Welcome to the beat.

Tonight we begin with news out of the Trump DOJ, which undercuts the entire department's credibility on the rule of law.

A line crossed.

Tonight we can report the federal executive branch is charging a federal legislative branch member.

That alone is a first in this already sometimes chaotic Trump term.

And the charges themselves are very unusual. Indeed, according to precedent, they are flimsyer

than what would usually initiate any federal case. And so before I go any further,

that's probably the most important context. We'll show you all the facts and details,

but the Trump administration, which is led by a president who promised and vowed political

retribution, is going after multiple people in the opposition party. Nothing normal about it,

a line crossed, and the evidence, for the most part, and we'll get into it,

cuts against the idea that this would be a valid or normal charge. And the New York Times

account of the underlying incident puts it simply. The Trump DOJ's case turns on claims that

have already been contradicted by video footage and by witnesses who are at the scene.

Now, that is a journalistic account. It's from the New York Times. They are not trying to play

ball for one side or the other. If you check the Times account of, say, other cases that might

involve members of either party, say one of the recent Democratic

members of Congress who faced corruption charges and was later convicted, Bob Menendez.

You didn't have that kind of really clear rebuttal of the underlying case.

And that's important because part of the game here is trying to create mud or confusion in the

perspective of what happened so that you don't really know whether this is a political case.

And a lot of legal experts, the ACLU today says this is an improper partisan political case.

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