watching history unfold. this is gonna be a black letter day in american history for the rest of our lives and beyond. we just hit midnight here on the east coast. we're coming up on midnight. it is eight seconds it's about tuesday. tuesday.

, within six months and she said was to try all 19 defendants together. barb mcquade joins us once again barbed one of the things that we've been going through this and doing this live on television, it's always dangerous, i feel like i'm finally getting a bit of closure on this indictment and some of the real human drama that we saw later particularly in the january six investigation in congress. i'm thinking critically about ruby freedom freeman and shaye moss, two election workers in georgia who work and i mean specifically who were terrorize,

including having people storm into her home, people caused her neighbors, they had to go into hiding at one point before people want to make a citizens arrest of her all while donald trump and his allies have demonized these women, portraying them as having headed up some effort to defraud the electorate. we've got multiple charges now, multiple felony criminal charges against people will actually try to intimidate ruby freeman, who went to her home, talk to their neighbors, who banged in the door, who told her that they were there to help or when they absolutely were not. i wonder if you'd be able to clean any impression from this bar in terms of how much of a pushback this is against the ongoing problem we have in the trump world with intimidating witnesses? >> yes in fact we know with donald trump and rudy giuliani

really ruined these peoples lives based on the testimony wherein congress last summer. they were willing to sacrifice their lives to achieve their illegal ands allegedly legal ands illegal lands. so i think it is a proper disease some measure of justice for those two women with these charges. charges that they were harassed and charges that they were approached by false statements trying to get them to confess that they had actually thrown the election and cheated on the election. incredibly bold request to these women who resisted those overtures and now see some measure of justice for them. i think it's really important because it puts a human face on the victimhood in this case who the victim's. it's not donald trump, it's not anyone on his campaign, it's all of us, all of the voters who would be victims. but these are two people who really suffered. and so i think that brings a lot of jury appeal to humanize it in that way, and a feel

satisfying as someone who's worked for an advocate for victims most of my career feel satisfying to get see them get a measure of justice. >> if you are following along at home, if you've been able to download the indictment, which can do by following a q r code is on your screen right now, it can follow that to see our live link to the indictment itself. if you were moved by the plight of ruby freeman and shaye moss who as barb says really did have their lives ruined by these attacks not only physically threatened but terrorize, we want to focus in on the and diamond and counts 30 and 31 in particular and the defendants travion harrison million prescott fluid and steven clifford lee who described in this indictment for having pressured them particularly trying to influence ruby freeman's testimony in her role as a witness.

let's go back to blaine alexander, who is with us from outside the fulton county courthouse in atlanta. lane after ask of you having that weird thing where the test is over and, immediately you get really tired and get the flu because even working the story for months and months and months, and had his just hit its apogee with it this indictment. i know you are in the room for fani willis's remarks today. says to be kind of a benchmark moment for you, considering how much time you've covered this story? >> i appreciate that rachel. fortunately the flu is not set in yet, i'm still running off on adrenaline. it was very surreal to see this all kind of come to this conclusion because when we were sitting in that room with fani willis just now, a couple of things stood out to me. one, the fact that she said she plans to try all 19 defendants together. i do need to make a note about the. that's more defendants than we were likely expecting. we certainly expected this to be a sprawling indictment with

defendants numbering in the double digits. when i spoke with emily cora couple of months ago, a special crammed jury foreperson, she told me that they recommended indictments against more than a dozen people. so to hear 19 is certainly higher than i or probably any of my colleagues were thinking. the other thing that stood out though certainly is that the longest answer she gave was to the question asking her to push back against the criticism that former president donald trump had leveled against her calling this politically motivated a political smear. that was your longest answer of the press conference. everything else she kind of gave in spurts. but it is very striking that she was defending her work, she was defending her investigation, she was defending your team's work and all of this and really kind of defending the two and a half years that they've spent covering this against those claims from donald trump. rachel? >> thank you for that. in case this is not obvious, this is a developing story as we continue to absorb these 41

various counts and the stories behind them. i'm struck, i want to go to our friend chris hayes who still with us about the specific charges that are being faced by a number of trump lawyers and top advisers. i'm looking at for example janet ellis, a trump lawyer seized shall charged and recollect everyone else is. charged and one other count that includes giuliani, eastman, race mid-the third which is essentially importuning georgia state senators at the senate judiciary senate committee meeting, where they described as well untrue things about the election and told senators that they needed to appoint the trump electors rather than the biden electors which gave would give the georgia election to trump rather than the biden. somebody like janet ellis, some-elect can chesebro,

frankly mark meadows, who's also charged with two counts. these are people who didn't participate in 1 million didn't parts of the scheme, they participated in a piece of it. sydney powell on the voting machines. chatted allison trying to get the state solid state senate to get physical actors. trying to get the justice department role in part of it. do you feel like there is a materially different amount of skin in the game for these various trump allies that may play a role in terms of whether or not they try to cooperate, flip are trying to get them selves separated or doesn't indictment this way have them all put in the same boat? >> it's so interesting you asked that cuts exactly what i've been trying to meddle through maybe turn around asked the folks here. there's a few things that is notable.

