August 3, 2023 Trump pleads not guilty on 2020 election interference charges

A few hours before former President Donald Trump's arraignment Thursday, the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, is teeming with security measures but not yet any large public gatherings.

Around 11 a.m. ET — about 5 hours before Trump is expected to arrive — the scene was not as hectic outside the courthouse as before Trump's other proceedings in Florida and New York, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz reports.

Few protesters, either in favor or opposed to the former president, have materialized, Prokupecz said. "By this point in all the other arraignments, we have seen a fair number of people gather," he said.

Prokupecz was reporting from the side of the courthouse where Trump is expected to arrive around 4 p.m. ET. This is where security efforts are particularly concentrated.

Members of the US Marshals Service, Secret Service agents, DC police and federal law enforcement can be seen milling around the security barriers outside the building. Snow plows are lined up outside the metal barriers as another impediment to anyone potentially trying to cross the line, though it isn't clear if they will ultimately be moved into a different position when the former president's motorcade arrives.

Prokupecz said security appears tighter than it was at Trump's Florida arraignment: "They're not taking any chances."

Law enforcement officials involved in the preparation for Trump’s court appearance have told CNN they are monitoring for potential threats, protests and online chatter – as well as coordinating with one another on security plans for the former president's hearing. 

DC’s Metropolitan Police Department will be leading security in the district while US Secret Service oversees the protection of the former president and the US Marshals Service runs security inside the courthouse.

Watch Shimon's reporting from outside the court:

CNN's Holmes Lybrand contributed reporting to this post.

Special counsel Jack Smith reentered the public eye Tuesday with a grand jury’s indictment of Donald Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. This is Smith's second probe into the former president.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in both cases and cast Smith’s probes as a weaponization of the federal government.

But Smith has investigated members of both parties, handling some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – with mixed outcomes. His experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers.

Smith’s career spans multiple stints in the Justice Department and international courts, which until his appointment had allowed him to keep a relatively low profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

After serving as a prosecutor at the local and federal levels as well as a stint at the International Criminal Court, Smith oversaw corruption cases as chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015.

Smith was the head of the section when the department failed to convict former senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat, in a corruption case in 2012 and when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was indicted in 2014. He also oversaw the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, closing the probe in 2010 without bringing charges.

Smith would go on to serve as an assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, taking over as acting US attorney in early 2017. He became vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America later that year.

In recent years, Smith lived outside of the United States as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, a role he assumed in 2018 in which he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

The historic indictment against Donald Trump in the special counsel’s probe into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election says that he “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts.”

The charging documents repeatedly reference six of these co-conspirators, but as is common practice, their identities are withheld because they have not been charged with any crimes.

CNN, however, can identify five of the six co-conspirators based on quotes in the indictment and other context.

They include:

Co-Conspirator 1 is former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani: Among other things, the indictment quotes from a voicemail that Co-Conspirator 1 left “for a United States Senator” on January 6, 2021. The quotes in the indictment match quotes from Giuliani’s call intended for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, as reported by CNN and other outlets. Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment.”

Co-Conspirator 2 is former Trump lawyer John Eastman: Among other things, the indictment says Co-Conspirator 2 “circulated a two-page memorandum” with a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021. The indictment quotes from the memo, and those quotes match a two-page memo that Eastman wrote, as reported and published by CNN.

Eastman's attorney Charles Burnham said the indictment “relies on a misleading presentation of the record,” and that his client would decline a plea deal if offered one.

Co-Conspirator 3 is former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell: The indictment says Co-Conspirator 3 “filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia” on November 25, 2020, alleging “massive election fraud” and that the lawsuit was “dismissed” on December 7, 2020. These dates and quotations match the federal lawsuit that Powell filed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

Co-Conspirator 4 is former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark: The indictment identifies Co-Conspirator 4 as “a Justice Department official.” The indictment also quotes an email that a top Justice Department official sent to Clark, rebutting Clark’s attempts to use the department to overturn the election. The quotes in that email directly match quotes in an email sent to Clark, according to a Senate report about how Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department in 2020. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Clark.

Co-Conspirator 5 is pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro: Among other things, the indictment references an “email memorandum” that Co-Conspirator 5 “sent” to Giuliani on December 13, 2020, about the fake electors plot. The email sender, recipient, date, and content are a direct match for an email that Chesebro sent to Giuliani, according to a copy of the email made public by the House select committee that investigated January 6. CNN has reached out to an attorney for Chesebro.

The identity of Co-Conspirator 6 is unclear: The indictment says they are “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” The indictment also further ties this person to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

President Joe Biden will not follow the arraignment of former President Donald Trump Thursday, he told CNN.

The president made the comment during a bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he is currently on vacation. A cycling Biden responded with an emphatic, “No,” when asked by CNN’s Jay McMichael whether he will be following the arraignment.

Moments later, he rode by pool reporters and declined to comment on Trump’s indictment.

