“Oversight of the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith”
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House Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 1
It was a snap impeachment, and the Senate trial actually took place after President Trump wasn't in office. Then, of course, it was Alvin Bragg who said before he got elected district attorney that there was no case here. Then he gets elected and changes his mind when the left starts pressuring him to go after President Trump. He hires Michael Colangelo, former Democratic National Committee consultant, and the number three guy at the Department of Justice. And then, of course, it's Fonnie and Nathan, Fonnie Willis and Nathan Wade in Fulton County, Georgia.
We actually deposed Mister Wade, one of the most interesting depositions I've sat through. We said to him, you know, you billed taxpayers in Georgia thousands of dollars for meetings in DC with the January 6 committee and with the Biden administration, and we asked him some questions. Who'd you talk to, Mr. Wade? He couldn't remember. We said, where'd you meet?
Did you meet the capital? Did you meet at the White House? Where did you meet? Couldn't remember that either. We said, were these meetings in person, on the phone, or did you have a Zoom meeting?
Couldn't remember. Couldn't remember. Couldn't remember. We finally just asked him, did you really come to DC and meet people? He said, oh, yeah.
I came, and I billed the taxpayers. I know I came. Just no idea who he talked to or what he did. And then there was the raid on President Trump's home, you know, where they searched Barron's room in the first lady's closet. In our deposition with Steven Dantuano, head of the FBI Washington field office, he told us none of the normal process, none of the normal protocol was followed in the investigation.
He said, first of all, the cases run out in DC. Normally, you run it out of the Miami field office. No. No. No.
We're gonna run out of DC. He said he recommended, and the people in the FBI at the time in the Washington field office recommended they give the president notice before they do the search, or at least when they got there, before they start the search, call the president's lawyers, ask them to come there and meet them, and conduct the search together. Again, the answer from main justice was no, which brings us back to Mr. Smith. On 11/18/2022, three days after President Trump announces he's running for president, Attorney General Garland names Jack Smith special counsel. One of the first things Mister Smith does is put on his team the very people responsible for the raid on President Trump's home.
The very people. And then Jack Smith also puts on his team the people responsible for getting the phone records of dozens of members of Congress. People like Thomas Wyndham, who when we deposed him, took the fifth 71 times. We've actually referred him to the Justice Department for obstructing our investigation. Jack Smith then gets a gag order in his investigation on President Trump from Judge Chuckin without filing a single affidavit with the court from a witness or a potential witness that they felt threatened by statements from the president.
Stop and think about it. Jack Smith restricts the speech of the former president while he is a candidate for president. Thank goodness Mister Smith was slapped down on appeal, and the order was changed. In fact, just two weeks ago, the Washington Post editorial page, Jack Smith would have blown a hole in the First Amendment. I just wanna read two sentences from this.
Mister Smith seemed unconcerned about interfering in the democratic process by seeking to muzzle a candidate for high office. Three appellate judges, all nominated by Democrat presidents, ruled that Mister Smith's proposed gag order infringed on President Trump's First Amendment rights, and, of course, they did. And this wasn't the only time Mr. Smith lost in court. In the classified documents case in Miami, Judge Cannon held that Mr. Smith was not permitted to be special counsel. Jack Smith was never properly appointed.
In fact, he couldn't be properly appointed because he was never confirmed by the Senate for any position in the executive branch as the law requires. Here's what Judge Cannon stated. Quote, the special counsel's position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a head of department and, in the process, threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers. And, of course, on 07/01/2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that president Trump had immunity for actions taken in his official capacity as the president. One month later, after this decision by the Supreme Court, Jack Smith files a superseding indictment on 08/27/2024.
But Mr. Smith doesn't stop there. He does something unprecedented. On October 2, he files a motion with the court before President Trump's defense counsel has even responded to the indictment. Everyone knows the normal process is the government indicts, the defense responds with some motions, and then the government responds to the defense. But mister Smith skips the second step, and the brief that he files is 165 pages, almost four times the court limit.
Even liberal judge Chuckin, who's given Jack Smith everything he's asked for in the course of this investigation, even she called it atypical and irregular. Now, why would Jack Smith do that? Why?
Speaker 1
He abandoned proper procedure? Why would he ignore court rules? Why would he do that? Because he's running out of time. There's an election around the corner.
It's coming in 33 days, and he's gotta get President Trump. He's gotta stop President Trump from running, tie him up in court. He's gotta get to trial or at a minimum insert a 165-page political document into the presidential campaign. It was always about politics. The good news is the American people saw through it.
They saw through it. For so long, the left has controlled so much in this country. The left-controlled big media. The left controlled big tech. The left controlled academia, Hollywood, certainly the Democrat party, and I think all too much the federal bureaucracy.
But the left doesn't control us, the people. And in spite of the left and the weaponization efforts of Jim Comey, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith, we the people saw through it all, and we elected President Trump twice. Before turning to the ranking member for his opening statement, I would just ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. The Washington Post editorial, Jack Smith, would have blown a hole in the First Amendment. With that, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. I wanna start by recognizing the presence of four American heroes here today. Four of the hundreds of officers who defended us on 01/06/2021: Michael Fanon, Aquilino Gannell, Daniel Hodges, and Harry Dunn. And I thank them for being here today. Mister Smith, thank you for appearing before the American people.
I'm glad that the committee has finally granted you the same chance to report your findings to the American people that every other special counsel investigating an American president has had. The good chairman started by saying it's all about politics. Well, maybe for them, but for us, it's all about the rule of law. And who's gonna stand by the rule of law, and who's going to oppose it? Now, Mister Smith, you're one of America's great prosecutors.
For nearly three decades, you worked for justice under both Republicans and Democrats. The Manhattan DA's office where you prosecuted sex crimes and domestic violence cases. The Eastern District of New York, where you prosecuted murderers, rapists, gangbangers, and other violent criminals. Leading the public integrity section at the Department of Justice, you brought prosecutions against corrupt public officials across the political spectrum. When you went to The Hague as chief prosecutor in the Kosovo trial.
You prosecuted war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against thousands of innocent victims. While others may have devoted their lives to corrupt self-enrichment, you have devoted your life to the rule of law and to public service. You've never been prosecuted for anything. You've never been convicted of anything. As far as I can tell, you've never even been the subject of a disciplinary proceeding over the course of your multi-decade career.
But Donald Trump says you're a criminal, and you belong in prison. He says you belong in prison, not because you did anything wrong, mind you, but because you did everything right. You pursued the facts. You followed the law. You stuck with extreme caution to every rule of professional responsibility.
You had the audacity to do your job. Everybody here knows what you did wrong in Donald Trump's eyes, and why he says you belong in prison. You found, and I quote from your sworn testimony before the committee, you found proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. When asked whether you believe the evidence was enough to obtain a criminal conviction against Donald Trump at trial, you had a one-word answer, yes. When asked if Donald Trump was responsible for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, you said our view of the evidence was that he caused it, that he exploited it, and that it was foreseeable to him.
You found that Trump knew he had lost the election. How? Well, his own attorney general, William Barr, repeatedly told him so, and described all of Trump's theories as BS. Trump's top campaign advisers told him he lost the election. Vice President Pence told him he lost the election.
More than 60 federal, state, and court decisions, including eight rendered by judges. He appointed the bench, rejected every outlandish election fraud and corruption claim. Trump himself even privately acknowledged it, gesturing to Joe Biden on TV and saying, quote, can you believe I lost to that effing guy? He knew he lost, but he threw everything into his big lie, which some people, even in this room to this day, will stand by and swear by. Well, when the big lie wasn't enough to convince officials like Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to commit election fraud and just find Trump 11,780 votes, when it wasn't enough to convince Trump's DOJ to, quote, just call the election corrupt and leave the rest to me and the House Republicans, when it wasn't enough to force vice president Mike Pence to announce and then exercise lawless powers to reject electoral college votes and use counterfeit slates to anoint Trump the winner.
That's when Trump incited mass violence on January 6. While more than 140 officers were being brutally assaulted by Trump's mob, while riders beat them with flagpoles and sprayed them with chemical agents and crushed them in doorways. And while they chanted hang Mike Pence and chased the vice president out of the Capitol, Trump and his team worked the phones, calling not the National Guard, which was under the direct unilateral control of Donald Trump, but calling members of Congress, urging them to delay certification and to nullify the election results. Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics, rule, and DHA regulation.
Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity Section. You acted based solely on the facts, the opposite of Donald Trump, who now has purported to take over the Department of Justice. He's in charge of the whole thing under his unitary executive theory, and he acts openly, purely based on political vendetta and motives of personal revenge, and he doesn't deny it. Her colleagues have complained about the special counsel's review of toll records, which are phone records like a phone bill showing only the timing and duration of calls, and containing no content, no substance whatsoever from the calls. But those records were lawfully subpoenaed because Donald Trump made those members of Congress relevant to the investigation.
It was Trump who chose to call them to advance his criminal scheme. As you testified, mister Smith, if Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for them too. I trust our colleagues get the point, because America certainly gets the point. There is much Mr. Smith still can't talk about that we know he badly wants to. His investigation developed what he calls powerful evidence that Trump stole documents containing our country's most sensitive secrets, hoarded them in the ballrooms and the bathrooms of his well-trafficked Mar-a-Lago social club.
He showed them off to visitors, and then he obstructed a federal investigation by instructing his attorney to pluck out anything really bad before turning the materials over to the FBI and having his staff delete incriminating security tape footage. But today, we're not gonna hear a lot about that because you are gagged by an absurd judicial order rendered faithfully by Trump's most servile and sycophantic appointee to the federal bench, judge Aileen Cameron. This order not only blocks release of volume two of your report, which is unprecedented about the classified document scam, it also gags you from discussing the report or its contents with us, with America. And so we don't know what's in it, but it must be pretty devastating because Donald Trump is desperate to keep Mr. Smith or any other DOJ official for all time from ever releasing it to Congress and to the American people. Now, mister Smith, if any of our colleagues foolishly choose to attack you and vilify you today, and I know that's not gonna happen from some serious prosecutors over there like mister Knott and mister Schmidt, who understand what federal prosecutors do and what the rule of law means.
But if anybody decides to attack you personally, they will only be revealing their own ignorance of what prosecutors do and their own indifference to what the rule of law requires in America. They will only be stroking the wounded ego of a lawless, twice impeached, convicted felon president who not only unleashed a mob against Congress and his own vice president, but is now pardoning and releasing into our communities hundreds of extremists, insurrectionists, and cop-beating felons who have proceeded to commit dozens more crimes against the American people since they were pardoned. Mister Smith, I understand you are a long-distance marathon runner. I read that you're a triathlete who's done more than 100 triathlons and nine iron man competitions. You are in the fight for justice and the rule of law for the long distance, for the long haul, and I thank you for that.
And we should all try to follow your example. America looks forward to your testimony today. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1
Gentleman yields back without objection. All of their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness. Mister Jack Smith was appointed as special counsel in November on 11/18/2022. He served until 01/07/25.
We welcome our witness today. We'll begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and beliefs? Help you guide.
I do. Let the record reflect that the witness has answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You can be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety.
Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony. Mister Smith, you may begin.
Speaker 4
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Raskin, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss my work as special counsel. I love my country and believe deeply in the core principles upon which it was founded. For nearly three decades, I've served as a career prosecutor in both Republican and Democratic administrations. I've handled cases ranging from domestic assault and gang violence to public corruption and election crimes across the United States, and I've prosecuted war crimes overseas. I am not a politician, and I have no partisan loyalties.
My career has been dedicated to serving our country by upholding the rule of law. Throughout my public service, my approach has always been the same. Follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. Experienced prosecutors know that specific case outcomes are beyond our control. Our responsibility is to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.
These principles have guided me through my career, including as special counsel. I'm proud of the work my team did, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to correct false and misleading narratives about our work. During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies. We observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law. I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election.
President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, president Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January '21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and bathroom.
As I testify before the committee today, I want to be clear. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was Democrat or Republican. No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account.
So that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, which I had no intention of doing. I remain grateful for the counsel, judgment, and advice of my team. President Trump has sought revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for having worked on these cases. To vilify and seek retribution against these people is wrong.
