Special Coverage of Trump’s 3rd Indictment in Washington | CLIP | Crossroads

you Hello and welcome to a special edition of NTD News. I'm Steve Lance. I'll be joined in studio throughout the broadcast by my colleague Joshua Phillip, host of Crossroads on Epoch TV. We'll bring you exclusive coverage of former President Donald Trump's third indictment as he's arraigned on federal charges today. This time in connection to the dispute over election fraud that followed the 2020 election. The indictment comes as a culmination of a lengthy investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith two and a half years later. In this special coverage, we'll examine the charges brought against the former president and explore the implications they may have on the country in the political landscape. First, we go to NTD's Iris Tao at the federal courthouse where the former president has just arrived. Iris, tell us, what are you seeing there? Hey, good afternoon, Steve. You're right, so former President Trump has arrived at this federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., right behind me, and his motorcade went in through the underground garage in the back of the courthouse. And this, of course, is for his arraignment slated for 4 p.m. Eastern time, which is to happen in less than half an hour. And we know that right now there's massive security presence in and outside of the courthouse here. So inside the courthouse, the main hallway was swamping with a lot of U.S. marshals armed with long guns. And we also know that the Secret Service has made several security sweeps inside the courthouse just in preparation from Trump's arrival. And outside in here, we are seeing a lot of, for example, barricades set up to keep the crowds outside of the court grounds. And of course, we also see police officers in and around here because there are protesters as well as supporters. But so far, we have not seen any major confrontation happened here. And what will happen next is that Trump will get first, get placed under arrest for a short period of time, and then he's going to get processed, which means that he will have to get fingerprinted, but no mugshot will be taken today. And then inside the courtroom, he's going to have the charges against him read to him by a magistrate judge. But then, of course, that's not the judge who will be overseeing this entire case. And inside that courtroom, Trump is expected to plead not guilty. Wow, Iris, it sure sounds like there's a lot going on in the ground there. What has Trump said so far this morning as he's facing this arraignment today? So yeah, so this morning, Trump again lashed out at this latest indictment against him. For example, he posted on True Social saying, quote, this is, he is being arrested for having challenged a corrupt, rigged, and stolen election. And he added that it's a great honor because I'm being arrested for you. And he also joked about this indictment, saying that I need one more indictment to ensure my election. So apparently Trump is very defiant and has been maintaining his innocence. And according to CNN, Trump will speak after his appearance at the court right now this afternoon, but also before he returns to New Jersey later tonight. Of course, we have not gotten any confirmation from Trump's team yet, but we'll keep an eye on if and when Trump's going to come out to speak. Steve. Iris, thank you for that report. We'll continue to follow the latest developments from the courthouse, but for now, we turn back to the studio. I'm here with host of Crossroads, Joshua Phillip, and we have NTD legal correspondent, Arlene Richards, to give us an overview of the indictment. Arlene, are you with us? Yes, I am. Steve, thank you so much. So the first thing I want to do is talk about the four counts and go through them and then kind of give a general overview of what that means. So there's four counts. One count is a conspiracy to defraud the United States, a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction. And then the final one is a conspiracy to obstruct the will of the people, to construct the rights of the people to vote for the candidate of their choice. Now, this indictment seems to paint a picture. It's laid out in very simple terms that are easy to read. And it seems to paint a picture of a former president who they believe was determined to maintain power. And the way that he was determined to do that was by telling this story of an election that was fraudulent. And he continued to repeatedly tell that story that this election was fraudulent. Even after he was told by many officials within the White House and officials on the state level that it wasn't true, that the election was done properly, that there was no fraud, there was no evidence of fraud. And he continued to knowingly tell this story or tell this what now was a lie, that the election was fraudulent, that it was rigged and that it was stolen. And because of this, he was able to later on start to pressure members of the state. Arlene, we're just gonna have to interrupt you here. And it looks like former President Trump's attorney may be speaking, or former attorney, is that? Who do we have on screen here? A witch hunt. You