we are grate. . the beat with ari melber starts right now. see you tuesday. i m ari melber, we begin with the breaking news. we start the new week with the federal defendant, donald trump, back in florida. this is the eve of his federal arraignment tomorrow, and he made the trip from new jersey preparing to voluntarily surrender into federal custody for the first time as a defendant. that is the consequence of the indictment unsealed and briefly explained by jack smith on friday. the former president indicted for breaking several laws including the espionage act and laws relating to obstruction of justice. trump is current still seeking what he needs legally, the required local counsel, amidst reports that many are balking at him as a quote nightmare client. now, sooner or later, you can find a lawyer there that s not going to be a hangup forever, but it is a striking piece of legal reality for donald trump here on the eve of that arraignment. he spent the weekend out o
eyes of the law no different than trying to walk off with a grenade or no different and maybe worse. what do you think about that lens, and how is that different from some of what trump as a defendant is arguing, which is, a, presidential records act, little documents, who cares. i think that s exactly right, ari. just because you were the president doesn t mean that these documents are your personal property. they remain the public property of the united states. those classified documents in particular have real salience for national security and obviously cannot be the personal property of any one person, but it s also worth noting here that those were not the only crimes with which donald trump is charged in that very detailed indictment. it s not just about the retention of those documents. there s also a conspiracy charge there. many conspiracy charges, and conspiracy for those who are watching at home is what s known as the darling of the
images at 15 or a tank might feel more dramatic, there are many people in national security who would tell you they would be more concerned about a battle plan for iran or top secret nuclear information going rogue, out into the wrong hands, than even some of those heavy military grade pieces of machinery. that s what this comes down to. that s why legal experts are saying jack smith does really have something here on trump, and maga loyalists and former trump attorney general bill barr, who if anything in his recent part of his career is known for how much he defended trump as attorney general, against the mueller report, barr says a version of what i was just telling you the law says. that the classified documents here like a tank, are the government s. and the fact that you used to work for the government at whatever level, even the highest level, does not mean you walk off with the f-15, the tank, the nuclear codes or nuclear battle plans or iran battle plans.
and trotting out his justice plan, wouldn t it be better if we just told them we don t have anything here. isn t it better if there are no documents, which is a proposed lie because there were documents. those same notes depict trump referring to possibly illegal material, which he for shorthand here calls the bad stuff. again, in secret, he had no reason to this this would go to the government or beyond tv. he secretly asks, if there s anything really bad in there, we just pluck it out. let me be clear and fair as possible, the problem for donald trump is not that he asked a dumb question in secret or that he asked about doing something illegal. you can ask a lawyer, can i do crime? sell heroin, maybe? these are things you can ask. then your lawyer says no, crime illegal. heroin against the law. and it can end there, and you
pulpit, and many admirers who are willing to believe what he said, and documents are found in other places by other individuals, and jack smith e eviscerated this argument. the documents were discovered and they were immediately disclosed and returned to the national archives, as opposed to to being shuttled around some beach house in south florida. it s also worth remembering here, and again, i don t love mock trials simply because they re mocks, but we have to remember here, this is going to real trial and the most important person in that trial is going to be the judge. and that judge may be aileen cannon, and she has enormous, enormous authority here to make decisions about what kind of evidence can be introduced and given to the jury. she has enormous power to determine what the jury instructions will be that they will use while they deliberate. she can set the pace of this trial, and that is why so many