Those dedicated public servants are the best of us, and it has been a privilege to serve with them. After nearly 30 years of public service, including in international settings, I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it.
It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Gentlemen, we will now proceed under the five-minute rule. I we have votes coming in any minute now, but I think we got, we'll have time for three or four members to get their five minute questions in. The committee will take a recess to go vote. They are not going to close the vote until we get there. Now I know that I know that much.
So we will start with the gentleman from California, recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 5
Good morning, Mister Smith. When Attorney General Garland appointed you, he cited the particularly sensitive matters at issue in extraordinary circumstances. Is the reason for appointing a special counsel. What did you take that to mean?
Speaker 4
What I understood that to mean is I was to conduct an independent investigation and come to my own conclusions about whether the facts and the law supported a prosecution.
Speaker 5
But, clearly, he was alluding to the fact that we had an investigation into a leading candidate for president. That was part of the extraordinary circumstances. Would you agree?
Speaker 4
I will rely on his public statements about that. I understood my role as special counsel was governed by the regulations, which required me to make an independent decision on my own.
Speaker 5
So certainly, you would agree it was important to approach the investigation with humility and restraint. Is that fair?
Speaker 5
Do you possess those qualities? In fact, you testified at your deposition, quote, I thought I was the right person for the job. Of course, some disagreed. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, for example, has said, quote, Jack Smith has a reputation for stretching criminal statutes beyond the breaking point. I assume you disagree with that statement by professor Turley.
Speaker 4
I do disagree with that statement. I think my career speaks for itself. I have.
Speaker 5
But that statement was also, and I'm sorry to have to interrupt. I just have a short amount of time. That statement was also echoed by the United States Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion in McDonald v. United States, where the court overturned convictions that you had pursued against a former governor, criticizing your boundless interpretation of the federal criminal statute at issue. That opinion was joined by justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. So do you also disagree with that statement by those justices?
Speaker 4
I have conducted my career in a nonpartisan fashion. That particular case, the legal position that the department took, that wasn't my personal position. That was the position of the department.
Speaker 5
I see. So, mister Smith, I've had the opportunity, during my time in this committee, to review the work of two special counsels, John Durham appointed during the Trump administration, and Robert during the Biden administration. And in both cases, they seem to exhibit that humility and restraint that we talked about. But in reviewing in detail the way you conducted this investigation, I see a very different mode of operation. One that sought maximum litigation advantage at every turn, one that repeatedly circumvented constitutional limitations to the point that you had to be reined in again and again throughout the process.
For example, shortly after you became special counsel, you issued a subpoena for the phone records of the speaker of the house of representatives over a two-month period, along with for other senators and representatives, even though the public integrity section at DOJ cited litigation risk to doing this. What was that litigation risk?
Speaker 4
With respect to the toll record subpoenas that we issued, they were approved by the Public Integrity Section. The public integrity section in approving those subpoenas noted the fact that the subpoenas were for records for people who were not targets of our investigation.
Speaker 5
But they said there was a litigation risk, you move forward with it anyway. And not only that, but you also sought orders from judges making it so those who were having their records seized would not know about it. And you even didn't tell those judges that it was members of Congress whose records you were going after, in apparent contravention of a federal statute saying that a telephone provider for a Senate office shall not be barred from providing notice that the records had been requested. Now if you sought to do that today, would you be able to get away with that without asking the judges for a nondisclosure order without telling them these are members of Congress?
Speaker 4
When we secured these toll record subpoenas, it was done consistent with department policy. You're correct in that the policy has since changed?
Speaker 5
It changed the policy based on the actions that you took. Similarly, you issued a gag order against President Trump that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated as overbroad. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
Well, the DC court of appeals, in passing on that order, found that it was justified. They narrowed the order, but they confirmed that the phenomenon.
Speaker 5
They narrowed the order because it was over broad. In addition to that, you sought an early trial date, that the district court rejected. And when you presented your prosecution memo to Attorney General Garland, it's been reported that he was visibly unimpressed and expressed First Amendment concerns. So, mister Smith, looking at the record, I see that you were reversed and rebuked by the Department of Justice itself, by the attorney general, by the solicitor general, by multiple district court judges, by the court of appeals, and by the US Supreme Court itself. So my final question is, do you believe that you made any mistakes?
Do you have any regrets as to how you conducted this investigation?
Speaker 4
If I have any regret, it would be not expressing enough appreciation for my staff who work so hard in these investigations. We follow the facts and the law of these people who work for me, sacrificed endlessly, and have endured way too much for just doing their job. So if anything, I wish that I had thanked them.
Speaker 1
Yeah. The time of a gentleman's right. The chair now recognized the ranking member of finance.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the good gentleman from California certainly knows because he's a student of mine that lawyers go to court, sometimes they win motions, and sometimes they lose motions. And there's no crime in any of that. And I'm just sorry that you had to be lectured about humility and restraint by a politician, because we might not be best poised to lecture you on those particular virtues. But let's go to the toll record, since that's been raised, mister Smith.
First of all, Congress has allowed toll records to be subpoenaed. We this committee has actually tried to limit it over the years, and the senators who are whining the most over, on the Republican side in the Senate, they never went along with our determination to try to limit the government's ability to subpoena toll records. So it's perfectly lawful what you did. Explain why you wanted those toll records?
Speaker 4
We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters that was assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them.
Speaker 4
It in conducting a criminal investigation, securing noncontent toll records as you described, is a common practice in almost any complex conspiracy.
Speaker 2
Let's go to something else that I've been hearing over the last week by our colleagues as they've eagerly anticipated your arrival here. They've been saying that there's some kind of First Amendment defense that Donald Trump would have had to the crimes you indicted him for. Is there a valid First Amendment defense to defrauding the public? Is there a valid First Amendment defense to disrupting a federal proceeding? Is there a valid First Amendment defense to violating the voting rights of the people and cheating the public out of a fair election?
Speaker 4
The first amendment is something we took seriously in our investigation, but the first amendment does not protect speech that facilitates a crime. Speech that is used to facilitate a crime, a fraud crime in particular, is not protected under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court precedent on that is clear. This is an issue that we litigated before the district court, and the district court ruled, as I just stated, that it is not in fact protected.
Speaker 2
And the case law is perfectly clear on this. Right? All frauds are perpetrated by speech. Right? Yes.
All conspiracies are perpetrated by speech. So just because your criminal conduct is brigaded with speech doesn't somehow mean you've got a First Amendment defense against trying to overthrow the government. I mean, the people who attacked the police officers on January 6 were chanting, "Hang Mike Pence." I suppose that was political speech, or they were saying, stop the steal. Does that mean they've got a First Amendment defense to violent assault against the officers?
Speaker 2
William Barr, by the way, was somebody who was perfectly clear about that. The attorney Donald Trump's own attorney general said, there's no freedom of speech that you have to engage in a conspiracy to overthrow an election, to commit crime. He was perfectly clear about that back in those days. In fact, lots of people on that side of the aisle, including my good friend, the chairman, denounced the violence that took place on January 6. The cats got their tongues these days.
My friend, chairman Jordan, said what happened last week was terrible, was tragic. It's as wrong as wrong can be, he said. Republicans, we know all political violence is wrong. I asked my friend, Chairman Jordan, at a rules hearing, are you also not interested in what happened to us on January 6? He said, of course, everyone is interested in holding people accountable who did wrong.
The FBI is doing that. The Justice Department is doing that appropriately, so. What do you think about the attack on the Department of Justice and the special counsel for doing your jobs?
Speaker 4
I think the attack is unjustified. I think the people who worked with me as career public servants are people. They're part of the reason I've been a prosecutor for so long, is to work with people like that, not just the prosecutors in my office, but also the agents, FBI agents who are heroes, who have served their country not only as agents, but also overseas. I think those attacks are unwarranted based on the facts, and I think that they have no basis in who we are as Americans, as a country. I don't see attacking people like that as anything appropriate.
Speaker 1
Gentleman yields back. Mister Smith, is Cassidy Hutchinson a liar? She was their star witness. January 6 committee, their star witness in one of those staged and choreographed hearings they paid the former president of ABC News to put together. She was, in fact, the only witness at this special primetime hearing Tuesday, 06/28/2022, 08:00 in the evening, and she told some stories.
I mean, these were some stories. She talked about president lunged across the back seat, grabbed the steering wheel, and tried to drive the car to the capital. And I just wanna know, do you think she was lying?
Speaker 4
Chairman Jordan, my assessment of that particular issue is that with respect to the testimony about someone lunging the president lunging towards the driver, my recollection of her testimony about that is that it was secondhand. She had said she'd heard that from somebody.
Speaker 1
You familiar with the name Tony Ornato? Yes. White House deputy chief of operations, deputy chief of staff for operations. Right? You know, you remember what he said about it?
Speaker 1
Yeah. He said it didn't happen. How about Bobby Engle? Are you familiar with that name?
Speaker 1
Secret service agent who was actually in the car that day. You know what he said? He said it didn't happen. And they both said the first time they ever heard this story was when Miss Hutchinson testified in the prime time hearing as their star witness of the January 6 committee. By the way, do you ever confirm her testimony about this particular incident?
Speaker 4
We conducted, as I said before, our own independent investigation of all aspects of the case that we thought was relevant. We, attorneys from my office.
Speaker 1
Did you ever confirm the president leaping across the seat, grabbing the steering wheel, this whole concoction she brought up in the January 6 hearing? Did you ever confirm that?
Speaker 4
Right. We interviewed another firsthand witness, who was in the car, who did not confirm that that happened, but also your deposition to
Speaker 1
The committee last month, Mister Smith, you said this. My recollection with Miss Hutchinson was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay. You remember making that statement to us last month in the deposition?
Speaker 1
Yeah. And you also said Miss Hutchinson, regarding this particular claim, was a second or even third-hand witness. We ask you, if you were a defense attorney, how would you handle cross-examining her if she was on the witness stand? And you said if I were a defense attorney, Miss Hutchinson were a witness. The first thing I would do was seek to preclude her testimony, because it was hearsay.
You remember saying all that?
Speaker 1
That's correct. Right? Were you gonna put her on the witness stand if you ever got to the trial?
Speaker 4
We had not made final determinations as to who we were going to call as witness. We had a large. Are you still considering her? We had a large choice of witnesses in this case.
Speaker 1
Are you familiar with what Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis said in their book? They did his book, 300 and some pages on chronicle and the whole investigation of the justice department. And here's what they said on page 310. They said Jack Smith had wondered whether some of Hutchinson's claims might be relied upon at trial. Still, at one point, Smith told the elections team he wasn't ready to give up on Hutchinson's account.
Ultimately, however, Trump administration officials uniformly disputed her accounts under oath. Prosecutors on your team told Smith they wouldn't want to use Hutchinson as a witness in court, and Smith agreed. Are Carol Lennig and Aaron Davis the ones who wrote this? Are they lying?
Speaker 4
My recollection is that I certainly had not made any final determinations about who we were gonna call.
Speaker 1
And that's the point. That is the point. The fact that they used her in a primetime hearing, and you won't rule out using her, putting her on the witness stand. When everybody knows she wasn't telling the truth, that says it all. That's the degree the left and Democrats were willing to go to get President Trump putting on the witness stand someone everybody knows is making it up.
Everybody knows that. And you are willing to, by the way, you know how many times Cassie Hutchinson was mentioned in their report, the January 6 report? Any idea, Mr. Smith? I do not. A 185 times.
Someone that the whole country knows wasn't telling the truth, and you were still considering putting her on the witness stand because you had to get President Trump, and everybody can see that. We better take a recess for votes. We will resume as soon as votes are in. We'll be back here ten minutes after Miss Smith. You guys can go back to the room that you were in.
Committee will come to order. Gentlemen from ranking members recognized for Yam's consent request.
Speaker 2
Thank you very kindly, Mr. Chairman. And this just goes to the question of the hypothetical witness at the trial that didn't happen. New York Times, 05/01/2024, Trump acknowledges he wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6.
Speaker 2
Carol Lenig, who you quoted, Carol Lenig outlines Tony Wernando's history of lies. That's 06/30/2022.
