welcome to the beat. i m ari melber. we are tracking several stories tonight, including another supreme court ethics scandal, tying gop appointee samuel alito to another billionaire on a fishing trip. we ll get into that later. it s a big story. but our news program begins tonight with not only the criminal trial of donald trump, now slated to begin on august 14th buck the broader ongoing threat of right wing individual lantyism and authoritarianism. tonight we begin with a special report on that very challenge, and trump s efforts to hijack the criminal justice system that now is trying to potentially hold him accountable. we re talking about a range of actions that has prompted already fear of violence over the violent rhetoric and whether that could turn to action. we re about one week out from the federal arraignment that trump did try to prevent. we remember he was forced to sit silently in that miami courtroom. outside cameras showed a very small crowd. the scene was
leaders scrambling to secure the u.s. capitol on january 6th. we ll be joined by someone who was there, congressman james clyburn is standing by live. and we re closing in on the start of a crucial debate in the high-stakes georgia senate race. will the abortion controversy hanging over republican herschel walker be a factor in the face-off? welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. new legal move tonight in one of the many investigations of former president trump involving the special master review of documents seized from his florida home. our justice correspondent, jessica schneider is following this story and here with me in the situation room. jessica, tell us about this formal appeal by the u.s. department. wolf, this is the justice department appealing everything about the appointment of the special master. they re first saying that the judge in this case, aileen cannon, never had the
prosecutors as we speak are asking for a sentence of nine and a half years in prison. i m going to go straight to cnn s fred pleitgen who is live outside the courtroom near moscow. fred, what is the latest? what are we hearing about how that sentencing will go? yeah, i mean it really is significant information that we re getting, dana. first of all, you re absolutely right, the court has found brittney griner guilty. as we see on our screens right now, the judge is still sort of reading out the verdict and what exactly the specifics of this verdict are. but there s something that s very important that the judge has read in saying that they have found brittney griner guilty with criminal intent. that means that the court believes what the prosecution has said, that they believe that brittney griner intentionally took narcotics to the russian federation, obviously talking about those two vaping cart ridges. you ll recall one of the cases or one of the things that the defense
country will not stand, and we re not going to stand for it. if it happens i think you would have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we ve never ian before. now our country is going to hell and this comes largely from the justice department, or as i like to call it, the injustice department. i m afraid people will do something, because people are very angry about it. people will do something. some people did. there were attacks on january 6th, attack on a fbi office, other lone wolf radicalism. people are doing thing, and whether or not you can directly say trump legally caused it, this is what he s literally fomenting, just as lindsey graham said he feared riots. that s one part of the playbook. trump trying to channel that fear a his supporters to intimidate other prosecutors. all these attorney generals, maybe you guys can get involved a little bit, because they re
silently in that miami courtroom. outside cameras showed a very small crowd. the scene was nothing like what trump threatened for months the talk of riots or unrest or how the nation would not stand for his indictment, and i ll show you that in this special report. we can also tell you heading into the second arraignment, trump posted the message, see you in miami, and he did some conservative media call for protests, reenforcing how tiny his mega phone was on this score when it comes to summoning a giant crowd to protest a government proceeding. look, our country has to protest. we need strength at this point, and everyone s afraid to do anything. they re afraid to talk. and they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. now, miami police had security ready for a crowd that could top 50,000, and after what we all saw as an underresponse to the january 6th gathering,