Welcome to the beat, I'm Ari Melber and we are tracking a lot of different news tonight, including

more on the House vote which does formalize the ongoing Republican Biden impeachment

probe.

We have that later in the hour, but it's actually not the top story in the country right now because

we begin with this breaking news. A major development today a federal judge has

formally ordered a pause in the Donald Trump criminal coup case led by Jack Smith.

As you can imagine, this is a big deal and we're going to walk through exactly what's happening.

The judge has effectively and legally paused the proceedings in her own courtroom

until a key claim that Trump's lawyers want adjudicated. Their argument that she has already

rejected at the district level that he is somehow

immune to this whole case?

Well this is paused until the Supreme Court answers requests to deal with it.

Now this is a procedural ruling. It doesn't tell us whether there will be a

Trump coup trial or whether that trial will result of course in a conviction or a

mistrial or in a quittle. We're not there yet. What I can tell you is this is a big deal and it is

probably the largest procedural win for Trump's lawyers in this case. And by the

same token it's a pretty rare setback for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has actually been on a winning streak on many issues.

And I can remind you some of them, they won the gag order, they won on the evidence, they say they have Trump's cell phone records and other materials.

Previous criminal questions that went to the Supreme Court

cited for prosecutors that he has to cooperate and provide materials and evidence.

So there's been a lot of wins up to this point.

But Trump's lawyers clearly got a shot in the arm today.

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