Speaker 2
On 07/01/2022, the men disputing Hutchinson's testimony are two of Trump's biggest accolades. And finally, 06/29/2022, CNN. Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony amid pushback. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6
Gentlemen from New York is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, over the past few years, Republicans have waged constant attacks on you. Donald Trump has said you are totally compromised. A political hitman, left wing radical, a criminal, a fully weaponized monster, and that you should be considered mentally deranged and thrown out of the country.
Just this week, he called you a sick bastard. Unfortunately, the rules of decorum prevent me from saying what I think of Donald Trump. But he is not the only one to launch attacks against you. Chairman Jordan has accused you of abusive surveillance, and accused you and your team of partisan and politically motivated prosecutions. Despite the mountain of evidence that you laid out in the special counsel's report and in your court filings, President Trump's supporters are convinced that the only reason your team tried to hold him accountable is because you have a vendetta against him.
I want to address these allegations today. You have had a long and distinguished career with the Justice Department, including serving as the chief of DOJ's Public Integrity Section for five years. While leading the public integrity section, you led investigations and prosecution of public figures and political leaders from both parties, Republicans and Democrats. Can you give us a couple of examples?
Speaker 4
Sorry about that. During my time as the chief of public integrity, I investigated cases involving both Republicans and Democrats. The standard in all of those cases was the same. Follow the facts and the law. Didn't matter what party you win.
It mattered the facts of the case. In doing that, there were cases I brought against the Democrats and cases I brought against Republicans. There were also cases that I investigated and did not bring against Democrats and Republicans. Party affiliation played no role in my investigations. I can think of multiple cases of prominent members of Congress that we investigated who were Republicans, who, upon reviewing the law and the facts, decided not to go forward in those cases.
And the same could be said with people on the Democratic side. I've always tried to follow the facts and the law in my career.
Speaker 6
When it comes to deciding whether to pursue a criminal prosecution of an individual, what factors do you consider?
Speaker 4
The primary factors are the facts and the law. As a federal prosecutor, in making a prosecutorial decision, you're guided by the federal principles of prosecution, which guide one not only to look at the facts and law, but the federal interests. And that is exactly what we did in this case, as set forth in my final report.
Speaker 6
Does partisan politics play a role in your decision whether or not to prosecute someone? None. To be clear, did partisan politics play a role in your decision to charge Donald Trump?
Speaker 6
What does it do to the justice system if political leaders place pressure on prosecutors to file charges against their political enemies? What are the implications if prosecution decisions are based on politics, not the law?
Speaker 4
I think it weakens the rule of law in our country because it weakens the mechanism for us to prosecute, among other things, corruption. When there is political prosecutions targeting people because they're enemies of the president, the department loses credibility, and it can't do its job in all sorts of cases.
Speaker 6
According to your deposition before this committee, it sounds like your problem was not determining if you had enough evidence to charge Donald Trump, but rather that you might have had too much evidence and struggled to determine how to present a clear narrative to a jury. How would you characterize the evidence against Mister Trump about inciting an insurrection against the laws of this country? Did you have too much?
Speaker 4
Well, with respect to presenting the case that we charged, one of the central challenges was trying to present that in a concise way because we did have so many witnesses. Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him, and who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign, and advisers. I will say, however, with respect to the charge of insurrection, we did not charge that. As I set forth in my report, well, I believe that there is, courts have found that was an insurrection and that there's a reasonable interpretation, a reasonable prosecutor could interpret the evidence to support that charge.
I chose not to do that, looking at the facts in the law. I thought the charges we brought were appropriate, given the evidence that we had.
Speaker 6
Thank you, Mister Smith, for your decades-long public service and for working tirelessly to uphold the rule of law. Those who attack and smear you and your team in order to protect Donald Trump should be ashamed of themselves. I yield back. Someone yields back. Someone from California is recognized.
Mister Smith,
Speaker 7
Do you see criminals to my left? You don't see any. Do you see people who are committing crimes because they continue to believe things that just aren't true? That's paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, that liberals aren't stupid. They just know things that don't happen to be true.
If the president believed that he was cheated in an election, that there was fraud or in some other way, a number of items led to his defeat when, in fact, he should have won according to the constitution, does that make him a criminal?
Speaker 7
No. That's a yes or no, please, Mr. Smith. These people here are continuing to grapple constantly with things that aren't true, like socialism works or that, somehow, everything the Republicans do is evil and everything they do is right. They've never reached a conclusion in a typical partisan case in which we're not evil because we think something different, and we're not wrong. You understand the constitution.
Do you understand the bill of rights that someone has the absolute right to believe something whether it's true or not, and to advocate for something whether it's true or not? Do you understand that in addition to your oath to the constitution, that's one of the things the first amendment allows for, isn't it?
Speaker 7
Okay. So if you know that people have a right to opine, lobby for, assert, do everything they can legally to ask for people to make different decisions, then why is it you saw criminal conduct on behalf of a president who believed he didn't win? Chairman Jordan and myself have something in common, along with a number of others here. We saw wrongdoing, and on January 6, we voted not to confirm two states because they had violated the US Constitution in how they selected who got ballots. And yet, you're gonna come here and say, oh, I just followed the law.
When you went after these people and you said, well, technically, I can do that, you didn't see any selective nature or any separation of powers under the constitution to spying on the activities and the conversations of the speaker of the house? To what end would conversations between the speaker of the US house, third or second in line to be the president, and the president, on what basis would it be any of your business other than you believe that there was a conspiracy without conspiracy as a basic premise? You, like the president's men for Richard Nixon, went after your political enemies. Maybe they're not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden's political enemies, weren't they? They were Harris's political enemies.
They were the enemies of the president, and you were their arm, weren't you? No. No? Oh, great. So you spied on the speaker of the house and these other senators and so on and informed no one, and in fact, put in a gag order so they couldn't discover it.
If they were not subjects of a conspiracy investigation, why did Congress, a separate branch that you under the Constitution, have to respect? Why is it that no one should be informed, including the judges? As you went in to spy on these people, did you mention that you were spying on seeking records so you could find out about when conversations occurred between the US speaker of the house and the president. Did you inform the judge, or did you hold that back?
Speaker 7
Wait a second. The question I asked you, mister Smith, was pretty straightforward. Did you withhold that information from an article three judge in the process of taking the records of the speaker of the house? We complied with the department.
Speaker 2
Did you hold back? Chairman, would you please instruct the gentleman to allow the witness to answer the questions?
Speaker 2
Mister chairman, you've repeatedly done that in the past. The witness has the right to answer the question.
Speaker 7
And there'll be due time to answer the question. Would you please put my time back and let me finish this? Mister Smith, I asked you a question, and you were not responsive to it, and I want you to be responsive to it. Did you, whether you think it was legal or not, whether you think it was right or not, did you withhold the name of Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the house, when you were seeking records on Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the house, or Jim Jordan, the chairman of this committee?
Speaker 1
Time has expired, but we're gonna let the witness answer your question because it's an important question. The witness can respond.
Speaker 4
We did not provide that information to the judge when we requested a nondisclosure order consistent with the law and consistent with the department.
Speaker 7
Mister chairman, the amazing thing here today is that we have an admission.
Speaker 2
That an article The gentleman's time has expired by now thirty-four seconds.
Speaker 7
I will be brief in my address to the chairman. We have the evidence that an article one representative on behalf of the president withheld that aside three.
Speaker 1
Sticking with California, the gentle lady from California is now recognized.
Speaker 11
Mister Smith, thank you for being here today. You know, earlier, the chairman spent a lot of time talking about Cassidy Hutchinson, who we know is just one of many witnesses. It's important to note that there was testimony that she was told something by Mister Ornardo, not that she had personal knowledge. And, of course, Mister Ornardo was of very questionable veracity. We had a testimony from a Metropolitan Police Department official about an argument, a big argument, that the president was having about going to the Capitol.
And in fact, the vehicle was delayed going back to the capital while that argument occurred. But having said that, I wanna focus on something my colleagues across the aisle seem to want to ignore. The fact that your investigation into President Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election was built on testimony from members of the Republican Party. In fact, last week, the New York Times published grand jury transcripts from Georgia that show the same pattern in Trump's Georgia criminal case. Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, testified that he told, quote, and this is a quote, "we're just not seeing the things that you are seeing."
And the late Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, also a Republican, testified that Trump's fake elector scheme was, quote, the craziest thing I've heard. And then there's Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president's closest allies. In his secret grand jury testimony, Senator Graham told the jurors, quote, I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short, unquote. And then he said this, quote, if you told them Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it. Martians, that's from Senator Graham speaking under oath.
So here's my question. Mister Smith, in your deposition with this committee, you testified, and here's a quote, our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party. Also, the president's closest allies are telling him that his claims of election fraud are wrong. And, so I'm just wondering, can you explain what you meant in your deposition that it was Republicans who were putting their allegiance to their country ahead of their party?
Speaker 4
Yes. There were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear, and put him on notice that what he was saying was false. These were people who knew how the elections were conducted in these states. And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth even if it's going to impose a cost on them in their lives, my experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that, because they pay a cost for telling the truth.
Speaker 11
In terms of the grand jury testimony that's now been released, the fact that Donald Trump, according to Senator Graham, would believe that Martian stole the election, what does that tell you about Trump's state of mind?
Speaker 4
That statement is consistent with what we found in our investigation in that our investigation revealed that Donald Trump was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election. He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him things that conflicted with him staying in power, he rejected them, or he chose not even to contact people like that who would know if the election was done properly in a state. On the other hand, when individuals would say things that would allow him to stay in power no matter how fantastical, he would latch onto those. That pattern, over time, we felt was powerful evidence that he, in fact, knew that the fraud claims he was making were false.
Speaker 11
You know, who were some of the Republican witnesses who told president Trump that his claims of election fraud were false? Can you share that with us?
Speaker 4
There were a range of witnesses. They ranged from people on his campaign team who had wanted him to win, who were employed to help him win the election. They included state officials, state Republican officials who wanted him to win, voted for him, campaigned for him, asked him to provide, asked him and his coconspirators to provide evidence to support their claims, and invariably, they never did. It included officials, advisers, people he worked with in the White House who he relied upon for important decisions, and who he trusted in other contexts. We felt we had strong evidence from a variety of sources.
Speaker 11
Miss chairman, with my fellow Californian, you were allowing the witness.
Speaker 1
I've given him 30 seconds extra. The gentle lady, thirty seconds extra. If the gentleman can be concise and finish up here quickly, we will allow him to finish.
Speaker 4
Yes, sir. And just conclude saying we felt that a constituted powerful evidence of the knowing falsity of his statements and further into the fraud.
Speaker 11
Mister chairman, I'd like to yield back noting the presence of officers who were severely attacked.
Speaker 8
Mister Smith, in January 2023, did you subpoena then speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy, these toll records?
Speaker 8
And the subpoena covered the time period between November 2020 and January 2021. Is that right?
Speaker 8
No, we're not gonna delay like this. The subpoena covered the time period between November 2020 and January 2021. How many days after Kevin McCarthy was sworn in as speaker did you subpoena his records?
Speaker 8
to do 16 one. Days after becoming the highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, you subpoenaed his toll records. Do you agree that that might reasonably be considered a violation of the speech or debate clause?
Speaker 8
You were collecting months' worth of phone data on the Republican speaker of the house, the leader of the opposition, right after he got sworn in as speaker, all around the time of a major vote. That sounds like a flagrant violation of the speech or debate clause to me, and I think most people agree with me. And speaker McCarthy had no recourse, did he, because you issued a nondisclosure order ensuring that neither he nor any of the American people knew about these subpoenas. Is that right?
Speaker 4
The toll record, the noncontent toll record subpoenas, we did secure nondisclosure orders for those subpoenas.
Speaker 8
You did. And let me ask you, mister Smith, at the time you secured those nondisclosure orders, was speaker McCarthy a flight risk?
Speaker 8
He was not. Then why did your nondisclosure order refer to him as a flight risk? It says right here the court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in flight from prosecution.
Speaker 4
Sir, when securing a nondisclosure order, the risks don't have to be associated.
