Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert tracking this breaking news. Congress has

referred former president Donald Trump for criminal prosecution today. The

High stakes action came in this final meeting the January 6th select committee.

Mark's a moment is closed to investigation now considered one of the most

significant in a generation. Indeed you can see the first draft history in this

New York Times headline here accusing Trump of insurrection the committee

refers him to the Justice Department for prosecution. The Times reports this

is tonight the first time in American history that Congress has referred

a former president for criminal prosecution. So by any standard by any metric we

are living through a major piece of history here. Here's exactly what this

means. Those Trump fans and convicted felons who were summoned by Trump to

Washington who committed sedition and attacked police and sought to assassinate

Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and achieved their goal of obstructing and delaying

the vote counting. Their leader is now the first former president ever referred to

prosecution for that attack that I just briefly summarized and Congress is

providing the evidence that he let it and aided it as a legal matter. Now for

history this is of course one more in a string of indignities for a twice

impeached loser of the 2020 election who responded to his loss with this

crime spree. I say crime spree because many of these felonies have been convicted

many people are already serving hard time for them. The question tonight is

whether he ever will. So you have these open criminal probes that Trump already

faces and they're bearing down on the same set of plots that the committee has

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