Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melber and we are tracking one of the biggest days for

Jack Smith's pursuit of Donald Trump ever. This is an appeals court hearing

that we heard today where we could hear in real time the arguments from the lawyers on

both sides about gagging Donald Trump. Now Jack Smith did win the first round

in the DC coup case but that gag order has not been in place indeed was held for this review today.

The special counsel's team says Donald Trump has clearly shown in his violent rhetoric

and his calls for violence and his calls for other things that sound like basically

witness intimidation means he has to be gagged.

A Trump's lawyer say the gag order, first of all is overly broad, but second of all all they think the whole thing in its

entirety is basically a violation of the first amendment the free speech

rights afforded to everyone and including especially a presidential

candidate who's engaged in political speech which of course can include legitimate

criticism of the current administration which oversees the Justice Department.

Now Special Counsel Jack Smith was in court today and despite the judges pushing back at prosecutors at times

we could tell you one headline from the New York Times is this they write that

based on the arguments which we heard today there's been no ruling yet of course

but based on the tenor

and the substance of what the judges said in their questioning it looks like the

court is poised to hand jacksmith a win keeping the gag order although the

judge is signaling they may narrow it.

Now, like I mentioned, we have obviously had other court hearings

in this case, including at the lower court level

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