this is actual real criminal exposure for these people. they have been subject to disciplinary hearings in some cases about their law licenses. that's true of rudy giuliani and sidney powell, they've been subject to lots of castigation from the january 6th committee. some of them appear to be an coconspirators with federal cases hanging over their heads, but it is as of yet not charges. they are charged, nothing getting at lawyers, they got a shopping court, they have to figure what their defense strategy is. all of this is suddenly very real for all of them. have to decide whether they want to cooperate or plead. the other thing i don't quite understand, and i don't actually get how a rico case of this magnitude gets tried because of what you are saying these different people had different parts of the enterprise that took place -- they took part in different

predicate acts what's the actual criminal triggers the parma cuevas's talk about which we differently overtaxed. predicate acts, you have to prove to them to establish the conspiracy as a criminal enterprise. so have you have former publicist fri-yay the shows up in this bizarre disturbing turn to try to bully ruby freeman into -- and they got mark meadows is doing a lot more than that, are they sitting there side by side? i don't think i quite understand how these people other individual calculations of the defense interest are gonna start to make themselves known and what that's gonna mean for how this plays a? >> for a huge indictment like this, when 19 people are all alleged to be part of the same criminal conspiracy and a criminal conspiracy out about different plots in it, and she wants to try them together

although we don't think it will ultimately end up at the end of the day with 19 defendants in the same room, that's the question. but i think if we know in the abstract this was gonna happen i think my answer is to whether or not that's viable would be well, this is a prosecutors ever dealt with these things before? yes, this is the 11th rico indictment she's brought since 2021. and it's only 2023 right now. and so, this is a person who knows what she's doing and she brought on a special assistant district attorney john floyd specifically for his expertise in georgia rico prosecutions, while it seems daunting to us and, well it seems daunting to the defendants right now i'm sure, seems the prosecutor set up this way on purpose. >> the last thing i would add here and i completely agree with that, is that the big difference between this and the federal case aside from the reality of georgia rico law is the presence of the indicted

coconspirators as opposed to unindicted coconspirators even though some significant overlap. and in the federal case that was done quite intentionally as everyone has said to build the case for speed. one defendant, get it forward, it's important that this get earring, that this man be convicted or clear, and the public had that information by early next year. fani willis, clearly she's operating in a totally different sphere of jurisdiction and frankly a timetable, so she did enough to do that, and now these people they've got a lawyer. rudy giuliani just caught her rico charge. the week rudy giuliani of the u.s. attorney of the southern district of new york, rudy giuliani the guy who put away mobsters, rudy giuliani who was america's mayor in the tough on crime air. rudy giuliani's got to get a lawyer so he can show up in court in fulton county to face a rico charge.

>> rico laws to prosecute. the irony is just unbelievably thick. >> rudy giuliani is 79 years old. if he is found guilty in this case, he will be at least 80 years old. if he perceives an appeal that is unsuccessful, he will be headed off to prison around age 82. rudy giuliani is facing tonight the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison and dying in a georgia prison. rudy giuliani is i think a very strong candidate to drop out of the contest with this jury and end up in the cooperating side. >> and chris mentioned the question how is it affected with people. we will be watching, i think if you are in a disadvantaged state as lawrence says, or also smaller fish, you have all the reason in the world to sit down and reassess.

and the mentioning of the individuals are facing our consequences. john eastman is fighting to save his law license, giuliani has been partially suspended. janet ellis has an agreement pursuant to her law license had to admit that she lied. i was part of her meringue respeak. in november 23rd sees car tonight. she said in an interview november 23rd on tv with donald trump quote one of a landslide. now she can do those interviews and lie, we had a back and forth, but what she and others are now in trouble for tonight what they really have to think about is with all the evidence and all the people surrounding them and saying, yeah they were there, yep they submitted at, the email that, when those people cooperate, what side you want to beyond? and the electoral fraud act 70, 90 less several undone scam, fraudulent, or lying electors. they seem an because they may be cooperating. again if you're one of the trump lawyers who's on the

other side of that, trump's got his own larger calculus we discuss that. those lawyers, those aides when they have trump fans, you are going to a georgia courtroom and, their fellow georgians are talking about a, and out of state individual who came into georgia to break laws in the left. you're on the wrong side of it and there's an old saying might just get hit with the rico. not saying for a fact that rappers no, lobsters no, people watch movies in batman no, rico is scary and when they bring it, they often win. >> they bring it because they don't want to just get the foot soldiers, and people are going to the bidding that benefit the king thing, they want to get the campaign as well. we are talking about this with the advantage of being able to talk somebody more specific detail about how to bring a rico case. want to bring bark barb mcquade back and. what we are talking about the diverse interests of all these

