Months, the former president of the United States has been indicted, arrested, and a range. And lets face it, weve become oddly familiar with how this all goes. Theres the release of the indictment itself, helicopters following black suvs, and of course, the court sketches, all followed by a barrage of deranged posts on truth social. Theres a bit of a rinse and repeat feeling that starting to set in. But this one did feel different, because it is different. It felt bigger, because it is bigger. The indictment filed by Special Counsel jack smith this week detailed the ways in which an american president engaged in a criminal conspiracy from the oval office to subvert the will of the people. Of course, like any criminal defendant, trump is innocent until proven guilty. There will be a trial, and his legal team will mount a defense. But no matter how it ends, this is the one that historians will be talking about 100 years from now. Trump is now facing four criminal counts in this case, in
good evening. happy holidays. welcome to the beat. i am ari melber. i ll be joining you the next two hours for a special holiday edition of the beat. donald trump has a criminal trial problem. he has several trials looming in 2024. that s where we begin tonight. we ll do it a little different for the holidays. former federal prosecutor joyce vance with me to start the show. we re looking at this legal heat coming up. i want to get into this with you, joyce, but first show you and viewers something we put together to consider tonight, historic indictments on the road donald trump has already been on. donald trump has been indicted under seal by the new york grand jury. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. this will now be months if not the next year of our lives. the former president was placed under arrest on charges brought by the government he once led. the guy who s running for
witnessed at last night s town hall. many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on a stage in front of a crowd of republican voters to answer questions, and predictably, continued to spew lie after lie after lie. and i get it. it was disturbing. it was disturbing to see and hear that person refer to a black law enforcement officer as a thug, an adjective he used many times to describe black men and called kaitlan collins, the moderator nasty, which is what he calls any woman who stands up to him. it was disturbing to hear him speak to shyly of qanon conspirators who assaulted officers on january 6th. and it was awful to hear him spread lies about the election. and young and old, fellow citizens, people who love their kids and go to church, laugh and applaud his lies and his continued defamation of woman who according to a jury of his peers he sexually abused and defamed
legal news. it is the first conviction of anyone for defying the house january 6 committee as well. we have experts about to join us who were inside the courtroom . this is a major deal. prosecutors basically made may have won their case that steve bannon hid insurrection evidence by refusing to show up or testify or provide documents requested under that lawful subpoena. mr. bannon faces up to two years in prison in a precedent- making a victory. for the justice department and the house, we have a lot to get to. a lot of angles. we go right into the breaking news to the people who know it best. armor federal prosecutor john flannery has dealt with exactly these kind of cases and has been counsel to three confessional crannies congressional committees. josh gerstein has been covering the story. he is out side the courthouse. josh, tell us how this news came down and what it means. well ari, good to see you. deliberations were very short in this case. the trial was pretty
see you at the end of tomorrow. why, because it s 2 am. i will see you at the end of today, i ll be honored to be here again. i ll be honored to be here it s the top of the, hour the star live special coverage of the january six hearing. we ve been saying this will be the last hearing the committee members made [interpreter] clear at the outset of the proceedings that this will not be the end. they anticipate working throughout august, they say they are continuing to shake loose new evidence and new information. new material they need to go through there are still making public please so particularly to republicans to come forward and speak to the committee and tell them what they know i think that s inflected a little bit by the expectation that there are justice department active criminal investigations on the flank of this criminal investigation and when people start talking, you don t to be the last person talking at the last thing they re talking about is your own behavi