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Garland: Jack Smith ‘followed the facts’ in Trump probe
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How a speedy trial for Trump in election probe may benefit the government
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Jack Smith speaks on Trump indictment in 2020 election interference case
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Third Trump indictment includes six unnamed co-conspirators
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Trump election probe indictment focuses on obstruction charges
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Trump indicted in 2020 election interference investigation
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Trump indictment could be ‘huge boost to his fundraising’
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Grand jury in 2020 election probe meets at federal courthouse
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Trump rallies supporters as another possible indictment looms
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Georgia’s RICO law could target the entire Trump campaign
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Why the indictment against Trump could be coming soon
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Special counsel Jack Smith delivered remarks on the charges former President Trump faces from a federal grand jury’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Aug. 1, 2023
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Garland: Jack Smith ‘followed the facts’ in Trump probe
00:47
How a speedy trial for Trump in election probe may benefit the government
03:36
Now Playing
Jack Smith speaks on Trump indictment in 2020 election interference case
02:36
UP NEXT
Third Trump indictment includes six unnamed co-conspirators
03:45
Trump election probe indictment focuses on obstruction charges
06:21
Trump indicted in 2020 election interference investigation
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges he conspired to defraud the country he used to lead and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.
The indictment was handed down two weeks after Trump announced that he’d been notified he received a target letter in the probe led by special counsel Jack Smith, who brought charges against the former president last month in a separate case over Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office.
While the charges in the new indictment were not immediately revealed, two attorneys with direct knowledge of the matter told NBC News that Trump’s target letter cited three federal statutes related to the deprivation of rights, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction.
Trump called the indictment “fake” in a post on his social media website shortly before news of the filing was made public.
“Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!” his Truth Social post said.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over his actions after the 2020 election, blasting Smith as “corrupt” and labeling the investigation as “election interference.” Trump launched his 2024 presidential bid in November, after the Justice Department had already been investigating his ties to the violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol during the presidential vote count on Jan. 6.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel in November to determine “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.”
Grand jurors heard testimony from dozens of witnesses in the wide-ranging investigation, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who is now running against Trump for the Republican nomination.
Earlier in July, federal grand jurors heard testimony from William Russell, a Trump aide who was asked questions that raised issues of executive privilege. The questions, NBC News reported, focused on Trump’s state of mind between his 2020 election loss and Jan. 6.
The indictment is the second case that Smith has brought against Trump in less than two months. In June, Smith brought a 37-count indictment against Trump for allegedly mishandling national security information and obstruction. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case, which he’s labeled “the boxes hoax.”
He was hit with additional counts in the case last week, including new obstruction charges related to alleged efforts to delete surveillance video footage that had been subpoenaed from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump became the first former president to be indicted in March, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hit him with a 34-count felony indictment for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case as well, maintaining that the prosecution is politically motivated.
The former president is also the focus of an election probe in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened an investigation in 2021 into whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election. She has indicated that indictments stemming from that probe could come in early August.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Dareh Gregorian
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
Trump receives deposition notice in his $500 million lawsuit against Michael Cohen
Trump has been called to sit for a deposition in September as part of his lawsuit seeking $500 million from his former attorney Michael Cohen.
In a filing yesterday, Cohen’s attorneys scheduled the deposition for Sept. 6 at a law office in Miami.
“I look forward to Donald’s deposition under oath and proving the frivolous nature of the lawsuit,” Cohen told NBC News in a statement.
The deposition notice comes after Trump sued Cohen in April, alleging that his former lawyer turned critic spread falsehoods, violated attorney-client privilege and unjustly enriched himself.
Read the full story here.
Trump attacks Smith in post about Mar-a-Lago classified documents case
In a short post on Truth Social, Trump said just before 3 p.m. ET today, “The security tapes being deleted was a made up lie by deranged Jack Smith! Election interference.”
He was referring to the new superseding indictment that the special counsel’s office filed against Trump and two others last week, which presented evidence that the three of them — including Trump — conspired to try to delete security footage from Mar-a-Lago.
Members of the grand jury appear to have left for the day
The grand jury appears to have left for the day. Jurors were spotted leaving the grand jury area starting around 2 p.m. ET.
Grand jury watch hits a paws
As we wait for any news out of the grand jury, Bika the dog is doing great work keeping an eye on things outside the courthouse.
Trump’s past indictments spurred online fundraising boosts
Trump’s previous two indictments led to spikes in his online fundraising, according to a new fundraising report filed Monday — but the jump was much smaller for the second one.
While Trump’s campaign touted fundraising boosts after both indictments, the new report from Republicans’ main online fundraising platform shows how Trump’s supporters rallied more energetically after his first indictment in Manhattan for an alleged hush-money scheme, rather than the federal indictment related to his handling of classified documents.