Speaker 8
No. This is not your time. This is my time. You think the speaker of the house is a flight risk? You think he's gonna hop on a plane and leave the country?
Speaker 4
No. What I was trying to explain is with respect to a nondisclosure order, the risks aren't necessarily associated with the subscriber to the phone. There are the risks to investigation.
Speaker 8
I think that you were using this is clearly in reference to speaker McCarthy, and you were using clearly false information to secure a nondisclosure order to hide from speaker McCarthy and from the American people the fact that you were spying on his toll records. But I've got more, so let's move on. In May 2023, you also issued subpoenas for the toll records of nine US senators and an additional representative. Is that right?
Speaker 8
You did. And there were nondisclosure orders in conjunction with those subpoenas as well. Right?
Speaker 8
So, again, nobody would know what you were doing. The senators would, the representatives would, and the American people wouldn't know what you were doing. Is that right?
Speaker 4
The toll records that we secured, and the nondisclosure orders, were consistent with policy and consistent.
Speaker 8
with knew whenever you're doing that there was a risk you were violating the speech or debate clause. Is that right?
Speaker 4
The toll record subpoenas that we secured were with the concurrence of the public and tech.
Speaker 8
Your own analysis says that you knew there was a risk you were violating the Speech or Debate Clause. I have it right here. This is an email from John Keller at the public integrity section to your team. As you are aware, quote, as you are aware, there is some litigation risk regarding whether compelled disclosure of toll records of a member's legislative calls violates the speech or debate clause in the DC Circuit. That's from your own analysis right there.
So you did know, didn't you?
Speaker 4
Sir, with respect to the item you just put up on the screen, the last sentence states.
Speaker 8
We're gonna get to the last sentence. And you cite case law in here, quote, the bar on compelled disclosure is absolute. Is right, is that right, or do you think that you didn't have to abide by that precedent?
Speaker 4
To be clear, this statement is not from my office. This is the statement.
Speaker 8
Of all those statements. Justification for those subpoenas and NDOs that you ordered. This was part of your analysis. It's a cursory analysis. I think it's worth noting.
But let's get to that last sentence, then. Well, given my understanding of the low likelihood that any of the members listed below would be charged, the litigation risk should be minimal here. In other words, you're using a novel legal theory, which you knew was novel, has never been tested by any court. You're not charging any of these members. Nobody's gonna know about it because you issued NDOs.
Nobody's gonna sue about it, so sue this. So who cares? We're gonna do it anyway. I mean, you walked all over the constitution throughout this entire process.
Speaker 1
Gentleman yields back. Not gonna be charged. They're not gonna see it. They're not gonna know because we're not gonna tell them. So let's go ahead and do it.
It's exactly what happened. The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mister Smith, it's great that you've been allowed to come here and testify to the American public. Is there anything you'd like briefly to discuss that Mister Gil brought up on the reasons why you needed those phone records and the limitations that you thought might have been on you and the prosecution of risk because of the risk to the investigation?
Speaker 4
Sure. And I would begin by pointing out that the email that was referenced wasn't a justification from my office. It was an email from the public integrity section to my office approving the subpoenas. The subpoenas that we secured, we secured with nondisclosure orders from a judge, because I had grave concerns about obstruction of justice in this investigation, specifically with regard to Donald Trump. Not only did we have the obstruction of justice that we were investigating in the classified documents case, but I was aware during the course of our investigation of targeting of witnesses during the course of the conspiracy itself.
There were election workers who had their lives turned upside down, and received vile death threats because they were targeted by Donald Trump and his cocontributors. I had a duty to protect the witnesses in this investigation. That risk, that threat to witnesses was only confirmed when we went forward in this case, and Donald Trump suggested that one witness should be put to death and then also issued a statement to the effect of if you come after me, I'm coming after you. In my mind, I can't think of a more direct threat to witnesses and individuals involved in that proceeding. Given that sort of threats, it was, in my view, completely appropriate to protect the integrity of the investigation, to protect against destruction of the evidence, and to protect the witnesses in our case.
Speaker 10
And just to make clear, you did not see any of the discussion. There was not any, it was just the content that they made a call to the president and vice versa, but nothing about any content whatsoever.
Speaker 4
That's correct. A toll record subpoena gives you who a call is from, who it is to, and the length of the call. It does not tell you the content of what people are speaking about.
Speaker 10
a case that was one that you would win beyond a reasonable doubt, no moral certainty. Is there anything in your facts that you've had that you would have used at trial that you believe has not been presented to the public in the past or has been misrepresented to the public?
Speaker 10
Essential facts that you had that you felt would have resulted in a conviction of the president on the charges that he was indicted upon?
Speaker 4
I think my report, the report of our case, the final report, summarizes the evidence, I think, in a way that gives a fair reading of the strength of the case.
Speaker 4
My review of the case, I came to the conclusion we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We were ready, willing, and able to go to trial in the case. Of course, as I said in my opening statement, prosecutors can't control outcomes, but I felt confident in pursuing the case to trial.
Speaker 10
Did mayor Garland ever pressure you to bring an indictment or to do anything in your investigation? No. Did anybody else in the administration, President Biden, Vice President Harris, etc.?
Speaker 4
I was given the independence to conduct my investigation, and I came to the decision to bring charges in this case without undue influence from anybody.
Speaker 4
The cases against Donald Trump were dismissed pursuant to department policy.
Speaker 10
Department policy, the office of legal counsel said if he's somebody's president, you can't bring a charge against them, or they can't be held liable. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
That's correct. There had not been a case of this nature ever where someone was elected president with pen charges pending. And so that was slightly different. So we consulted with the public, oh, I'm sorry. With the office of legal counsel, and they determined pursuant to policy that the cases needed to be dismissed.
Speaker 10
And you weren't pleased with that, you had to follow the law, and that's what you did.
Speaker 4
We followed the policy throughout my investigation. My job was not to set policy. My job was to follow it, and that's what we did.
Speaker 10
I wanna thank you for your service. I think you're a great American, and you came out of this as being somebody who people can respect and look up to in a fashion that we should be instilling people's desire to go into justice, to go into law, and to go into government. You're an example of the type of person they should follow. I yield back the balance.
Speaker 14
Mister Smith, there's something that's really bothering me since your deposition. It's how and why you got the position of special counsel. And your personal relationship with Marshal Miller, let's go back to 1999 when you were working for the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Is that when you first met Marshal Miller? Yes.
So after ED New York, did the two of you ever work together again prior to becoming special counsel? According to the public bios, for you and mister Miller, you overlapped at DOJ from 02/14/15 when you were chief of DOJ's public integrity section and mister Miller was chief of staff for DOJ's criminal division. Is that accurate?
Speaker 14
Okay. But after 20 years of knowing each other, it's safe to say you were friends. Correct? Yes. Okay.
So let's fast forward to 2022. Mister Miller is appointed principal associate deputy attorney general at DOJ, the number three at the DOJ. You call your friend and congratulate him, and according to the deposition transcript, you say you'd be interested in a position at the DOJ. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
Yes. What I recall is that I expressed an interest if the right position came up. I would be interested in.
Speaker 14
But at that point, there's no discussion of special counsel. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
This is some time ago, and so I don't have a specific recollection of all of these conversations.
Speaker 14
So you were first approached about special counsel and that role before the 22 midterm elections. And, according to the deposition transcript in October 2022, you fly to DC, meet with the AG and the deputy attorney general. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
Yes. I flew to DC. I believe it was in October, I met the deputy attorney general, and also, I met the attorney general.
Speaker 14
So in multiple conversations with your friend Marshall Miller, he never once tipped you off that the attorney general or deputy attorney general had you in on the shortlist for special counsel. That never came up. Again,
Speaker 4
This was some time ago, but my recollection is I came to Washington, and I met with those individuals as well as the human rights section. Marshall Miller is the person who set that up.
Speaker 14
So he was at the meetings. Was he at the meetings? Look. Just to tie all this together. You've known Mister Miller since you were both AUSA and in New York.
You stayed in touch over twenty-year career in federal government. He gets a job with the Biden administration. And just a few short months later, you're offered the role of special counsel. I'm having a hard time believing that this is some big coincidence and that there wasn't a back-and-forth on the special counsel. So maybe you never received directives explicitly from the AG or the deputy attorney general.
But was Marshal Miller, did he become a two-way conduit throughout the investigation with DOJ?
Speaker 4
No. And I would not take direction from a political person, a political figure, about how I should conduct an investigation.
Speaker 14
But you never spoke to him throughout the entire time you were conducting the investigation?
Speaker 4
That, he was, I think you asked if he was a conduit of information. He was present, to my recollection, at meetings, briefings that I had with the attorney general and deputy attorney general during my time as special counsel.
Speaker 14
Wanna assume anything, but Mister Miller wanted you in that position not because you're necessarily the best lawyer he ever met, but because of the long-term friendship that you have with them.
Speaker 4
What I can tell you is I have been a prosecutor for 30 years. I have been an apolitical public servant for 30 years. I've prosecuted cases against Democrats and Republicans all the same. I've had, in my view, the experience necessary for this position, and that's why I accepted it.
Speaker 14
So he knew that you would pursue, I mean, he had to have an idea that you would pursue exactly what the Biden administration wanted, which was criminal charges against President Trump.
Speaker 4
I think that anybody who knows me well knows the idea that I would take direction from a political figure about how an investigation should come out. I don't think anybody who knows me thinks that's true.
Speaker 14
Well, Chairman Jordan, I think the next deposition should be with Marshal Miller at this point. I yield back.
Speaker 15
And while we are deposing Marshal Miller, maybe we can depose Donald Trump about why he chose his personal lawyer to be the head of the DOJ. On 01/06/2026, the fifth anniversary of the insurrection, the White House launched a taxpayer-funded website that attempts to rewrite history about what happened on that day of infamy. On 01/06/2021, there was an insurrection at the United States Capitol that resulted in a police officer dying the next day. Another four officers dying by suicide in the months thereafter, with at least 140 police officers being injured by the insurrectionists, with fifteen of them requiring hospitalization. And I'm proud that we have four former officers as well as on duty Capitol Hill police officers here today.
Mister Smith, I wanna ask you about this website because the Trump administration is using taxpayer dollars to lie to the American people about the events leading up to and the events taking place on 01/06/2021. For example, this Trump propaganda site claims that the 2020 election was, quote, stolen. Mister Smith, did your investigation uncover evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump knew that his claim that the election was stolen was false?
Speaker 15
Your investigation uncovers evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump publicly claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him while he privately acknowledged that he had lost the election?
Speaker 15
But yet here we see that on the fifth anniversary of the insurrection, the Trump White House propaganda machine is still promoting the stolen election theory on this government web page with a text box titled, quote, fraudulent election, stolen election certified, end quote. The site also has a subsection reading in part, quote, FBI entrapment operation exposed. Mister Smith, did your investigation develop any evidence to support the allegation that the FBI entrapped insurrectionists into committing crimes on January 6?
Speaker 4
Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused January 6, that it was foreseeable to him, and that he sought to exploit the violence.
Speaker 15
This website also accuses you of being a, quote, Biden prosecutor who brought, quote, weaponized charges against Mr. Trump. Mister Smith, were you a Biden prosecutor who weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump? Absolutely not. Did Attorney General Merrick Garland direct you to prosecute Trump because Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden in the presidential election? No.
There are also allegations that President Trump was the victim of, quote, lawfare, and accusations that the Department of Justice lawyers who prosecuted Donald Trump used, quote, fabricated indictments and rigged show trials. Did you, Mister Smith, or the men and women working on your team work to fabricate indictments or put on rigged show trials?
Speaker 4
No. We secured indictments from grand juries, and we were prepared to prove our case in court beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 15
Did you use your appointment as special counsel to conduct a politically motivated witch hunt, scam investigation, and prosecution of Donald Trump?
Speaker 4
I did not. We followed the facts, and we followed the law. Where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.
Speaker 15
And those indictments have been dismissed. Can they be rebrought or re-resurrected, after this, after Trump leaves office?
Speaker 15
So they can be refiled. And he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
I'm not gonna speak to that. I can only speak to what we did, which was dismiss the case without prejudice.