defendants, the need to bring a coherent case and makes real to the jury the idea of the criminal conspiracies involving a lot of people. the need to balance the sanity of the courtroom in the coherence of the defense, coherence of the case, how do you approach it is a practical matter? >> it really requires a lot of organizational structure. almost after storyboard the entire thing house gonna play out in court. one of the things that we did my former office when we had these conflicts we show cases is number one, it's not going to trial with number 19 defendants. a number of them won't plead guilty, so the number will get paradigm. and then they will be assigned to groups, the government will offer suggestions and we want this group to go first in this group to go second. and maybe five or six defendant groups. and then in terms of presenting the evidence, one of the things that we did in my former office was to prevent, present the schemes in chapters. so chapter one, we are going to

talk about trump's efforts to influence public officials, play the phone calls, call those witnesses the talk about those things, all of the exhibits in their, we're gonna call a pressure campaign chapter. every exhibit is pc, one piece eating, pc to, pc three, pc for. we talk about it just in that chapter and then we bring the case agent who gave an overview of the charging them presented all those witnesses. it comes chapter two which might be the harassment of ruby freeman and shaye moss. so we call out with the harassment chapter, it gives the over and then, you present the evidence about that. so the jury at the end of it hears each of these chapters and it's a way to help them understand the story and how it all comes together as opposed to when you're moving chronologically as we've seen that list of overt acts, it gets to be a little bit of a mismatch. when you put it together knows chapters and i think the jury will get a comprehensive sense

of all the different parts of the schemes. and at the end of the day after pick to. >> and terms of the various actors involved in those various schemes, have been making those kind of divides myself as we've been going through the various counts. okay here's the cast of characters involved in voting machine tampering. here's the cast of characters who appear to be involved in the harassment of ruby freeman. as the cast of characters that are parity involved in pressuring the state senate state the state legislator sure to throw out the lawful electors and replace them with the fake electors. you can see those chapters emerging the way you're describing. it does that also give you a structure for splitting up these defendants, these list of 19 defendants into various groups of the charge everybody involved in the harassment of ruby freeman together? you charge everyone any voting machines happening together? and that becomes a way to divide the defendants into different trials as well? >> yes, very much so.

you want to group the ones out of the mount most overlapping evidence, that'll take some work for the prosecutors. sometimes the defendants who plead guilty are now just 10 to 19, could be number three, number seven, number 11. after the figure out a way to do them in groups again at that cohesive presentation to the jury. and then a crisis point, and some people who are at the king and level, and others who may went out to try to be nice with ruby freeman. and the level of involvement makes them difficult to charge of the rico. but in for a penny and profound. they knew that was the ultimate scheme to reelect donald trump when he had actually lost the election by any means, possible than they are. in the way the judge does that is at the sentencing. the king pin get sentences leader and get enhanced for that, and the lower level people are seen as mitigating and to get a lower enhancement. but they're all guilty of recall of the crime can be changed. >> and all bound by the

mandatory minimum. >>. yes >> in terms of the senses. andrew weizmann let me just ask you in terms of is that what barr said. it's so clear >> yes totally clear. great trial layer. he can see the barbs point to complementing the indictment and fani willis. the structure of chapter that barb was talking about is in the introduction. yes, it's very complex, there's lots of details but first she divides it into here are the basic building blocks i'm going to talk to you about in this indictment. so it's already doing some of that work. i do think one of the things that fani willis may be doing when she said i needed to six months in a do them altogether, which we don't think it'll be in six, months we don't think it'll be altogether, is talking about cooperation. that is signaling i'm here, i'm ready, we are going forward. that is just not what you want to hear if you are a defendant.

you won here we'll talk about, it will see what the judge wants to do. that is a very strong statement where if you look at her other cases, they've taken much longer to get to trial. the jury selection alone in one of the cases of ink is still going on. it's over six months just for jury selection. this is a very aggressive position i would assume has to do with cooperation. one of the thing about having different levels of people in an indictment, it can play very oddly at trial. a junior person basically says is not really proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to me, there maybe as to other people, but not as to me. and jurors tend to go yeah, you know donald trump that's a lot of proof, and it tends to really help the government with the people there is lots of evidence against, it hurts you with respect to the thinner people, because the jury tends to think while there is lots to

