Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Chuck Todd reporting from New York as we enter an unprecedented chapter in American history. And yes, the word unprecedented is going to get used all the time, but this is a case

where there's no other word to choose. We're going down. Where we're, you know, where we're going,

there are no roads. Former president is now criminally charged for trying to overturn a presidential

election he lost, even as he remains the overwhelming frontrunner to be his party's nominee for

the next presidential election. It's the greatest stress test this country has faced, arguably, in over a century.

Federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump yesterday afternoon as part of special counsel

Jack Smith's investigation into January 6th and interference in the 2020 election.

Trump was charged with four criminal counts, conspiracy to defraud the United States,

conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding,

and conspiracy against rights, essentially the rights of those who voted.

Unlike the special counsel's previous indictment tied to classified documents this time,

Mr. Trump is being charged for conduct while he was in office.

And unlike the last indictment, this one was publicly released for everyone to see almost

immediately. The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault

on the seat of American democracy. It's described in the indictment it was fueled by lies.

Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government,

the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.

The scope of the conspiracy has laid out in the indictment is wide-ranging and sweeping.

The indictment refers to six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators who allegedly

assisted Trump in his efforts to overturn the election and stay in power.

Based on their descriptions, they appear to be Trump attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, who of course

was the one trying to convince Mike Pence to obstruct the election returns. Sydney Powell,

...