Speaker 15
Alright. The website put out by the Trump White House on the anniversary of January 6 is nothing more than a pack of lies. It proves that Donald Trump is hell bent on misusing taxpayer dollars in a feeble attempt to rewrite his criminal history and the history of what happened on 01/06/2021. And with that, I yield back. But I would like to, mister chairman, offer for the record unanimous consent?
Unanimous consent. A statement from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released on 11/12/2020 states that November was the most secure in American history.
Speaker 15
And also, testimony from, I would like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record. The 09/24/2020 testimony of Trump's former FBI director, Chris Ray, who told the Senate Homeland Security, excuse me, the Homeland Security Committee of the Senate that the FBI had, quote, not seen or historically had any kind of coordinated national voter fraud.
Speaker 15
And, last but not least, mister chairman, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. This article titled disputing Trump bar says no widespread election fraud.
Speaker 1
That objection. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, on 11/18/2022. G. Garland appointed you special counsel. Can you tell me about your swearing-in or the oath of office that you took after that?
Speaker 4
I don't recall the specifics of it. I know I was sworn in. I don't recall the specifics of how that was done.
Speaker 16
You don't remember who swore you in? I don't. Would you agree that taking the oath of office is a legal requirement for the job that you had?
Speaker 4
I've taken oaths of office regularly. I haven't researched whether it's required or not, but I've done that, I think, in every government case.
Speaker 16
It is required. Terms I heard earlier today were atypical, irregular, no proper procedure. Yet in your opening statement, you said that we follow Justice Department policies, and I would assume you meant the law as well. It strikes me as odd that you don't remember who swore you in, or how you were sworn in. It's pretty significant.
We all get sworn in here, and I remember it every day. You don't remember who swore you in?
Speaker 4
I don't remember the details of it as I sit here today. I know. But you did take.
Speaker 16
It was when it strikes me as odd that Attorney General Garland had you retake the oath of office on September 14 of the following year. Why did he make you do that?
Speaker 4
As I sit here right now, I do not recall. I know that there is an oath of office that I signed. I believe it was on the eighteenth, the day that I was appointed. And I know the department had me do a second one. I don't know the particulars of why they asked me to do it again, but I.
Speaker 16
Know that signed it on the November 20, November 2022, but there was no witness, which, I mean, you have to agree. It's a little odd. If there's no witness saying that you took the oath of office, it would maybe make someone like me question whether or not you were legitimately doing the job until you finally took the oath of office. It sounds like the attorney general had the same question and thought, oh, shit. We gotta have him sign this in September of the following year.
So why did you take the oath of office again on September 14 of the following year when you say you took the office in November 2022?
Speaker 4
My recollection is that I took the oath of office. As you said, it was the eighteenth or the twentieth, and I felt I was under the oath of office. I believe if you have it in front of you, I think I signed an oath.
Speaker 16
You signed it, but there was no witness. There was supposed to be either a notarized or a witness. And, apparently, Attorney General Garland thought it was significant enough to have you do another oath 11 months later. That's strange. Right?
Speaker 4
I don't know why, they asked me to sign it again. I don't recall ever discussing this issue with Attorney General Garland.
Speaker 16
Well, that is just wild to me. I'd like to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Jordan.
Speaker 1
Well, which one was the official one? Have you counted? I think that's what the gentleman is asking.
Speaker 4
I understood myself to have taken the oath of office when I assumed the job.
Speaker 1
Of first, okay. How much money did you spend in investigating president Trump? How much money did your office spend?
Speaker 4
I do not recall as I sit here now, but I know that pursuant to, I believe, it's the special counsel regulations, reports were issued each six months detailing how much.
Speaker 1
We get we gathered at $35,000,000. And what I wanna know is how much of that $35,000,000 of taxpayer money did you just give to confidential human sources? We know you gave 20,000 to someone. It just got reported last week. How much more money did you pay confidential people, people we don't know about, with American tax money, going after the guy we elect the president?
Speaker 4
My recollection regards the $20,000, which was not a payment from me. It was me approving a payment by the FBI to a confidential human source who was reviewing video and photographic source. I do not know the identity of the source. What I
Speaker 4
As I sit here, I do not know the answer to that question. My role as special counsel.
Speaker 1
$35,000,000, and you're giving money to people. The country doesn't know who they are, and you're giving their hard-earned money to these folks. The main question I have too with this is why'd you have to do it? You subpoenaed bank records from the RNC, phone records from members of Congress. You submit you got subpoenas for bank records for people sitting right in the front row.
Why did you have to pay people for information when you can subpoena them and get it?
Speaker 1
Expired. Time has expired. You can answer the question now. Country would like to know why you had to do it.
Speaker 4
My recollection and understanding is the payment, the $20,000 that I approved, was for a confidential human source to assist in the review of video and photographic evidence, showing people who were attacking the capital, attacking police officers, obstructing the proceeding, and seeing if we could prove that some of those people had come directly.
Speaker 1
That wasn't my question, but my time has expired. The gentleman from California is recognized.
Speaker 19
Mister Smith, I want you to have the utmost confidence in what you did. You did everything right. Harry Dunn, Danny Hodges, Sergeant Canal, Mike Fanon, they did everything right. These guys, my Republican colleagues, are a joke. They're wrong.
History will harshly judge them, so I want you to lean in today. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did everything right, sir. And I am so these guys are so lucky they're not under oath, because they would have to tell you what they really think of Trump. They call him crooked.
They call him cruel. They call him a scumbag. I've heard you all say it. You're lucky you're not under Trump. But when the lights go on and the cameras are on, you're tiny.
You're small. You shrink. Everyone remembers Matt Gates coming over here after a committee hearing. He would laugh at how stupid he thought Trump was. This is all a show.
And, mister Smith, you're just the latest act that they've brought in. But they can't erase what happened on January 6, because we saw it with our own eyes. Mister Smith, after the mainstream media called the race for Biden about a week after the election, did Donald Trump concede the election?
Speaker 19
The next month, the electoral college met in every state and voted Biden as the winner. Did Donald Trump concede then?
Speaker 19
Shortly after that, the last court case that Donald Trump brought was thrown out. Did he concede then? No. Is it your judgment then that only Donald Trump could have convened the mob in the size that it was assembled on January 6?
Speaker 4
Our assessment of the evidence is that he is the person most responsible for what happened on January 6. He caused what happened. It was foreseeable to him. And then, when it happened, he tried to exploit it in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Speaker 19
And you actually obtained indictments from a grand jury. Right? You went to a grand jury and did something that the Trump administration has not been able to do as they go after their enemies. Their cases are being thrown out. You obtained criminal indictments against the president.
Is that right?
Speaker 19
Did you know that he said of you, when it comes to investigating allegations of sophisticated federal criminal matters, Jack Smith is the gold standard. Do you know who Mister James McGovern is?
Speaker 19
Did you know that he said of you, I have no idea what Mr. Smith's political beliefs are because he's completely apolitical. So, are you a registered independent?
Speaker 4
I have no partisan loyalties. I don't know if I'm registered as independent or not registered at all.
Speaker 19
Are you glad you accepted Attorney General Garland's request to be a special prosecutor, even though you've been dragged over political barbed wire and your family has been subjected to death threats?
Speaker 19
Do you remember where you were on September 11? I do. What did you think of that day?
Speaker 4
I was in Brooklyn when that happened. I was at the command center that night. I worked on that investigation. I remember pretty clearly.
Speaker 4
On January 6, I was living in Europe, working for the state department, succumbed to a war crimes tribunal.
Speaker 19
What did you think as you watched on television what happened at the Capitol that day?
Speaker 4
To be honest with you, I don't recall if I saw it that day or a later day because of the time period.
Speaker 4
I was shocked. I was shocked by it. I obviously, being in Europe and not following things as closely, I was not, frankly, up to speed on the events leading up to it.
Speaker 19
Mister Smith, I don't know if I'll ever have the honor to talk to you again. If I don't, please know that I and my colleagues on the Democratic side, and even my Republican colleagues when they speak privately, have nothing but respect and appreciation for what you tried to do and how you did it. You, unlike many here, are a man of honor. And I yield back.
Speaker 20
Hey, mister chairman. Miss Smith, you appear before this committee today not as a neutral observer of the law. But at one point, you're one of the most powerful prosecutors in the federal system, armed with enormous discretion, minimal oversight, and a mandate that goes to the very heart of the constitutional order. You brought charges during an active election cycle. You relied on legal theories that had never before been tested in context.
And you did so while disregarding long-standing Department of Justice policies designed to prevent prosecutors from influence in elections. Mister Smith, you claimed in your investigation, you developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that president Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results in the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. However, a few weeks ago in Georgia, Fulton County election board officials stated that 315,000 ballots were certified without the required signatures on the tabulator tapes for poll workers. These signatures were required by the Georgia statute. If not counted, this could have turned the state of Georgia red, and I won't doubt there were similar schemes in many other states.
You were illegally appointed to serve as special counsel since you were not confirmed by the advance and consent of the Senate, as stated in the appointments clause. You also issued an indictment against then-President Biden's most formidable political opponent. The candidate was President Trump, and you issued a gag order for President Trump during a 2024 election cycle. This was a major violation of President Trump's First Amendment rights and a poor attempt to outright censor the leading political candidate. These actions were nothing short of election interference.
Nine senators, including Senator Tuberville from my state of Alabama, and multiple Republican members of the House of Representatives had their phones or their records subpoenaed. Some, you see, is on their phones. Even then, Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the country, had his phone records subpoenaed, all for political gain. These subpoenas clearly violated the speech and debate clause. As John Keller of the DOJ's public integrity section addressed this issue in an email dated 05/17/2023, DC circuit president stated that the speech and debate clause in the bar is this, our compelled, I'm sorry.
Borrow and compelled disclosure is absolute. These instances are not only the tip of the iceberg of you and your team's flagrant disregard of the constitution. Mister Smith, your actions have changed and damaged confidence in our justice system. Today, this committee will determine whether that damage was a result of reckless judgment, political bias, or deliberate misuse of authority. With that, mister chairman, I'll yield you the balance of my time for questions.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman for yielding. I wanna go back to that email. If we could put that up, this email that Mister Gil highlighted a few minutes ago. This is the justification from the public integrity section. If you look at the bottom, John Keller, public integrity section, for going and getting the phone records, toll records of members of Congress.
And there's a couple of things I wanna highlight. That first highlighted area, there is some litigation risk. So they admit there's some concern here, and they send this to the copy of Jack Smith's team. And then you go down later, as Mister Gil pointed out, the case law is clear. A legislator may intervene and oppose such use, so the risk is real.
But here's the deal. There was really no risk because we weren't going to know. They weren't gonna tell us. They made sure they didn't tell us, because they went to the judge and got a gag order. And look at the last sentence.
The last sentence. Low likelihood that any of the members listed below would be charged. So they're not gonna know, because we're not gonna charge any of these guys. They didn't do anything wrong. And the litigate, so therefore, the litigation risk should be minimal.
They're not going to be charged. They're not gonna, we're not gonna go after them. They're not gonna, the litigation risk is minimal, and it's minimal because, frankly, it's nonexistent because they're not gonna know. And we're gonna make sure they don't know, because we're not even gonna tell the judge who we're getting the gag orders on. And yet mister Smith thought that was okay.
That was just fine. That was in the letter and the spirit of the constitution. I find that hard to believe. And you know why? You know why everyone knows it's wrong?
The public integrity section at the Justice Department has now changed its policy. You can't do this anymore. They've changed their policy, but it was okay for Jack Smith to do it because we got to get Trump. We gotta get the president. That's what this was all about.
You're back to the gentleman from Alabama.
Speaker 6
Mister chairman, I have a unanimous consent request. Gentlemen from New York.
Speaker 6
Mister chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a transcript of the voicemail that president Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, left senator Tuberville on January 6, in which he states, I'm calling you because I wanna discuss with you how they're trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information.
Speaker 1
Objection. Gentlemen, yield back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California.
