New York grand jury reconvenes in Trump campaign finance probe tied to hush money payments

In the meantime, the Manhattan Grand Jury investigating former President Trump's hush money case is meeting today. And meanwhile, meanwhile, the special counsel is building its case for possible federal charges against the former president. Joining us now is CBS News investigative reporter Graham Cates, who's been standing at that same position now for days on end. Graham, the Manhattan Grand Jury is in fact meeting today. What more do we know about what is expected to unfold this afternoon? I get that it's a lot of speculation that I'm asking you to do there. Yeah, you're right. Here we are again.

It seems like it's running through the same thing all the time. There are just a couple of protesters. You can see they're over here. But what we know is that today they're meeting again. We don't know for sure what they're going to be hearing while they're meeting again. We still don't know when, if ever, they're going to be asking for an indictment vote from this group of 23 Manhattanites. They've been meeting since mid-January on most Mondays and Wednesdays and Thursdays.

It was only last week that we learned that in fact Thursday they need to hear about other stuff. So what we know is that as scheduled, they're back here this afternoon. But unfortunately, I'm not able to tell you what that means for someone who's interested in this case. So, Graham, a lot of people are interested in this case. Are you able to rule out a vote on the indictment today? Is that something you can say is definitely not going to happen today? No, we can't even go that far. We haven't gotten an indication one way or another. We knew as of two weeks ago that this thing was nearing its conclusion and we knew that because they had invited former President Trump to appear before the grand jury.

And in New York, that's typically one of the last things that happens. And then a week ago today, instead of Trump appearing, a witness who was asked by his team to appear came and that was a lawyer named Robert Costello who had said that he had previously been a legal advisor to Michael Cohen, himself a former lawyer for Trump and the key witness of this whole probe. But since then, there's actually been no action before the grand jury in the week since until it meets a little later this afternoon. And, Graham, the Manhattan DA's office has been receiving threats. I mean, that's such a big part of the story, too, ever since that Trump tweet or ever since we learned about this. How's the office responding? And are the threats, you think, having an impact on the investigation? Yeah, they're all out here. They're all out here.

Well, the security apparatus here is way different than it was last week or the week before. Earlier today, I saw bomb-stiffing dogs going around and checking out packages nearby. The garbage cans outside the two buildings of the Manhattan Criminal Court and directly behind me, the district attorney's offices, have all been removed. There are far more police than you normally see and there's barricades everywhere. But in terms of how it's affecting the investigation itself, I don't think there's any indication that it's had an impact at this point. Yeah, so I did want to pick up one other thing as I also think about other news today. There's been movement in a couple of these other probes that, you know, I have to keep a flow chart going to keep it all in my mind at one time.

But the president is the subject of multiple probes. And I'm curious, are you getting any indications of where those other ones stand? And if not this one, what other one might drop first? We're all in a waiting-holding pattern, aren't we? It's not me if you've heard this before, but all the other ones appear to be in advanced stages. So there's this one in Fulton County, Georgia, a special-purpose grand jury that turned in its report to the district attorney in January. And we heard last month in court that she said that a charging decision was imminent and then afterwards a reporter asked her about it. And she said, when I said that I meant legally imminent, not reporter imminent, and I've been thinking about that for all of these investigations. But we see as just around the corner, and maybe it is in legal terms, still takes a long time. So we're still waiting to see what happens with all of these, not just the Fulton County one, but there are two investigations, federal investigations being run by the special counsel of D.

C. And we recently saw another former Trump attorney have to go before that grand jury, too. And so again, these are all moving forward, but we just don't know when or what will happen with them. Well, when something drops, we know you'll be there to tell us what it is and where it bounces. Graham Cates, thank you very much. Thank you.

Graham Kates, CBS News investigative reporter, Trump, Donald Trump, former president trump, investigation, probe, manhattan district attorney, alvin bragg, special counsel, hush money payments