Absence. The court does usually give an explanation for a justices absence. And weve also seen justices take part in arguments remotely when they are sick and the context here is not just the lack of transparency, but that it also comes just one week before the Supreme Court hears Oral Arguments on whether or not donald trump is protected from criminal prosecutions because a president ial immunity because he was president when the acts were committed. A case critics of thomas argue he should recuse himself from because of his wifes jeannies efforts to help trumps team overturn the 2020 election thomas is 75 years the most senior Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. He missed several arguments in 2022 with an infection and tonight the Supreme Court is not responding to our requests for Additional Information about thomass leave of absence today leaving many important questions unanswered. Thanks for joining us, the lead starts now welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper in this our criti
late. see you at the end of tomorrow. and welcome to the beat. i m ari melber and today, for the first time ever, defendant donald trump s fate in this criminal trial is now in the hands of a jury of his peers. presiding judge giving the standard and detailed instructions to the 12 jurors in a case that is anything but standard. we know that. and tonight, we can report several brand new developments from the jury s first day of the deliberations which lasted over four hours. we have now gleaned new clues about what they are discussing. what they are considering. what exact evidence and testimony they are focused on today and presumably leading into tomorrow when they hear more of it. we can even tell you the kind of instructions that they want to make sure they are reviewing and so our breakdown on that new information is top story and broadcast tonight. and here is how today s process played out. the nation rivetted. and on a collective verdict watch. the historic crimin
racketeering enterprise and its scope for every trial that you do. the prosecutors are not going to want to do that. and defendants are going to want more time. so we re definitely not going to see a huge trial in october. and we may see some separate. it will depend on how many defendants exit the case. i think in pretty quick order here fani willis and her team will start trying to plead out some of these lower level defendants and get them out of the case altogether so that they end up with a group that is manageable for trial. so we may see more than one trial depending on how many are left and depending on whether cheseboro stand with the case of an early trial. we won t see five, six more trials like that. i imagine if one of the trials happens earlier, looks like chesboro s will be that one, that defense attorneys for, say, the former president might watch that trial very closely to get a sense exactly of what the da s case is. is that an advantage potentially for it is an
primary really rallying behind him and supporting him and it is because they know that donald trump s base is so influential still. we have heard from the house speaker kevin mccarthy, saying that he wants to investigate the da s case, saying that this is the weaponisation of the criminaljustice system. we are hearing a bit more silence, though, from republicans in the senate but as i say, certainly, republicans are looking ahead to elections and they have come to rally around donald trump. in the meantime, from democrats and the white house for example, silence, president biden, despite numerous questions from reporters asking him to comment, has been tight lipped, saying he won t make any comments as regards to the trump indictment and then from other democrats, saying that this is about nobody being above the law and this case needs to take its course. i5 case needs to take its course. is there any way to know yet how his baseis there any way to know yet how his base is understandin
work is a message to the rest of congress when she was wheeled back into the capital, i mean, i think there s no question that that fits very squarely the definition of domestic terrorism. domestic terrorism. do you agree with that? i think, when you look at the suspect s statements, and when you look at the suspect s actions, that s almost like he read the two statutes, and tried to meet every violation of the statutes that he could. i mean, you ve got two cases here, john. one is the da s case, which is a simple case. and very important. that s a felony that occurs in the presidents of police officers, recorded lightly on body camera, well that s a possible cause for a rest. mr. pelosi as a witness, but they could ve made the arrest without him.