voter back that he lost, but then again, it's suspended logic in our staff meetings for years and years. Kristin Walker, Ken Delaney, Chuck Rosenberg, Dan Horwitz, and before that bond, Hill, you're thank you all for the truncated version to get a smarter about what we all witnessed today.
And thank you all for being at this hour. We're going to be covering all of the fallout from here on out for the rest of the evening. I'll be back with more meet the press now tomorrow. Halle Jackson continues our coverage right now and I'll see you in a couple hours.