just laid out several examples of that. Any other thoughts that the president has communicated to you in terms of why this is going on and why he calls it a witch hunt? I think a witch hunt is really the way that anybody should describe this because it's not something we've seen in our time. This is not even political. This is beyond that. A witch hunt is when you relentlessly attack your opponent, when you relentlessly attack the thing that you are most afraid of. People are afraid of somebody that cannot be bought by Washington. People are afraid of somebody who is independently wealthy and who has given up his good life to fight for this country. And that frightens a lot of politicians who are career politicians, unfortunately, because he'll get back there and I know he'll be fighting for every one of us so that this doesn't happen to us. You stated cases about free speech, but the special counsel says Trump could have disagreed at the results and talked about it. No crime there. The difference is what he did to try and switch the votes. So what is it that he did to try and switch the votes that you refer to? By bringing cases, by using the law in an appropriate manner unlike what we're sitting here today seeing, this is not appropriate. What President Trump did is he said, go patriotically and peacefully and protest. That is an American right. That is why we are America and we are not a third world country. Although I will say that today, I don't feel very much like we are in America. Yes. What is the case you go forward before or after the 2024 presidential election? I think that every court needs to look at this as a whole. Right? It's not about the January 6th case. It's about the fact that in the matter of a couple months, we have seen them try and tie up, and me as an attorney, I've never seen this, tie up one individual who's running a campaign in a campaign, running for office for president, so that he is in court, in depositions and distracted so that he won't properly run for 2024. And frankly, it's not gonna work. Is the legal team gonna argue that the election was stolen? I don't think that that's the argument that needs to be made. I think that anybody that believes that is misreading this. The truth is, as an American, there were questions that he had regarding the election integrity. We've seen documents come out. We've seen documentaries come out showing that there were issues with the election. And he, and frankly, bringing this, I don't think Jack Smith really thought it through. There only has to be proof that number one, President Trump believed that this election was not completely honest. And number two, Jack Smith has opened himself up to a can of worms that we can now look at and really examine. If you believe that he's innocent and that this is all a setup, why not bring it to trial as soon as possible before the election so that you can clear his name? Yeah, I would love to do that, but there's something called discovery. And when somebody wants to say that a 2020 election was perfect and that President Trump has no right to object to it, we've gotta go show him all the facts. And there's a lot of facts to show. So everybody has their time. To say that Donald Trump should then be rushed and not be given the same fair proceeding that anybody else is, is just frankly un-American. It's not fair. It's not the way our system works. A lot of the lawyers who helped him try to overturn the election are unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment. Jenna Ellis isn't. Why do you think that is? I'm not gonna speak to co-conspirators or anybody else. I represent President Trump. Let's go one more. Number of, there's testimony and there's a number of aides that have said that the President was made aware that he lost the election and yet continued to argue that it was stolen from him. How do you reconcile those two things? Well, I think that everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesn't mean that that was the only advice he was given. As anybody understands what happens in the Oval Office, there are a numerous amount of advisors and politicians and lawyers, not just one or two, that are giving you advice and telling you what they believe is true. So he may not agree with Mike Pence. He may not agree with one of his lawyers, but that doesn't mean that there weren't other people advising him exactly the opposite. And the President has a right, as every one of us do, to listen to several opinions and make their decision. I remember hearing Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams argue their elections were not right. Absolutely. And the weaponization of the DOJ didn't happen then. No, of course not. But if your last name's Trump, it's very different. So Hillary Clinton could have a problem when she lost the election and we could have a complete liberal meltdown, as we all saw. But when we have dignified disagreements, we take them to court, we say, do things patriotically and peacefully, he's to blame for things that he did not himself do. And that's what we're seeing. Frankly, folks, this is not about that. This is about politics. This is about 2024. Period, the end. Thanks, guys. Thank you.