don t have more information whether there was hazardous material or not. the testing they have so far is that it would not be actual poison or threatening material but again, we just got this in moments ago. this is not the first threat of its kind this is a significant development. and while we are careful to note only tell what you law enforcement has said for example they re not saying a source or suspect, i can tell you as a factual matter we re reporting on this new threatening letter sent to the d.a. at the very time just yesterday we were reporting on a new filing by the same d.a. alvin bragg that cites as criminal evidence donald trump s public provocations to potential violence, him swinging a bat at this d.a and that filing, which we have more on later tonight, quotes from exactly these kind of threats, many without powder, many without anything physical attached poured into the office. the d.a. connected in general what he argues is donald trump s unlawful medd
but, you know,. i ll just say, i m luckier than perhaps some of your viewers, because i usually get to touch base with you at least once a day, even without twitter. there you have it. have a great show. have a great weekend. thank you, nicole. welcome to the beat. i am ari melber. this is one of those busy news fridays. we begin with the bombshell that s led trump s team to really be on alert or in damage control mode even though they have gotten some procedural steps, victories of sorts in this mar-a-lago case. now the news is, donald trump s team lied to the national archives long before they ever got his home searched. the washington post reports, the archives were actually told none of that material that remains a big issue in this criminal investigation was sensitive or classified at all, that trump had 12 boxes of news clippings. well, that s blatantly false. we know the fbi found hundreds of classified documents. we know this went way beyond news clippings.
science guy coming up. and also making the beat debut is one of the few live witnesses from the january 6th committee hearings, an expert who stuck to the fact about donald trump s lies and found telling the truth can become something of an act in the maga universe. all of that is coming up here but our top story right now is about democracy, and i d like to clearly tell you what we re trying to do around here. so let me tell you up front right now this is a little different than our typical start to this news program the beat. right now i m going to try to walk through the broader path of how democracy is in danger even beyond how that point itself has become a kind of rhetorical refrain in washington, a refrain that is also true. so we re going to go through that right now, me and you together, and then turn to a special expert on this a little later. the mid-term elections may occur on one day in november, and we know that, of course, is election day. but these primari
last night. i m not going to try to sum rise all of it and by now you probably saw the hearing or highlights or some coverage already. what we are aiming to do is report out the key investigative findings for you and what we learned from some of those witnesses. what we know from some of that significant testimony. witnesses i m going to get to in a few minutes. the other thing i want to go through in terms of what we ve learned is the damning evidence about the attack that day. that s one of the most important things, although there are many important things and that s what i m starting with right now at the top of our broadcast for you because whenever you hear that the nation watched something in realtime or we all lived through something together, the implication is that we saw the same things, that we understand some of the basic facts. that was the case in 9/11. we all saw the buildings fall. the insurrection built on a lie was quickly shrouded by another one and many a
about the ongoing effort to overthrow the last one, well, this is news you want to know about. politico reports there are tapes, video recordings of republicans meeting with grass roots activists to do something that cuts against how elections are supposed to work here. they re supposed to be nonpartisan at the machinery side. the plan, however, is to install these partisan and party trained volunteers who can challenge voters at places where democrats tend to vote, what they call democratic majority polling places and connect those workers to lawyers, and have a network of party friendly district attorneys. now, if you take them at their word, those attorneys are supposed to be nonpartisan prosecutors who decide who s arrested or goes to jail. they shouldn t be involved in something that s quarterbacked bipartisan operatives. now, we don t know yet which d.a. s would actually get involved in this. it s important journalistically and otherwise to understand what is leaking ou