The new report from WinRed, which was filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission, shows that Trump raised around $13.5 million in the week after a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on March 30 for allegedly making hush money payments to an adult film star during his 2016 campaign.
Read more of this article here.
Grand jury returns from lunch
Members of the grand jury having returned from their lunch break and have resumed their meeting.
Trump’s legal woes are costing his political operation millions of dollars
Ben Kamisar, Bridget Bowman and Alexandra Marquez
Trump’s legal woes may not be eating into his lead among GOP primary voter, but they’re costing his political operation millions of dollars.
Trump’s Save America PAC has spent more than $20 million on legal fees alone — doling out payments to more than 40 different law firms — in the first six months of 2023, according to new campaign finance reports filed yesterday with the Federal Election Commission.
Legal expenditures accounted for two-thirds of the PAC’s total spending from January through June.
Read the full story here.
Grand jury appears to break for lunch
The grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel’s probe of Trump’s attempts to overturn the election appears to be breaking for lunch. NBC News has spotted members of the jury walking down the courthouse stairs and toward the cafeteria.
Grand jurors typically receive a one-hour lunch break, and their days usually begin at 9 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., according to the D.C. court website.
Newly indicted Trump employee appears in Florida court, delays plea without a local lawyer
MIAMI — The Mar-a-Lago property manager charged in a new indictment alongside Donald Trump in the alleged mishandling of classified government documents after the former president left office was unable to enter a plea in court on Monday after being unable to secure a Florida-based lawyer.
Carlos De Oliveira, 56, wearing a navy suit and glasses, entered the Miami court just after 10 a.m., accompanied by his attorney John Irving.
It was the first sighting of De Oliveira, who stands about 5’8” with salt and pepper hair, since last week’s superseding indictment in the special counsel’s documents case.
The judge read the four charges against De Oliveira and his rights before setting the signature bond at $100,000. Because De Oliveira has not secured local counsel to represent him in Florida, he was asked to return for his arraignment next month.
Read the full story here.
In other Trump legal problems…
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has subpoenaed the attorney for E. Jean Carroll in an effort to obtain Trump’s damning deposition when he bragged about having his way with women.
Discussing his comments in the “Access Hollywood” tape during the taped deposition in October, Trump said, “Historically that’s true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that’s largely true, unfortunately, or fortunately.”
Susan Hoffinger, the executive assistant district attorney, wants to use the recorded deposition in the hush money case against Trump in his upcoming trial set for March. Trump’s attorneys have argued that the subpoena for the video should be quashed because it’s “overbroad”; “an attempt to fish for impeachment material;” and the material is subject to a protective order in the Southern District of New York.
Judge Juan Merchan, who will oversee the trial, said the subpoena is not overbroad or inappropriate. He said the DA’s office has demonstrated that the request seeks items that are relevant and material to the proceedings.
The decision on whether the tape is handed over is now up to Judge Lewis Kaplan who oversaw the E. Jean Carroll trial. He has given Trump and Carroll until Wednesday to respond. Roberta Kaplan, attorney for Carroll, told NBC News, “We will do whatever the judge orders.”
Georgia judge rejects Trump bid to halt Fulton County election probe
A Georgia judge yesterday denied an attempt by Trump to halt Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into whether the former president and his allies interfered in the state’s 2020 presidential election, calling his allegations of wrongdoing in the probe “overwrought.”
In a nine-page ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney found that neither Trump nor Cathleen Latham, a Trump “alternate elector” challenging the probe, had legal standing to block the investigation at this point.
He said their claims are “insufficient” because “while being the subject (or even target) of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation.”
The ruling is the second against Trump on the issue in two weeks. The Georgia Supreme Court denied a similar request from Trump on July 17. A third petition to the Fulton County Superior Court is pending, with a hearing scheduled for Aug. 10.
Read the full story here.
Trump TV ad depicts investigations as political attacks
A new Trump TV ad elevates a series of accusations that Republicans have waged against President Joe Biden and his family amid investigations into the former president.
In the ad, which was captured by AdImpact and aired on Fox News this morning, a narrator accuses Biden of being “caught in a bribery scandal,” and of “acting just like a corrupt third-world dictator.”
It shows photos of the prosecutors leading investigations into Trump — special counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis — while the narrator says: “Biden has unleashed a cadre of unscrupulous government bureaucrats he controls to act like rabid wolves and attack his greatest threat, launching one of the greatest witch hunts in history.”
Fulton County DA receives vulgar hate mail ahead of potential Trump indictment
The DA in Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis, is urging the county’s commissioners to “stay alert” and “stay safe” ahead of potential indictments this month, according to an email obtained by NBC News.
The letter to commissioners, which was first reported by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, includes a copy of a profane email Willis says she received last Friday, calling her the n-word and a “Jim Crow Democrat whore.”
