Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert, and we begin with the single only person in American

history, in the world, who's ever indicted a president, the man you might recall, who brought two

criminal indictments against then defended Trump. I am talking about someone we almost never

hear from before, during, and after those cases,

former DOJ Special Counsel, Jack Smith, the only federal prosecutor to indict a president.

He just doesn't speak much. You might recall that if you remember those busy periods during

his two cases over the past years. But he has now, the news tonight, made this rare public appearance.

And it's with someone you might recognize, a fellow Justice Department veteran, Andrew Weissman,

who also we should note as an MSNBC analyst. So this is big news, full disclosure, someone

we work with. But when this hit, I don't care who he happened to be talking to,

it was going to be a big deal because it was his first comments.

Since all of this happened and the person he once prosecuted as a federal defendant, Donald

Trump has become president again.

Smith, who speaks in a very businesslike and dry way, you can prepare for that because I'm going to show you this.

He is not jumping around and being dramatic. He's not speaking in sound bites to be sure. And yet in a way,

he was still quite candid about what was his long, secret, discrete work as a special counsel,

prosecuting a former president who was also a candidate, and he discusses

based on the evidence and facts, he says, what is wrong with the Trump-Bondy DOJ today?

Once we get in a position where we start talking about maybe not following court opinions we don't

like, we are lost. The attacks on public servants,

it has a cost for our country that is incalculable. The idea that politics played a role in who

worked on that case or who got chosen is ludicrous. Everybody who worked on my team was fired

...