Good evening. Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melba. We have a lot to cover tonight. There is that

showdown in Texas where Republicans say they will try to arrest Democrats who left the state to protest what

they call a kind of MAGA power grab that distorts democracy at that state level.

Also tonight, Andrew Weissman coming up on something

that is deeply disturbing. It's what Donald Trump admitted he wanted to do, what many prosecutors and

investigators would refuse to do, which is apparently investigate the former special counsel,

Jack Smith, who of course famously indicted and prosecuted than former president

Donald Trump. That is a huge development, but it's not our top story yet. We're going to get to

Weissman with that. We begin with new letters coming out from the victims of sex trafficker Jeffrey

Epstein, who are concerned in a different way than so many people who view this case as a political

controversy or online content or many of the other ways that it has mushroom. These are the people

who live through it, the victims and their families. And they say the Trump Justice Department

is putting convicted pedophiles and sex traffickers above the victims. We're going to start right here, and I'm just going to read to you what they're saying.

Quote, I feel like the DOJ and FBI priority is protecting the third party, the wealthy men,

focusing on scrubbing their names off the files.

That's a reference to reporting about the benefits Donald Trump himself and others may have gotten.

Of which the victims know who they are.

They continue, quote, to learn that our own president has utilized thousands of agents to protect his identity.

And these high-profile individuals is monumentally mind-blowing.

That's their focus.

Wow.

The reports are how Donald Trump famously put Epstein conspiracy theorists and other

...