She describes the vulgar email as “not very unique. In fact, it is pretty typical and what I have come to expect. … I expect to see many more over the next 30 days.”
Willis emphasized this weekend that her office is “ready to go” and plans to announce charging decisions by Sept. 1 in a probe of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Grand jury arrives at the federal courthouse in D.C.
Members of the D.C. grand jury hearing evidence and testimony in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference are arriving at the courthouse and heading up to the third-floor grand jury area.
Trump faces additional charges in Mar-a-Lago documents case
Former President Donald Trump faces additional charges in connection with his post-presidency handling of classified documents after the special counsel filed a new indictment last week.
The federal indictment, filed in the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Trump was part of a scheme to delete security video and that a newly charged defendant — who was identified as a property manager at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence — told another employee that “the boss” wanted the server deleted.
That employee, Carlos De Oliveira, who was a maintenance supervisor at Mar-a-Lago, was charged Thursday. His lawyer, John Irving, declined to comment.
A Georgia judge on Monday denied an attempt by Donald Trump to halt Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into whether the former president and his allies interfered in the state’s 2020 presidential election, calling his allegations of wrongdoing in the probe “overwrought.”
In a nine-page ruling Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney found that neither Trump nor Cathleen Latham, a Trump “alternate elector” challenging the probe, had legal standing to block the investigation at this point.
He said their claims are “insufficient” because “while being the subject (or even target) of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation.”
The ruling is the second against Trump on the issue in two weeks. The Georgia Supreme Court denied a similar request from Trump on July 17. A third petition to the Fulton County Superior Court is pending, with a hearing scheduled for Aug. 10.
In his Monday ruling, McBurney suggested his ruling should make the third action moot.
He noted that Trump could raise the same concerns to the courts after he’s indicted, but said it’s premature for him to do so now.
“Guessing at what that picture might look like before the investigative dots are connected may be a popular game for the media and blogosphere, but it is not a proper role for the courts and formal legal argumentation,” McBurney wrote.
“There will be time and forum in which Trump and Latham can raise their concerns about the constitutionality of the special purpose grand jury statutes, about the performance of this particular Special Purpose Grand Jury (and the judge supervising it), and about the propriety of allowing the Fulton County District Attorney to remain involved with whatever criminal prosecution — if any results from the work of this Special Purpose Grand Jury. That time is not now and that forum is not here.
“Should either (or both) movant be indicted, they can raise all these issues (as they undoubtedly will) before the judge,” he wrote.
The district attorney’s office declined comment on the ruling. Representatives for Trump and Latham did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case and maintains Willis, a Democrat, is leading a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Willis has indicated that she could seek indictments in the case in the first half of August.
Trump has also been notified by special counsel Jack Smith that he’s a target in his federal investigation into interference in the 2020 election. Trump has denied wrongdoing and accused Smith of “election interference” since Trump is now running for president.
Blayne Alexander
Blayne Alexander is an NBC News correspondent, based in Atlanta.
Dareh Gregorian
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reemphasized her plans to announce charging decisions by Sept. 1 in her investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
“The work is accomplished,” Willis told a CNN affiliate during a back-to-school event last weekend. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”
In a letter to the chief judge of the Fulton County courthouse in May, Willis signaled in a scheduling request that charging decisions stemming from an investigation into “possible criminal interference in the administration of Georgia’s 2020 general election” could come in early August. She asked the judge to not schedule in-person trials or hearings the weeks of Aug. 7 and 14.
Willis also said in a separate letter to law enforcement that she’d announce charging decisions during a state Superior Court term that began this month.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney seated two grand juries this month that will hear cases over the length of term, which ends Sept. 1. They are likely to be tasked with deciding whether Trump and his allies will face election interference charges.
Willis launched a sprawling investigation in early 2021 into whether Trump and his allies interfered in the battleground state’s election process during the 2020 election
Willis called for a special grand jury last year because the panel had the power to issue subpoenas to force witnesses to testify. The jury, which was tasked with determining whether there were coordinated attempts to unlawfully change the results of the 2020 elections, recommended indicting more than a dozen people, its foreperson, Emily Kohrs, said on NBC’s “Nightly News” in February. The names have not been made public.
“There are certainly names that you will recognize, yes. There are names also you might not recognize,” Kohrs said at the time.
At least eight of Georgia’s “fake electors” — who signed a certificate falsely declaring that Trump had won Georgia in the 2020 election and declared themselves Georgia’s “duly elected and qualified” electors — have been granted immunity in Willis’ probe, court filings show.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the case and has accused Willis, a Democrat, of spearheading a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Willis’ latest remarks comes after Georgia’s Supreme Court denied Trump’s attempt to disqualify her from the probe and to quash the special grand jury’s report that recommends indictments.
