the special reports that we do sometimes around here. this one is about what we call the just comply lie from some republicans, as well as sean hannity. we re going to show you how it has been shredded by recent events. how sean hannity s standard was failed by none other than donald trump himself. how it fits in with civil rights in our country. by the end of the hour, to end the week, we have a saturday night live alum with us as well. our top story is the kind of news that sometimes comes at the end of the week about the january 6th coup. it s about our democracy. it s about the man who already got donald trump arraigned, special counsel jack smith. people are taking everything he does as seriously as possible these days. indeed, one thing that you can find agreement on from sort of doj veterans and allies of the justice department, if you want to put it that way, and donald trump s team and world, they all think jack smith means business. they are all watching everyth
times. we are grateful. the beat with ari melber starts rights now. hi, ari. thanks so much. i m ari melber, and yes, this is another busy news night. we have one of the special reports we have been working on this is brand new, and i m going to share with you tonight. it is about how donald trump as a client has been likened to a mob boss by his own lawyers. how the lawyers who have gotten in trouble have been the biggest assistants, factual, evidentiary and otherwise to the prosecutors pursuing trump, and how there s a lawyer we ve heardless about but i m going to get into details tonight, who can be a key, a lynch pin in any federal indictment. as we come on the air as well as the news we brought you tonight. we brought you a reporter who broke it last night, and now it s everywhere, not being disputed that the doj formally targeted donald trump for indictment. i ll walk you through what that means. number one, it s the clearest signal that charges at this time are p
infamous insurrection. she drew on the front row seat to provide new damning details of the attempted coup. today, this was the sixth insurrection hearing. we tried to cover them precisely. the first hearing detailed violent crimes by many, though sometimes without clear causal links to trump. another hearing shows the liability of trump appointees and lawyers raising questions about donald trump s own role. other hearings featured republicans from pence s office at the state level and on this program we report how some parts of some of those hearings did fall short. those hearings all had in their own way very important material, but not every hearing has been a blockbuster when it comes to evidence. today s hearing delivered the evidence. firsthand smoking gun evidence on trump s mind and overt acts for violence in the attempted coup. let me repeat that reporting up front. proving crime requires proving the state of mind and overt action. today s hearing features and featur
right pause because of the power of this factual evidence. take the republican prosecutor we have cited before, andrew mccarthy. a fox-news favorite, who wrote a whole book defending trump in the mueller probe, and accusing others of pushing the real collusion, which is one reason he is on fox quite a bit and has a huge conservative legal following. he was also appointee in the southern district of york under rudy giuliani himself, so he is a reagan appointee and that doj. but he is also someone who and you see his face on the screen you may recognize him because he is on fox he is someone who says he also tries to deal with legal analysis. perhaps, it is a more confident variety. he clearly was in the reagan revolution but he is respond to the evidence. he says when you look at the evidence, as a criminal-legal matter, it is devastating against trump, and that the new evidence in that hearing makes a big difference. he is saying this in public and this week, he is now e
knew he lost the 2020 election and that their scheme to overturn the results was illegal. and yet, they attempted it anyway. president trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night. and instead, followed the chorus recommended by apparently inebriated rudy giuliani. to just claim he won. and insist that the vote counting stop. to falsely claim everything was fraudulent. and there are an lies the true nature of these hearings. to truly hold trump and his fellow coup plotters accountable. the committee has already uncovered evidence that trump may have committed serious federal crimes. but it s up to the justice department to bring criminal charges. as neil cocktail argues in the opinion page of the new york times today, attorney general merrick garland could bring a charge of conspiracy to defraud the united states even if trump truly believed in what he was saying. and it wasn t just democracy at stake, but lives as well. vice president mike pence fa