Speaker 17
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The House Judiciary Committee is responsible for helping to ensure the rule of law. Unfortunately, the chairman of this committee ignored a bipartisan congressional subpoena directed at him. His actions have made it harder for this committee and other congressional committees to get witnesses and testimony, and damage the rule of law. Now before I ask questions of Mister Smith, I just wanna make a simple observation.
How scared are Republicans of talking about the Epstein files? They're so scared that they literally are calling Jack Smith, the distinguished federal prosecutor who secured multiple indictments against Donald Trump with multiple felony counts. Republicans would rather talk about the criminality of Donald Trump in stealing, trying to steal an election and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and the criminality of Donald Trump in stealing classified documents, obstructing justice, than about Donald Trump's associations with Jeffrey Epstein and his pedophilia ring. I demand this committee, this chairman, and Republicans to call an immediate hearing asking why the department of justice is refusing to release 99% of Epstein files and why the DOJ is violating law right now. I have questions, Mister Smith, for you, and thank you for being here today.
My questions center on interactions or lack of interactions between the Biden administration and you. Did President Biden or anyone in the Biden White House ever direct you to seek retribution against anyone perceived to be Biden's political opponent? No. Did the Biden administration or President Biden or anyone in the White House ever write a social media post directing you to seek retribution against any particular individual? No.
Did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever direct you to take any prosecutorial step whatsoever? No. Okay. Donald Trump made it clear he wanted to seek retribution against New York Attorney General Tish James. Trump relentlessly attacked her, saying, quote, she should be prosecuted and, quote, arrested and punished because she dared to hold Trump accountable for Trump's fraud in New York.
Trump weaponized the Democrat justice, and the Trump DOJ opened a sham investigation into her alleged mortgage fraud. We know it's a sham investigation because they couldn't even get two grand juries to secure indictments against her. When interim US attorney Eric Siebert, who Donald Trump himself appointed, spent five months investigating Tish James. He concluded there was not enough evidence to go forward. And what did Trump do?
He fired his own U.S. attorney. Mister Smith, did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever tell you that Donald Trump should be, quote, arrested and punished? No. Did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever threaten to fire you based on any action you took or did not take? No.
Donald Trump also directed the Trump DOJ to open investigations into his own appointees who.
Speaker 17
Do his bidding. His DOJ recently investigated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell because Powell won't cede to Trump's bullying on interest rates. Did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever direct you to go after any Biden appointee? No. Okay.
I just wanna say a little bit about what the Republicans have brought up about these phone toll records. Do you believe the speaker of the house is above the law?
Speaker 17
And US senators are not above the law. Correct? No. Yeah. And members of Congress are not above the law.
Right? No. Yeah. That's right. Because we're not.
And what Republicans are gonna argue is somehow, if you're doing an investigation, you can't do stuff to senators or members of Congress. Get out of here. We're just under the law like everybody else. And by the way, the speech and debate clause only applies to legislative acts, communications with legislative acts. Stealing a freaking election, trying to do so is not a legislative act.
It is a crime. So I don't know what the heck they're talking about. And this is so stupid. I'm a former prosecutor. You'd never go and try to get someone's toll records or phone records and then tell them, hey, dude.
We're about to get your phone records. Of course, you wouldn't tell them. What the Republicans are saying today is just idiotic. I am so pleased. You're here on Nasher TV telling the American people that Trump was indicted.
He was indicted lawfully by multiple grand juries to secure those indictments. Thank you for your service, and history will look upon you well. I will be back.
Speaker 21
Mister Smith, you have a long tenure at the Department of Justice. Would you agree with the statement that DOJ charging policies require prosecutors to bring charges only where the admissible evidence is expected to be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction? Is that right?
Speaker 21
And in this case, you brought against President Trump, one of the charges you pursued was under title 18 section 371, which requires an agreement to interfere with the lawful function of The United States through deceit or dishonesty that the defendant knowingly and intentionally joined, and an overt act. And what I'd like to ask you about is this. So you would agree that section 371 requires dishonesty or deceit, and also proof that a criminal defendant acted knowingly and intentionally. Is that right?
Speaker 4
I believe that's correct. It requires knowing deceit targeted at a lawful government function.
Speaker 21
So you would then also agree, would you not, that opinion, disagreement, or even mistake is insufficient to satisfy the burden of criminal intent set forth in that statute?
Speaker 4
A mistake, certainly would. We needed to prove and intended to prove at trial that the false statements Donald Trump made were knowingly false.
Speaker 21
That they were false, and that it was done knowingly. So even under your theory of the case, even if we took your facts as true, you still would have been required to prove that the president said something false and that he did it knowingly. So going on to your next charge, let's talk about obstruction. There too, that charge requires proof of wrongful intent. Does it not?
Speaker 21
So if a defendant there actually believes a factual claim is true, that would mean he could not be convicted of that charge. Isn't that right? Well, I not correctly convicted.
Speaker 4
The defendant for that charge would have to behave corruptly, and corruptly could include seeking an unlawful benefit, seeking a benefit to benefit themselves in this case to stay in office when they had, in fact, not won the election.
Speaker 21
There too, there's a requirement of intent that this conduct must be knowing and intentional. Isn't that right?
Speaker 21
And didn't you also acknowledge in your deposition that the president was receiving information from multiple advisers? Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Powell. And in your deposition, you said he was almost just regurgitating what they told him. Isn't that right?
Speaker 4
I don't believe I said he was regurgitating what they told him. I think what I said is that he was making knowingly false claims, that he was believing anything that would keep him in office, and he was rejecting it.
Speaker 21
Would agree that those people or some people were giving the president conflicting advice at that time. Would you not?
Speaker 4
You are correct in that his original campaign staff told him he had lost. He fired them and brought in people.
Speaker 21
But criminal liability under the statutes you used in your indictment requires proving intent, not simply the undermining of democratic norms or expressing opinion with which you do not agree. So is it not correct, sir, that here you charge two intent-based crimes without any direct proof whatsoever that the conduct charged was knowing, intentional, or that you were going to have an adequate basis to sustain a conviction at trial.
Speaker 4
I felt we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I felt that proof included direct testimony from a number of witnesses to prove his note the knowing falsity of his claims.
Speaker 21
Despite the fact that in your own deposition, you acknowledge the existence of conflicting advice. If this defendant were anyone other than Donald J. Trump, Mister Smith, I find it hard to believe that we would be sitting here today having a hearing about an indictment that was returned knowing that the elements of the offenses could not be demonstrated. Now let's talk about this. I assume you're also familiar with the Department of Justice policy that prohibits prosecutors from selecting the timing of investigative or prosecutorial actions for the purpose of affecting an election.
Speaker 4
Yes. I am. That's the election year sensitivities policy, and we followed it in all respects. The public integrity section who administers that policy concurred that we followed it in all respects.
Speaker 1
The gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the ranking member for UC.
Speaker 2
You, kindly, Mr. Chairman. This is from John Dowd. I was Donald Trump's lawyer. Jack Smith should be celebrated, not vilified. 12/16/2025 last month.
Speaker 2
I have, I ask you to announce consent to enter the record of criminal complaint filed by the Trump Department of Justice on 12/13/2025 detailing how Cash Patel and FBI use a confidential human source in an undercover FBI agent to investigate a bomb threat object. Los Angeles. And then finally, this is an article published by The Verge on 10/19/2023 titled Peter was reportedly an FBI informant, which reports that Peter Thiel served as a confidential human source for the FBI.
Speaker 1
Without objection, the gentleman from Arizona is recognized for your name's consent.
Speaker 12
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First one is from msn.com. Biden's FBI paid anti-Trump sedition hunters as informants in J6 Arctic frost probes.
Speaker 12
Jack Smith team approved $20,000 payment to informant to snitch on Trump during Arctic Frost.
Speaker 12
Jack Smith's deposition gives insight into the failed effort to hold Trump accountable.
Speaker 12
Trump's special counsel Jack Smith was involved in the Lois Lerner IRS scandal.
Speaker 12
Special counsel Jack Smith mixed history pursuing high-profile politicians. Objection. And FBI resisted opening a probe into Trump's role in January 6.
Speaker 1
Without objection, the gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 1
Lost track after all those unanimous-consent requests. General lady from Washington is recognized, and then the gentleman from North Carolina.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, thank you for coming here today. Your willingness to speak directly to us and to the American people about your investigation is professional, courageous, and it's patriotic. It's high time that the American people hear directly from you about the results of your investigation of President Donald Trump for his criminal actions leading up to and the day of 01/06/2021. The facts, according to your report, are simple.
Without a single piece of evidence, Trump sowed doubt about the 2020 election results and urged his followers to, quote, walk down to the Capitol and fight like hell on January 6. And that's exactly what they did. Thousands of insurrectionists violently tried to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election and doing our duty, and they assaulted law enforcement officers, some of whom are sitting right here in the chamber with us. I was trapped in the House gallery with a small number of members that day, and I will never forget the pounding on the doors and the insurrectionists threatening to kill us right outside. My Republican colleagues keep trying to rewrite history.
They claim that somehow Trump's words and actions did not legally rise to the level of criminal activity, that he did not directly cause the violence at the Capitol. And so I wanna set that record straight with you right now. First of all, you successfully secured indictments against Donald Trump in two major federal cases, election interference in the 2020 election, and mishandling of classified documents after leaving office. Is that correct? Yes.
And you've been a federal prosecutor for nearly 30 years. You led this investigation, combing through hundreds of thousands of documents, photos, videos, and communications. Did your investigation find that Donald Trump attempted to manufacture fraudulent state slates of presidential electors in seven states that he lost? Yes. Did he pressure state officials to ignore the true vote counts in those states?
Speaker 18
Did he spread lies and conspiracies to his followers to make them believe that the election had been illegally rigged against him?
Speaker 18
Did he pressure DOJ officials to stop the certification of the election?
Speaker 18
Did he pressure his own vice president, Mike Pence, to stop the certification of the oath of office that he had sworn to the constitution?
Speaker 18
And when all of this didn't work, did he, Donald Trump, motivate and inspire an angry mob to the US Capitol to stop the certification?
Speaker 4
Our proof showed that he caused what happened on January 6, that it was foreseeable, and that he exploited the violence.
Speaker 18
Did Donald Trump know that his allegations of election fraud were lies when he spread them?
Speaker 18
In fact, as the quotes from your report behind me show, he even privately admitted that he lost the election. Correct?
Speaker 18
He said, quote, it doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You have to fight like hell. And he said, can you believe I lost to this effing guy? During your closed door deposition last month, you and I had an exchange, the impact on our democracy, the toll on our democracy for not holding a president accountable for trying to steal an election. Do you remember that exchange?
I do. I wanna return to it because I think what you said in the closed-door deposition is important for the American people to hear right here in your public testimony. How would you describe the toll on our democracy if we do not hold a president accountable for attempting to steal an election?
Speaker 4
My belief is that if we do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the same standards of the rule of law, it can be catastrophic. Because if they don't have to follow the law, it's very easy to understand why people would think they don't have to follow the law as well. And so I think the law should be applied equally to everyone.
Speaker 18
And what do you think the toll is for future elections and future presidents who try to steal an election?
Speaker 4
I think if we don't hold people to account when they commit crimes, it sends a message that those crimes are okay, that our society accepts that. I believe that, if we don't call people to account when they commit crimes in this context, it can endanger our election process. It can endanger election workers and, ultimately, our democracy. The attack on this capital on January 6 was, and the court of appeals in Washington DC said this. It was an attack on the structure of our democracy.
Speaker 18
And we could experience much worse results down the road if this happens again. I thank you for your work, for your courage, and for your patriotism, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
General yields back to them from North Carolina. Excuse me. North Carolina is recognized.
Speaker 22
Mister Smith, just briefly, if there was no mob on January 6 that attacked the capital, we would not be here today, would we?
Speaker 4
I can't speak to hypotheticals. The case I investigated involved a mob of supporters of Donald Trump.
Speaker 22
I understand that. I understand that. But if there had not been a mob that rushed the capital, if they had just stayed on the original speech, if they had obeyed the instruction, go peacefully and patriotically and make your voices heard, we would not be here. Isn't that correct?
Speaker 22
I'm just asking. If they had gone peacefully and patriotically, we would not have had a special prosecutor. President Trump would not have been indicted. There would not have been, quote, the attack on the foundations of our democracy. Correct?
