CNN: Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump

A grand jury in Manhattan has voted to indict Donald Trump — the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges. #CNN #News

Transcript

This is CNN breaking news. We have major breaking news, indeed, historic breaking news right now. CNN’s Kara Scannell is in New York for us covering this story. What are you learning, Kara? Well, Wolf, three sources tell me and my colleague John Miller that a manhattan grand jury has indicted former President

Donald Trump in connection with the hush money payment scheme. This indictment is under seal, according to sources, and the exact charges are not yet known at this time. But this investigation has been going on for a long time. The decision to move and seek and get an indictment of a former

President is the first time that has been done in U.S. history. This could have a significant impact on the presidential campaign. But as as I said, we do not know the exact charges yet. We expect those charges to be made public in the coming days. And at some point in the near future,

Former President Trump will have to come to this courthouse and be arraigned Wolf. The grand jury did meet today, even though they’re taking a break next week and for a few weeks thereafter. They did meet today and presumably they could have voted on this indictment today, is that right? Yeah, Wolf,

According to my colleagues, we have observed prosecutors going into the room where the grand jury meets. They were meeting today. We were told it was not scheduled to hear any testimony on the Trump investigation, but they have been working diligently since January, hearing witness testimony. And it is up to prosecutors to decide

If they were going to move forward in indictment and when to ask that grand jury to vote. It appears they went in and asked them to vote today and that they were in there late this afternoon. This grand jury meets until 5 p.m.. It appears as though this vote came down

Just in the past couple of minutes, within the last hour Wolf. Very dramatic development indeed. The first time, as you say, in American history, that a former president of the United States has been formally indicted in a criminal investigation. Let’s go to our senior legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid,

Who’s also following these developments. What else are you learning? Wolf, I’m actually texting with one of the former president’s attorneys right now. As of several minutes ago, they had not been told by prosecutors about this indictment, but we’re talking about conduct that occurred about seven years ago. This has been under investigation

For approximately five years. But in recent months, this investigation has heated up once again. We’ve seen a parade of high profile witnesses, close associates of the former president going before the grand jury to testify. And there was anticipation that this investigation was finally coming to an end. And as Kara and John

Just reported, Piers, the grand jury has voted to indict. Now, the district attorney has been under some pressure. He has been criticized for by some for not pursuing this more aggressively. And then when this investigation heated up again, some people questioned whether he should go ahead with this, arguing that this was

Not one of the more significant investigations the former president would face. But clearly today, they move forward with the grand jury to get an indictment, as it has been explained to us by the DA’s office. What will happen next is that is expected to be filed under seal,

And then they will have to negotiate a self surrender from the former president. Now, we’ve been told by his legal team that he is expected to fully cooperate. And the last time we spoke to them, it appeared that the former president absolutely wanted to appear in person and fully participate in the process

Of being fingerprinted, photographed, going before a judge as any other citizen would. The former president appears to believe that this is an advantageous thing for him politically. So it’ll be interesting to see what the terms of this self surrender are. So so he would have to actually show up and be fingerprinted

And go through that entire process like any normal U.S. citizen would have to go through if they were indicted. Right. Exactly. But there are, of course, extraordinary circumstances here because he has Secret Service protection. There are significant security concerns. You can see right there behind Kara. I mean,

This is a very crowded area of downtown Manhattan. That courthouse is a circus on a good day. So there are absolutely security concerns here. But politically, it appears a former president wants to lean into this, wants to appear in person and really make a thing out of this, because he believes that politically

This indictment could help him. It’s truly a major development unfolding in New York right now. Let me get Gloria Borger into this. Gloria, what do you think? Well, I think this is historic. I think we’ve never seen a former president be indicted before. And I think that while the circumstances

Of this case, as we all know, are a bit tawdry and in some, particularly in the legal profession, are saying, look, it’s not as important what might as what might be coming down the pike in terms of the Atlanta grand jury and election interference and in terms of the documents at Mar

A Lago. This nonetheless, an indictment is something that Donald Trump has evaded for years and years. And it would be the first time and I think it is something that Donald Trump clearly intends to use to his benefit, at least with his base early on in this election season.

