Welcome to the beat. I am Ari Melver. Happy to be with you on this Friday.

And we have some special stuff planned. So I hope you'll stay with us for the hour.

I'll tell you all about it. But the top story right now is the evidence in Donald Trump's

criminal trial and how much he has incriminated himself.

Now we all know a lot's happened this week, but there continues to be new reporting and developments,

including Trump's focus on the boxes.

And New York Times reports that Trump was attached to the boxes of documents,

even while he was in office. A White House official said that Trump would notice

if somebody rightful threw them or they weren't arranged in a particular way.

That was how his quote mind were. Those boxes were found, of course,

ultimately in the bathroom and other unsecure areas in Mar-a-Lago.

So Trump has continued to sort of lash out to publicly bonbon this process,

but also in a way to give prosecutors evidence.

Trump has written that he is, quote, totally exonerated.

He's asked, when are they going to drop all charges against him,

apologize and return to everything that was, quote, illegally taken?

He is basically saying out of court what his lawyers have not been able to prove in court

that somehow this was an illegal search or seizure. And by the way,

they've had many months, even before there might have been any indictment to make that case in court.

The FBI executed a lawful search warrant overseen by a judge.

They found what they were looking for.

Trump also took advice from a conservative activist who may not know that much about,

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