Speaker 22
Well, in second point, in regards to what we just heard from my colleague from Washington, I think it's noteworthy that the vice president, despite the enormous toll that he has taken in these events, was against charging the president criminally in this case. But in regards to my own experience, Mister Smith, I've charged many conspiracies. There's obviously a lot of benefit to that charge. It's a useful tool for fact finding, scrutinizing evidence, figuring out exactly what happened, trying to form charges, trying to prove charges, trying to solidify the evidence. And in your case, sir, you've detailed, number one, the unprecedented criminal scheme, your words, not mine.
In the press conference, you said there was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. Do you remember saying that?
Speaker 22
And in regards to your investigative authority, it was quite broad. We've already established that you had millions of dollars at your disposal. You had teams of lawyers. You had total subpoena power. You used campaign officials as witnesses.
You subpoenaed, you know, millions of documents. You had civilian witnesses. You had political leaders. You had campaign officials that worked with the president, folks who were in the room. And after all of this, sir, you charged a conspiracy and notably absent.
There was no insurrection charge. There was no seditious conspiracy charged, and there was only one defendant. Correct? Donald Trump.
Speaker 22
Despite six co-conspirators identified in the indictment, only one person was charged. Is that correct? Yes. Despite there being an unprecedented criminal scheme, you did not find it necessary to charge anybody else who was, admittedly, by your own evidence, involved in a criminal conspiracy that amounted to an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.
Speaker 4
Yes. At the time of the conclusion of our work, my lawyers had determined, had believed that we did have proof to charge other people. I was in the process of making that determination when our work was concluded. But you are correct that the only person charged in this case was Donald Trump, who, in my estimation, was the person most culpable for the crimes charged.
Speaker 22
Well, I understand your position, sir. But, again, you started at the very top and only charged the top conspirator in your opinion. You didn't charge anybody under him. Correct?
Speaker 22
Despite that charge requiring it, you would agree that a criminal conspiracy federally is a criminal agreement. Correct? Yes. So by extension, people under your theory, people besides the president, were involved in the unprecedented assault on American democracy, but you didn't find it necessary to charge them criminally.
Speaker 22
You didn't decide not to charge anybody but Donald Trump in that indictment.
Speaker 4
Consistent with the federal principles of prosecution, which emphasize the degree of someone's culpability in making a charging decision, Donald Trump is the person that was.
Speaker 22
I understand that. I understand your position, but you made the decision to charge one person and no one else. Correct?
Speaker 22
In regards to the, the way that the case handled from there, sir, I just wanna get this on the record. In regards to your press conference, politics played no role. Correct?
Speaker 22
The expedited trial date played no role. Politics played no role. Correct?
Speaker 22
And even you were briefed that the court found atypical politics played no role.
Speaker 1
The gentleman has expired. The general lady from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Speaker 25
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Smith, for being here today. I believe it's important for the American people to finally hear from you directly about your investigations that you and your office conducted with integrity, following the facts and the law without fear or favor, as is department policy. And as people do hear from you, I think they're going to better understand why the White House and congressional Republicans are trying to rewrite history and seeking to discredit you and your investigation, so that they can help the president avoid accountability for his crimes against the American people. So I'd like to move on from some of these baseless conspiracy theories we've been hearing, and focus on your actual work as special counsel.
In volume one of your report, you concluded that when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed. He resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. Chief among those criminal efforts was Mister Trump's dissemination of demonstrably and often obviously false claims of election fraud in key states, claims that Donald Trump himself knew weren't true. In order to pressure officials to ignore vote tallies and submit fraudulent certificates of fake electors to Congress, he repeated these false claims and ultimately used them to direct an angry mob to attack the Capitol. So I represent Southeastern Pennsylvania, which was one of the states targeted by Mr. Trump's criminal efforts.
So, being mindful of the clock, I wanted to try to explore three topics. First, the evidence that Trump made false claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania, knowing they were false. Second, the evidence concerning the submission of fake elector certificates from Pennsylvania to Congress. And third, why the evidence and witnesses concerning Trump's efforts in Pennsylvania were so compelling. So first up, in your report and deposition, you detailed the overwhelming evidence that Trump had lost Pennsylvania, and he knew it.
Despite this, he and his coconspirators continue to make false statements about the result to advance their criminal plan. Can you describe the evidence that these were false claims and that they knew they were false, including statements by election officials, court cases, and conversations between Trump and his Republican allies in the state?
Speaker 4
What springs to mind most immediately is I recall one particular claim, that there were more votes than ballots that had been sent out. This was a claim that was obviously false because many, even in the campaign, knew that the reason for that discrepancy is we were talking about two different elections. One was the primary, and one was the general election. My team interviewed Rudy Giuliani regarding that claim, and he admitted it was wrong. He admitted flat out that was a mistake.
And so that's one of several. With respect to witnesses. Mhmm. In Pennsylvania, what springs to mind is the chair of the Republican Party, I believe, in Pennsylvania. This is relatively early, shortly after the election, had informed Donald Trump that his, the idea that fraud was the reason was not accurate. It was because of the counting of mail-in ballots, which was totally normal in this process.
And, again, this is someone who is a Republican who supported Donald Trump, wanted him to win. I submit he would have been a credible witness at trial.
Speaker 25
And, I mean, a second part of this, in addition to making false claims about election results that they knew were false, and your deposition and report go into this in some detail. There was also this fraudulent elector plan where Trump and his coconspirators solicited folks who had been planning to be Trump electors if he won and asked them to submit fake certificates to congress. And I think what you found was pretty remarkable, including a former congressman who told the co-conspirators that this was illegal and it was an attempt to overturn the government. Is that right?
Speaker 4
That's correct. That particular elector who was signed up to be a legitimate elector had Donald Trump, in fact, won the election, was a former US attorney and former member of this congress.
Speaker 25
I mean, the bottom line is that despite the facts and over objections from his allies, Trump still went to the Ellipse on January 6 and lied about Pennsylvania's votes to direct his angry mob to attack the Capitol. So I just wanna thank you for your work and your years of service to the country, and I would invite everyone to read your deposition and to read the report, because it tells a very different story than what our colleagues do.
Speaker 11
Mister chairman, I have, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a speech by former vice president Pence published on C-SPAN, in June '23, in what he calls the president's comments on January 6 reckless. President Trump was wrong then. He's wrong now. Anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president, and anyone who has someone else put them over the constitution should never be president.
Speaker 1
Objection. And I, the gentleman from Virginia, is recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 27
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, you've said several times in your deposition that you believe that the facts and the law, your interpretation of the law, would lead to a conviction of President Trump. Is that correct? Yes. And did you believe that same thing, that your interpretation of the law, your reading of the law, have resulted in the conviction when you went after Virginia governor Bob McDonald back in 2014?
Did you believe it at the time?
Speaker 27
A conviction in lower court, but that was overturned by the Supreme Court. Correct?
Speaker 4
Yes. The Supreme Court changed the law on what constituted an official act, and resolved that the conviction was overturned.
Speaker 27
That's incorrect. They applied the law, and they said in their ruling, our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferrari's Rolexes and ball gowns. It's instead with the broader legal implications of the government's boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. A more limited interpretation of the term official act leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption while comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this court. They accused you of using a boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.
Now did you believe when you went after John Edwards that your interpretation of the facts and the law was correct and that you would convict John Edwards of corruption? Yes. But, in fact, that case resulted in a jury deadlock on five charges and acquittal on another charge. Is that correct?
Speaker 27
Let's move on to the court's interpretation of your gag order requests. Mister Smith, America was founded on the principle that the government doesn't silence political speech, in particular, speech before it happens. You sought a prior restraint against President Trump without a single violation of pretrial release. In fact, there was no real-world harm that you could articulate justified giving the federal government the power to silence him as a presidential candidate. Was there?
Speaker 4
The court granted those motions and found that the prosecutor did not have to wait until someone was harmed to make such a motion.
Speaker 27
Actually, the request was rejected, when the case was actually when you actually were not able to, it was restricted. Correct? The gag order was restricted. Correct?
Speaker 4
Well, we filed for an order in the district court. The district court granted an order. This, President Trump appealed that order. The court of appeals absolutely agreed that there was a basis, and that the threats to witnesses that came from the targeting by Donald Trump were real, and that we had a duty to protect them. You are correct in that the court of appeals narrowed the order so the order covered witnesses, court staff, the judge, and my staff.
The difference was that it didn't cover me anymore, which I was fine with.
Speaker 27
Did you have any evidence that President Trump's statements about the cases against him intimidated witnesses or prevented them from coming forward?
Speaker 4
I had evidence that he said, if you come after me, I'm coming after you. He asked, he suggested a witness should be put to death. The courts found that those sort of statements not only deter witnesses who've come forward, they deter witnesses who have yet to come forward.
Speaker 27
But you weren't able to identify a single witness who didn't come forward because they were intimidated by President Trump.
Speaker 4
We had extremely thorough evidence that his statements were having an effect on the proceedings, that is not permitted in any court of law in the United States.
Speaker 27
Don't you think it's a pretty low bar to clear if you're trying to silence a candidate for president? I mean, if you can't identify a single witness who's intimidated, maybe you should reconsider the gag order.
Speaker 4
Both courts upheld the orders, and it is not incumbent on a prosecutor to wait until someone gets killed before they move for an order to protect the proceedings.
Speaker 27
Did anyone on your team raise concerns that this expansive gag order you were seeking would infringe on President Trump's First Amendment rights?
Speaker 4
My recollection is that we, of course, discussed First Amendment issues regarding this application because I and my staff respect the First Amendment. But the First Amendment does not allow one to make statements that interfere with the administration of justice in a judicial proceeding. My interpretation was supported and agreed upon by the district court and the court of appeals, in terms of the phenomena of the statements being made targeting individuals causing threats to happen to them. I would also add, sir, that in the days after, Donald Trump made some of these statements, the district court, in this case, received vile threats, threats to the district court's life. In that environment, I felt a duty as a prosecutor to make that motion, and I make no apologies.
Speaker 1
Gentlemen, yields back. I should have mentioned this a little earlier. Mister Smith, if you ever need a break, if you need a restroom break, you or your counsel can just let us know. I think it's now the gentleman from Colorado gets 5 minutes.
Speaker 1
Five ten-minute recess, then we'll be right back at it. Hey. The committee will be in order.
Speaker 1
Committee will be in order. Trees be flat way. With the members of the audience, members of the audience will please sit down or remove themselves from the committee room. Sit down, please. Had to call him in.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Officer Fanon. Mister chairman, please control the deranged observer, Mister Rakelin, so he doesn't create any other problems with us today.
Speaker 1
Committee will come to order. Mister chairman. Witness will go ahead and take the stand. We want to make sure the Capitol Police remains in the room just in case we have any other concerns. So you see the request with General Lady from Washington is recognized.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a unanimous consent request. General Lady is recognized. This is an order of the DC Circuit dated 12/08/2023 in which the court recognizes that Donald Trump's statements about the judge and his case have led to threats against the judge, where callers labeled the judge and clerk, quote, Nazis, dirty Jews, and child molesters, and represent, quote, Mister Trump's documented pattern of speech and its demonstrated real time, real world consequences. It was a significant and imminent threat to the functioning of the criminal trial process in this case.
Objection.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Mister Smith, thank you for being here. Thank you for your service to our country. My colleague from Virginia, who's a Republican colleague who is questioning you right before the break. Do you know what he said in the days after January 6? Let me share this with you.
This is a quote of his from a press release on January 8. Congress stands united in our rejection of the violence that occurred this week, and I'll continue to urge the swift prosecution of those involved to the fullest extent of the law. Mister Smith, this is the theater. Republicans are trying to rewrite history. That's what this is.
Many of them were with us in the House chamber on January 6. I remember it well. The chairman was there, as was I. There's been a lot of discussion about witnesses today. Perhaps the chairman could muster the courage to call the four witnesses who, I see, the American public may not see.
