Ex-Trump White House lawyer predicts how new indictment will play out

Evan Perez is OutFront in Washinton And, Evan, the special counsel making these emphasizing this unofficial natu the keeping those four charges that carry such a serious or serious level of penalty if c And surprise Trump with this filing today. That's right Erin. And look, I mean, what what one of the things that the special counsel have been doing these last few weeks has been going through line by l The original 45 page indictment and looking through the evidence they had to try to see what could support these four co And they arrived at the same thi what they did. A lot of this is editing as you pointed out, in this new indictment, which, by the way, they presented to a grand jury a brand new grand jury, one that had not heard the previous, the previous evidence. They made sure they went to a ne jury to be able to say that this is not tainted by the previous evidence, but what one of the things that they do h is that they've removed all references to the Justice Department and Justice Department official. Jeffrey Clark, he is. You remember the former official who Donald Trump at one point tried to appoint a attorney gene in order to help bolster his claims of voter fraud. That Also gone in some of these conversations with Mark Meadows, again, someone who is very close to the former president, that he's a close aide. And under the terms of the Supreme Court ruling, that is not evidence that they could use in court. So a lot of that stuff is now go Now, one of the big surprises in you will see a lot of evidence about Mike pence. And one of the things that you s in the editing of this new indic is it references to him as Senat president, his ceremonial role to, to to certify the vote on January 6th. And that you see is is helps to to bolster a couple of these counts here which are related to the former president's role in trying to impede an official pro So what the first thing now that after this, Erin is next week, a test before Tanya Watkins. She's going to hold a hearing and we'll see whether any of this new editing of this new indictment passes a test with her. All right. And that is obviously going to be crucial. Evan. Thank you. I want to go to Phil Mattingly now because, Phil, you've covered Trump so extensively. you know, there were many who thought this might go away forever or in large part. But this is a surprise filing. And the four key charges are sti that that would carry a combined in maximum prison time if someone were to be convicted So this surprises Trump today. What are you learning about how he find out, how he found out and what he's doing right now? Yeah. Erin surprised. The legal team also surprised the senior politi around the former president. And what's interesting to your p there kind of been a sense and being on the campaign trail last week, especially, that this was kind o the rearview was not a focal poi as it had been for so many month leading up to the general electi of any of his campaign speeches. He would mention it in passing, sometimes, particularly the Florida case that had been d Jack Smith’s classified document But it was not central, despite the fact his rally goers, his supporters were very much be on this issue. That seems like it's likely to change in the weeks ahead. As one Trump adviser, close associates, told we have a playbook for this. It's not necessarily a playbook they wanted to discov but it's certainly one they found to be quite effective during the Republican primary, when the former president steamrolled his Republican oppon and really kind of found himself at the height of power within the Republican Party, despite this being the third tim he has been the nominee. And we've already seen some of that playbook roll out. You saw the former president res on social media at length at one and then a stream of responses. Since then, we've also seen the campaign already blast out a fundraising request that says, I will, quote, never surrender. Very similar language to what we saw throughout his legal issues earlier in the year. And that's important right now, particularly given his current opponent has raised more than half $1 bil since Joe Biden dropped out of t Now, I should note the former president says that this is some that's being driven by the vice president, Kamala Ha There's no evidence of that. There is there's never any evide that Joe Biden was driving these But once again, it is similar language, similar framing and a similar ef to elevate something that for most politicians would be a significant problem. The real question going forward, this will likely be a focal poin of some of those campaign trail remarks in the weeks ahead Will he make appearances at the courthouse? Will the rest of the playbook roll out as it had before? That's an open question, but certainly we've seen a lot of this before. We certainly have, and it'll be amazing to see if we really do get some visibil on how successful the fundraising is, because, as you pointed, has been before, and it was a real indicator of sort of his his rise and resu whether that actually is still t I feel thank you very much. And so let's go to Ty Cobb now, former Trump White House lawyer. Ty, you've had a chance to read through these 36 pages. Obviously slimmed down just a li Not much, nine pages fewer than the original indictme filed last year. Keeping those four key charges a and editing, emphasizing that it is in a personal, private capacity under which Smith has the author to make this indictment. did he do it? Does this indictment make a clean cut case of the acts were personal? I think it does. I think, you know, some of the editing that you highlighted in your int is, spot on, emphasizing the private nature o many of these acts, the private of the speech at the, at the and before the Capitol in Pence's ceremony over all the non-governmental roles o coconspirators, which they can n say categorically and now that Jeffrey Clark is ou because he was the only government official who was, act in the original name. He's no longer in this indictmen So, all the all the Coconspirators were acting in their private cap I think this, threatens the need I if I'm if I'm Trump's lawyers and I'm surprised I'm, I'm scratching my head at that b this was this was the reasonable to take, you know, reason to go through a series of hearin before Joe's shotgun and forced the task of editing the indictment on her When you can put forward a forceful case like this and do the work for her. All right, so then what happens? She gets this case as Evan was l next week. What happens then? An does I mean, I guess then does it eventually just go back to the Supreme Cour Is this fast or slow from here? So it'll be slow from here? not not merely because, of the superseding indictment. Yeah. Whatever the indictment was going to look like after it went through whatever hearings the judge, Chuck, is going to have, and she still will have a hearin on the adequacy of this indictme you know, it does have you know, there is a interlocutory appeal, available, at least as I read the Supreme Court, decision. and, that doesn't mean the Supreme Court has to take it If the DC circuit acts before in their content with whatever they do. But this is definitely this has never this hasn't been on course to go before the election for months. this was never that that was never going to happen. But as you point out, I mean, this is a very forceful It's pared down. Every sentence is, you know, crisply worded. It's a tight narrative. you can't read this and not understand the crimes that Trump actually committed. And you said, as you pointed out 55 years is, exposure. that he's not going to get 55 ye but he'll get 6 to 9 on this. so she got that, you know, six. So you think he could get six ni And obviously I put out 55. Just a, you know, people understand the seriousnes but even 6 to 9, I mean, for, for someone his age, it's very significant. I mean, you know him. Well, what do you think happens from h Oh, I you know, he doesn't he won't take this seriously unt you know, final gavel comes down and the jurors come back and say And, you know, he actually gets sentenced. but, yeah, this will be a lot of dela tactics by, by his lawyers. They've already said it's the same indictment. Clearly it's not. they've already said that, you know, this will be dismissed should be dismissed immediately and won't be dismissed immediate and I think the people that view this as a rescue or, as, you know, some retreat by Smith read this completely wrong. You know, this this is what happens in the ordinary course if the Supreme Court takes an action that eliminates our approach that was previously, available. and, you know, the prudent thing is to change course. The facts haven't changed. And as you pointed out, the charges haven't changed. There are the same charges and they're easily proved right. And of course, we should emphasize, as Evan did it was a different grand jury. So there was there was, you know, no bias or prejudice b and what they were looking at. A new group of people looked at a new indictment, and they came to a very clear co that it was, but it should go ah All right. Ty. Thank you.