Summer Concepcion
Summer Concepcion is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Khar, Pakistan — The death toll from a massive suicide bombing that targeted an election rally for a pro-Taliban cleric rose to 54 Monday, as Pakistan held funerals and the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack. No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people, but police said their initial investigation suggested the ISIS group’s regional affiliate could be responsible.
The victims were attending a rally organized by the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan’s Taliban government, escaped at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014, when bombings damaged his car at rallies.
Victims of the bombing were buried in Bajur on Monday.
Boys weep over the death of a family member at a funeral a day after bomb blast in the Bajur district of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province targeted a political rally, July 31, 2023.
ABDUL MAJEED/AFP/Getty
As condolences continued to pour in from across the country, dozens of people who received minor injuries were discharged from hospital while the critically wounded were taken to the provincial capital of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll continued to rise as critically wounded people died in hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said.
On Monday, police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, Bajur’s largest town. Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, said police were “investigating this attack in all aspects.”
At least 1,000 people were gathered under a large tent Sunday as their party prepared for parliamentary elections, expected in October or November.
A member of the security forces stands guard next to the site of a bomb blast in the Bajar district of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, July 31, 2023.
ABDUL MAJEED/AFP/Getty
“People were chanting God is Great on the arrival of senior leaders, when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb,” said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who said he was standing outside the tent.
Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances started arriving and taking the wounded away.
Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Rehman’s party said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.”
Islamist groups have long had a presence in Bajur. The district was formerly a base for al Qaeda and a stronghold of the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The army declared the district clear of the group in 2016 following a series of offensives.
The regional ISIS affiliate, known as the ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, is based in neighboring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.
Taliban armed with U.S. weapons faces threat from ISIS-K
04:10
Shaukat Abbas, a senior police officer, said that police have made progress in their investigation, but did not provide details.
Pakistani security analyst Mahmood Shah told The Associated Press that breakaway factions of the TTP could also be behind the attack. He said some TTP members have been known to disobey their top leadership to carry out attacks, as have breakaway factions of the group.
Shah said such factions could have perpetrated the attack to cause “confusion, instability and unrest ahead of the elections.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve Pakistan’s parliament in August.
Rehman’s party is part of Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature.
Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. The bombing has also drawn nationwide condemnation, with ruling and opposition parties offering condolences to the families of the victims. The U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad also condemned the attack.
Khan condemned the bombing Sunday.
The Pakistani Taliban also distanced themselves from the attack, saying that the attack aimed to set Islamists against each other. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, wrote in a tweet that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”
Sunday’s bombing was one of the four worst attacks in northwestern Pakistan since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.
In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. And in February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters.
Support for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is faltering in Russia – Mikhail Metzel/Pool via AP
Vladimir Putin’s candidates for local elections in Russia are avoiding talking about the war in Ukraine amid fears that it could lose them votes, according to opposition media.
United Russia party sources in the Urals region told Verstka website they had shredded pro-war campaign leaflets.
“There is not a single person here who supports the war. There are no Z-machines here,” the source in Putin’s party said. “If you support the war, you will not be elected.”
Verstka reported that high-profile candidates in the elections, being held on Sept 10, still had to support the conflict publicly, but more low-profile hopefuls were shying away from the subject.
“The reaction is too unpredictable,” said Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of Golos, a Russian vote-monitoring NGO.
He described how Sergei Sokol, a United Russia MP who has served in a VIP battalion in occupied Ukraine, has toned down his comments on the war and has stopped wearing his camouflage military jacket since he was nominated to contest the governorship of the Khakassia region in Siberia.
Verstka’s report is an insight into how support for Putin’s war in Ukraine is faltering in Russia, 17 months after the president ordered his full-scale invasion.
Western analysts have said that more than 200,000 Russians have been killed or injured in the war. This week, another Russian opposition website reported that overworked doctors in regional hospitals were resigning because of the stress of having to treat so many mentally and physically broken soldiers.
“There are almost no doctors left, and now the last ones are leaving because of unrealistic requirements on them,” a source in the Kemerovo region of Siberia told the New Tablet.
Citizens are also feeling the economic pain. This month, the Russian Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in a year, warning of inflation linked to a sharp drop in Russia’s labour force.
Ozon, a Russian online retailer, has said it will follow car manufacturer AvtoVAZ and hire convicts to plug shortages. The 500 convicts will pack boxes in its warehouses but, Ozon insisted, will not courier products to customers.
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What candidates are Pennsylvanians favoring in the 2024 election – CBS News
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Former President Donald Trump and much of the rest of the 2024 Republican presidential field will appear at the Iowa GOP Lincoln Dinner Friday night in Des Moines. Trump will then travel to Pennsylvania for a Saturday rally. CBS News Pittsburgh money and politics editor Jon Delano has more on the race in Pennsylvania.
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