Biden has refrained from commenting on his predecessor since the indictment was unveiled earlier this week. But for the current president, this indictment is the most personal. What began as an attempt to deny Biden the presidency is now headed to federal court, and the accountability Biden once said was “necessary” for the insurrection is moving ahead.

The White House declined to comment on Trump’s indictment Tuesday, referring questions to the Department of Justice.

When former President Donald Trump appears in a Washington, DC, courtroom on Thursday, he will be doing so in a building that had a direct view of the violence that unfurled at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump is scheduled to appear before a magistrate judge on four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Unlike the other indictments, however, this hearing will play out in the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse that has been the central vehicle of accountability for the January 6 attack on democracy.

More than 1,000 Trump supporters who participated in the Capitol breach have also gone through the motions of a first appearance hearing that the former president will go through himself.

And day after day, the courthouse has been where judges, defendants, lawyers, witnesses, jurors and court officials have had to constantly revisit the significance of the assault on Congress and what drove it.

It’s a dynamic that has weighed on Judge Beryl Howell, who recently stepped down from her role as the DC district court’s chief judge, a position that put her in charge of deciding many of the privilege disputes that ultimately allowed federal prosecutors to access key evidence in Smith’s case

“Just outside this courthouse … are visible reminders of the January 6 riot and assault on the Capitol,” Howell said at a January 2021 sentencing of a rioter.

During that proceeding, she stressed that the Capitol attack “was not a peaceful protest,” but rather, it was “hundreds of people” who “came to Washington, DC, to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”

Read the full story here.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump is expected travel from Bedminster to Washington, DC, today with his lawyers Todd Blanche and John Lauro, as well as his top campaign advisers Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller, Steven Cheung and Justin Caporale.

Alina Habba, the general counsel and legal spokesperson for Save America, a political action committee, and political and legal adviser Boris Epshteyn are also expected to travel with Trump as he is arraigned at a federal courthouse in Washington, DC.  

Blanche and Lauro are expected to be with Trump in court. It is not clear if any other political or legal advisers will also be there.  

Deputy US Marshals, including members of the service’s special operations unit, have been seen inside a federal courthouse where former President Donald Trump is set to appear Thursday. 

A group of over 20 heavily armed men were seen arriving inside the court at 8 a.m. ET with tactical gear and rifles. A bomb-sniffing dog, a black lab named Legend, was also seen on patrol. 

Secret Service agents have also been seen patrolling inside the building. 

Chief Judge James Boasberg walked down a line of dozens of reporters, greeting them as they waited for a seat inside the courthouse hallways. 

The former president's appearance will take place inside Boasberg's courtroom so that audio and video feeds of the proceeding can be streamed to several media and public overflow rooms around the courthouse. 

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to return to the epicenter of his alleged bid to overthrow the 2020 election to answer historic charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

It is a defining moment in the effort by government and judicial institutions to account for the worst attack on democracy in modern times.

Hundreds of Trump’s supporters have already faced a courtroom reckoning for their efforts to disrupt the certification of a democratic election. Now, it’s the alleged ringleader’s turn.

Trump is expected to enter a plea of not guilty, as his lawyers prepare arguments that his claims of election fraud were protected by free speech and that he was simply following the advice of his lawyers, for instance in seeking to assemble alternative electors in key states. Trump’s team is also already arguing he will never get a fair trial in a city where he won only 5% of the vote in 2020 and that he often demonizes.

Thursday’s hearing represents a somber moment in American history. For the first time, the United States is getting ready to put on trial a president who apparently sought to eviscerate some of the most basic principles of the Constitution that he was sworn to preserve, protect and defend.

But whatever unfolds in an eventual trial, a moment of catharsis over an episode that has deepened a poisonous national political estrangement is unlikely.

Read more here.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday undermined a key pillar of his old boss’s defense in the special counsel’s probe into 2020 election interference, telling CNN that Donald Trump “knew well he lost the election.”

A central premise of the special counsel’s case is that Trump knew the election claims he was making were false after being told by several close aides that he had lost the election. Trump’s lawyers have argued that his statements were protected under the First Amendment, a position that Barr, in his first interview since Trump’s third indictment, said was not a valid argument.

“At first I wasn’t sure, but I have come to believe he knew well he had lost the election,” he added, describing Trump’s alleged actions as detailed in the indictment as “nauseating” and “despicable.”

While a loyalist for much of his tenure as Trump’s attorney general, Barr notably contradicted the former president’s claims that the election was rigged when he said in December 2020 that the Justice Department had not found substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud. He resigned soon after and has since emerged as one of Trump’s most significant critics.

Barr defended Smith in the interview Wednesday, breaking from many Republicans who have disparaged the special counsel’s probes into Trump as being politically motivated.

“He is the kind of prosecutor, in my view, that if he thinks someone has committed a crime, he, you know, homes in on it and really goes to try to make that case,” Barr said. “There’s no question he’s aggressive but I do not think he’s a partisan actor.”

CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed to this report.