But we’re going to have to watch this play out before our eyes as he has to be booked and charged. And I think that I think that’s going to be remarkable for the American public to see. People are going to have different interpretations of it. He’s going to claim

He’s the victim, etc., etc.. We need to look at the indictment. We need to look at what it says. But it is a moment in history, Wolf. It certainly is a very, very dramatic and historic moment indeed. Kaitlan Collins has covered Trump for several years now. She’s joining us.

What else are you learning, Caitlin? Wolf, I mean, the president’s legal team had been bracing for this. The former president’s legal team, they knew that this was likely something that could happen. He himself, of course, has been bracing for it ever since. He said that he believed last Tuesday

He was going to potentially be arrested. Obviously, it did not happen. At that time, they didn’t really have a window into what the timing here was going to look like. They obviously were operating under what we had heard as of yesterday, which was that there was potentially

Going to be a hiatus for this grand jury. But now, obviously, this has happened. And so the question is what happens next? Because his attorneys have said that he will surrender, that he will fly his plane here to New York to go through the next steps where he’s going to be

Fingerprinted and photographed for the next steps of what an indictment looks like. We don’t know how soon that will happen. It could take several days. But they have been planning to do a very delicate, intricate detail, I should note level of what that is going to look like, talking

About the kind of facial expression he has as he’s walking into the courthouse, if it is in front of the cameras as typically is the case here in Manhattan, because they know that that is going to be an image that is broadcast around the world. They know it’s going to be something

They believe, as Paula was saying to his political advantage that he can use as he is running this third campaign for president. But I think we have heard this refrain from some people in recent days that say he actually wants to be indicted. They think it will be good for him.

He does not want to be indicted, certainly not for this case. This is one of the most personally sensitive situations for him. It was ever when he was in the White House. There was reporting on this on a daily basis on who made these payments and who knew about these payments,

Because it involves allegations about an affair. And it was something that greatly bothered the first lady, Melania Trump, at the time. And so it is a very sensitive case actually for Trump. And I think the idea that he wanted to be indicted does not match with any of the reporting that I’ve had.

But it is a historic nature that he is now the first U.S. president, former U.S. president, to face criminal charges. Yeah, it’s really a dramatic moment indeed. Kristen Holmes, our national correspondent, is also working her stories, her sources for us. What else are you learning, Kristen? Yeah, I’ve just heard

From a number of members of Trump’s inner circle who are all trying to figure out exactly what’s going on. As Paula said, they have not yet heard from their attorneys. They have not gotten the information yet in order to proceed. But we are waiting for a statement on that.

And I do want to talk about what Caitlin just mentioned, which is this intricate detail of what it looks like to bring Donald Trump to the courthouse. They are looking at how exactly this is going to play out. There is a huge security component. There is also a optics component.

They are talking about, as Caitlin said, facial expressions. They’re also talking about when is he going to make a statement? Who is he going to make that statement to? Where is that going to be? And, you know, last week we reported that in the heat of all of this, that Trump

Had really run the gamut of emotions and he had sort of resigned himself to the fact that he was likely to get indicted. However, some of that did shift in recent days. I talked to some people who are close to Trump, would talk to the former president who said

Because of the fact that the grand jury wasn’t meeting because of this reporting, that they were hearing another case, because all of that came after Costello’s testimony in front of the grand jury. There were some hope there that maybe this meant this wasn’t going to happen. And again, as Caitlin said,

This is not something that the former president wants. And even though we hear spin all the time from Republicans, from the former president himself, who says that this is going to help him politically, which it does appear in some cases it might in a contested primary. There are still a lot of Trump

Allies and advisers, people who are close to him, who want him to win the nomination and the presidency in 2024, who don’t think that this will help him in the long run, or at least are very concerned about what this is going to do with his political career Wolf. Yeah, it’s clear.

Go ahead. Well, let me just add that I’ve just heard that not only was the president not informed us, as you guys were reporting, but also Michael Cohen’s team was not informed of this in advance. And so I think everyone’s been kind of kept in the dark on both sides of this.

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