that person others more this person. so it's actually a strategy of if you think they're all guilty, you have that proof when, you have different levels it tends to hurt the person who is more guilty in terms of proof and help the smaller people. >> psychology that is fantastic. neil catchall is still with us. neil i want to ask, you we've had a bit of a chance to chew on this if you think there's anything particularly problematic, controversial, anything that feels like an overreach in this indictment that might be vulnerable in terms of people challenging the prosecution? >> no right now it looks very strong. obviously we focused on the statement at the press conference about 19 defendants being tried together and that i think is controversial. i don't think will happen, that's not the indictment itself. to me rachel the real issues that there were 19 defendants. that thing about 19 defendants

is that there's a lot of opportunity for cooperation. we've already talked about rudy giuliani being someone who might flip and indeed the whole doctrine, a conspiracy doctrine is written in order to encourage people to flip. and when rico isn't acted at the federal level 50 years ago, in georgia in 1980, it was structured in a way to almost be a super conspiracy doctrine to really be able to throw the book at people and encourage them to cooperate in turnover states evidence. so to me the big thing from the news tonight after reading the indictment and watching the press conference is that of course donald trump is entitled to a presumption of innocence, but the big thing, the big picture is that donald trump for so long got away with so much, it started well before he was president with all his attempts to delay litigation and higher shady lawyers, and then of course he did as president with things like the russia investigation.

and you know he got away with it, and those things for all sorts of terrible reasons didn't culminating in prosecutions. and the picture being painted today is the law has caught up with donald trump. this is the fourth indictment in just a couple of months against him in the fourth jurisdiction. the law is now catching up with him. that's what this indictment to me signals that he got away with a lot for a long time, but that playbook isn't working. he'll try, he'll delay, he'll try all sorts of machinations, put political pressure on the governor and others, but it's really hard with four different very solid indictments. this one has a lot of detail that the other ones didn't have. >> i have another proposed set of losers for this evening's procedures proceedings. which is fake electors who have not yet been charged. >> yeah. >> because we have fake electors being charged in

michigan, we have fake electors under an investigation in arizona and a few other states and we've got now state charges against fake electors in georgia that seem very wrap like-able and other states. david james schaffer, shown bucket kathleen alston latham, charged with the offensive impersonating a public officer. the set accused his persons accused with the commission of a crime and together without in unindicted coconspirators unlikely false lee held him out as a duly elected qualified presidential electors from the state of georgia. and that's just one of the charges brought against the fake electors for nothing other than pretending to be real electors when they were fake ones. and the kind of charge this is not some kind of unique idiosyncrasy of georgia law. this type of law exists in every state in the country it's gonna raise the question, if

pennsylvania, in arizona, in new mexico, in nevada, and all the other states where these things happen mean charged, won't it? >> yeah. >> we have seen this trend so far but it does turn in the very specific language of the individual statutes in the states. one of the things we are hearing from our experts in georgia law from january 3rd on, which was a day after the phone call when we got the phone call, the trump phone call to georgia is that georgia does have very specific laws that go straight at what was happening in that phone call and we see it go straight at that fake electors scheme. >> it's also gonna come down to the language that was used in all of this right? because chesebro, my sincere apologies >> it's a mnemonic device. >> if so. right chesebro especially in

pennsylvania you mentioned, pennsylvania pushback, the fake electors pushed back about pretending to be fake electors and basically the language around our agreement had to be amended because the pennsylvania electors were a little bit skeptical about being fake electors. they wanted language saying that we are only electors if there is a win and litigation. their only to >> their only two states that had. that we've seen two in those 52 states where there's been charges. >> absolutely. there is a lot of, i had the same reaction that when he saw the michigan stuff which is essentially where are the other, states what is going? on casino have two states with the blueprint. it's clear that you have to worry about pennsylvania language, have to worry about federal indictment this idea that there was part of the scheme was to duke some of the electors so want to make sure you're separating the ones were duped and who weren't. but there are going to be statements and i think this is a very carefully tailored

charge as to who simply filed things that were false it was interesting after we saw the jack smith indictment hopemont jack smith indictment hopemont might not

(♪♪) rsv can be a dangerous virus... [sneeze] ...for those 60 and older. it's not just a cold. and if you're 60 or older... ...you may be at increased risk of hospitalization... [coughing] ...from this highly... ...contagious virus. not all dangers come with warning labels. talk to your pharmacist or doctor... ...about getting vaccinated against rsv today. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

my heart failure diagnosis changed my priorities. i want time for the people i love. my heart doesn't pump enough blood... so my doctor gave me farxiga. ♪ farxiga ♪ it helps my heart do its job better. farxiga helps keep me living life... and out of the hospital for heart failure. farxiga can cause serious side effects including dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections in women and men and low blood sugar. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may lead to death. a rare life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. more time with her? sounds good to me. ask your doctor for farxiga for heart failure. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help.

♪ farxiga ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ get it with gurus. cargurus.