I see standing behind you, Mister Smith, the four police officers who risked everything, life and limb, to do what? To protect the Republican members on the dais. It's an outrage that they now sit here and have the audacity to try to rewrite history in front of the very officers who sacrificed everything to protect them. Mister Smith, you're, of course, aware that president Trump was impeached for his conduct connected to January 6. Right?
Speaker 3
Do you know how many members of Congress voted to impeach him? I don't recall. 232. Do you know how many Republican members of Congress voted to impeach him?
Speaker 3
10 Republican members of Congress voted to impeach him for his conduct related to January 6, including at the time the sitting Republican chairwoman of their conference. There was a trial in the United States Senate. Senators sat as jurors. I remember it well because I was one of the prosecutors who prosecuted that case. Do you know how many senators voted to convict President Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors during that trial, Mister Smith?
Speaker 3
Seven Republican United States senators voted to convict President Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was the most bipartisan vote for conviction of a president in the history of the Republic. So they can engage in as much histrionics as they want to try to rewrite history, but the facts are facts. They talk about weaponization. They accuse you of weaponization of the justice system.
While the Federal Reserve board chairman sinks the alarm about political retaliation by this Department of Justice. Mister Smith, I don't know if you're aware of this. I don't know if your counsel has made you aware that President Trump is live tweeting, live, I guess, call it truth socialing, as we speak. Are you aware of this, about this hearing? No.
Let me read to you what he posted an hour and a half ago. Deranged Jack Smith is being decimated before Congress. It was over when they discussed his past failures and unfair prosecution. He destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy. Jack Smith is a deranged animal who shouldn't be allowed to practice law.
If you're a republican, his license would be taken away from him, and far worse. Hopefully, the attorney general is looking at what he's done. We have a word for this. It's called weaponization. It's called corruption.
Mister Smith, if you care to respond, I'll give you an opportunity. But I will simply say, we are grateful for your service to this country. We appreciate your fidelity to the rule of law, and I would echo the comments that have been made by my democratic colleagues to ignore the noise that you hear from so many of my colleagues who would debase themselves in this way. It is, in my view, subversive of the oaths that we took to defend the constitution. I'm happy to give you an opportunity, Mr. Smith, if you'd like to respond.
Speaker 1
I yield back. Gentlemen, yields back. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
Speaker 29
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 2010, mister Smith, did you work for the president, President Obama's Department of
Speaker 29
During that time, did you have any contact or connection with Lois Lerner at the Obama IRS?
Speaker 4
Yes. I was new to the public integrity section. I was the chief. I was trying to learn about issues I had not been at. Did you attempt to work with Lois Lerner?
Speaker 4
What I did was I asked for a meeting with the IRS about nonprofits. So the simple answer is yes. Well, I didn't ask to work with Miss Lerner. They sent Miss Lerner. That's the person who came to this meeting.
I met her once.
Speaker 29
And they went after Second Amendment groups. Correct? If you remember correctly, that was, that's what was the offshoot of it, that Second Amendment groups that tried to gain nonprofit status, they were slow rolled through the IRS. Do you recall that?
Speaker 4
Separate from this, there was an investigation that I was a part of public integrity.
Speaker 29
Did you prosecute Virginia governor Bob McDonald. This was asked earlier. You prosecuted him. Correct?
Speaker 29
And that ended up with that decision ended up being unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court. Correct?
Speaker 29
Yeah. You also prosecuted John Edwards and Bob Menendez, and both ended in mistrials. Is that right?
Speaker 4
The John Edwards case did the Menendez case. I had left the public integrity section by the time that case was tried. I wasn't.
Speaker 29
So, mister chairman, what we heard from the other side here is that this gentleman is the gold standard for prosecution in The United States. So think about it. We had a witch hunt done by the IRS going after second amendment groups, unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court, prosecuted two prominent political figures, and they ended up as mistrials. That's the gold standard here in America. I would just say this, Mr. Chairman.
If Mister Smith ever works for the Department of Justice again, I would recommend a remedial course on the First Amendment to the Constitution. Before I yield the rest of my time, Mister Smith, I just have one other question. Is there any historical precedent for an alternate slate of electors to be sent to Congress? Has that ever happened before?
Speaker 4
That had happened. Not anything similar to this situation, but you're correct. It was in Hawaii, I think it was Hawaii in, I wanna say, the 1960 election.
Speaker 29
So it has happened before that there was an alternate slate of electors that was sent to Congress, which does the electoral count. Correct?
Speaker 4
There was a prior time that an electoral slate was sent, where there was litigation and recounts going on.
Speaker 29
Actually, there's twice that had happened, mister chairman. It happened in 1876 and 1960 that these alternate electors happened. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to introduce the 1960 Hawaii case. Object. With that, I yield to the chairman.
Speaker 1
I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The gentleman from Colorado talked about noise from this side. It's not noise. It's a fact. The fact is you approved a $20,000 payment to a confidential human source.
And I think you said earlier the reason this individual or entity or person was paid was to review photo and video evidence. Why'd they have to be confidential? Why didn't you just contract with them?
Speaker 4
My understanding is that this person was a confidential human source with the FBI. I do not know why they were confidential, but it would make sense to me, given that this person was assisted.
Speaker 1
Confidential just raises the question of what were you trying to hide? Why not tell us? We know you hid the fact that you were getting phone records from members of Congress. We wanna know why this payment had to be hidden. Why couldn't you just contract, which would be the customary, normal way I think of doing it?
Speaker 4
I did not make the determination that this source would be confidential. But given that this person was working on an investigation involving attacks on the capital, and given the violence in that, it makes complete sense to me that this the bureau.
Speaker 1
Would probably special councils who approved payments to con like, I don't remember Robert Mueller approving payments to confidential human sources. I don't remember Durham. I don't remember her. We brought all those guys in front of the committee. It's the first time I've ever heard of the special counsel having to pay secret money to someone to get information, when you had the broadest subpoena power you could possibly have.
You aware of any of the other special councils who had to do this?
Speaker 4
I am not aware whether confidential sources were or were not used in those.
Speaker 4
I'm not aware one way or the other. I can say that the use of confidential human sources is a standard thing done by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Speaker 1
The time of the gentleman from Wisconsin has expired. I now yield to the gentlelady from Georgia for five minutes, Miss Macbath.
Speaker 30
Thank you, chairman. And, mister Smith, thank you for appearing today to speak publicly about the major issues that you handled as special counsel. Your work on election interference in my home state is especially important, as Georgia still today remains ground zero for voting rights. My state has a long history of voter suppression, including violent tactics and legislation that has actively disenfranchised our voters. In fact, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Georgia in 2023, challenging recently passed voter suppression legislation.
That lawsuit was later withdrawn by Donald Trump's attorney general Parnabindhi. But this is not the first time that Donald Trump has encouraged voter suppression. In the 2020 presidential election, which many have accepted that he lost, he pressured his party members to overturn a legal election. Thankfully, several public servants upheld our constitutional process and respected the voice of the people. Your investigation revealed how far he is willing to go.
In your final report, you wrote that, and I'm quoting, the through line of all Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit, knowingly false claims of fraud. Mister Smith, what did your investigation reveal about President Trump's interactions with Georgia's officials regarding his fraud claims?
Speaker 4
As I sit here now, I can recall two specific officials. The first was the secretary of state, who was a fellow Republican. My understanding, he voted for and supported Donald Trump in the election, but told Donald Trump in a conversation that was recorded in no uncertain terms the results of the election and debunked many of the fraud claims that Donald Trump had to him in real time. In addition to that, I recall that Donald Trump also spoke firsthand with the attorney general of your state, also a Republican, who informed Donald Trump that he had supported him and voted for him twice in the past. He also told Donald Trump he did not see outcome determined a fraud in that state.
Speaker 30
I have an audio from a phone call between Trump and the Georgia secretary of state regarding the 2020 election. Could you please play the audio?
Speaker 14
We're angry. The people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated.
Speaker 28
Well, mister president, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.
Speaker 14
So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.
Speaker 30
Mister Smith, you explained in your deposition that Georgia's secretary of state was one of the witnesses who disabused President Trump's false claims. How did Georgia's secretary of state push back against Trump's efforts?
Speaker 4
I think my recollection is in this same call. President Trump repeatedly raised fraud claims, and the secretary of state repeatedly explained not only that they weren't true, but I believe my recollection is in several instances explained why they weren't true. And I believe that call ended, my recollection is it ended, with president Trump, in essence, threatening the secretary of state that he might be a target for criminal prosecution if he didn't do what president Trump wanted him to do.
Speaker 30
So, see, that raises a very critical point. President Trump didn't just spread lies about the election. In your words, and I'm quoting, he preyed on, end quote, Republican officials in Georgia and other states who he believed would help him. Mister Smith, Donald Trump thought these officials would break the law out of party loyalty. And when those officials, his own political allies, told him the truth, he dismissed them and continued to spread the lies anyway.
Is that correct?
Speaker 30
Mister Smith, if your case had gone to trial, would the evidence from Georgia have helped prove that President Trump knowingly engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election?
Speaker 4
Yes. After an investigation, following the facts and the law, we believed we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt to prove those charges.
Speaker 30
And in your deposition, you mentioned a fake elector witness in Georgia who you thought would have been a very powerful witness at trial. Can you tell us a little bit more about that in a very limited amount of time?
Speaker 4
Sure. It was a witness who had been made to understand that his electoral vote, his alternative electoral vote, would only be used if they won in court, if they won in litigation. That didn't happen, and President Trump and his coconspirators tried to use those alternative fake elector certificates to get Mike Pence.
Speaker 30
Okay. Well, mister Smith, thank you so much for the work that you and your team of career prosecutors have put forth in covering this evidence. The American people need to know what happened, and they need to know how their president pressured Georgia's state officials to overturn their freedom. From.
Speaker 20
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. 12/06/2025, Atlanta news first. Fulton County admits to verifying 315,000 votes in 2020 without poll worker signatures. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Without objection, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona for five minutes.
Speaker 12
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, isn't it true that for a federal criminal conspiracy charge, it requires more than one individual? In other words, you're making a contractual agreement of some kind with somebody other than yourself. Right?
Speaker 12
And so when you made the determination to charge president Trump with conspiracy, you surely knew that you had somebody else that he must have agreed upon somewhere to engage in this act that generated the conspiracy. Right?
Speaker 4
That's correct. We alleged specific individuals in the indictment as co-conspirators.
Speaker 12
And so when you knew who you were gonna charge when you pursued the indictment. You had the, you knew who the agreeing parties were, but you chose to list them as coconspirators, but you didn't indict them. How often have you done that in the past?
Speaker 4
In the past, I have had a number of cases where I have charged some members of a conspiracy.
Speaker 12
One member of the conspiracy. How many times have you done that? Charge someone member of the conspiracy and let everybody else off the hook?
Speaker 12
So okay. I dispute that, but we're gonna leave that as it may. But let's just get to this. If a member of Congress moves to decertify a state's electors, that would not be a crime, would it?
Speaker 12
You make a motion to decertify on that January 6. That way, every four years. That's not a crime. Right?
Speaker 12
And if another elected official urged someone to join them in that decertification, that's not a crime either. Right?
Speaker 12
Several members of congress get together over breakfast. They say, this is the normal path. We watched it because we saw the Democrats do it for every Republican president. So we, I'm not sure how to do it. We've never done it before.
That's not a crime to sit down at breakfast, to talk about that, or any other time together to talk about decertification, is it?
Speaker 12
In your deposition, you talked about, you made the argument that an elected official who's been deemed to have lost could not knowingly make false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government operation. Isn't that true? That's what you said in your deposition, page 27.
Speaker 12
I'm sorry. Yeah. Lawful government function. That's what you said. You remember saying that?
Speaker 4
I said lawful government function. Could you read back what you said again? I'm sorry.
Speaker 12
Yeah. An elected official has been deemed to have lost, could not knowingly make false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. You said that would be illegal. Remember that page with you? Do you want me to actually read this back?
Surely, you remember that position.
Speaker 4
I'm not denying it, and I apologize. I'm just trying to listen to you closely.
Speaker 12
Okay. Let's just go right from this. There you said there's, as we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. Right?
Speaker 12
What you said is he was not free to do was violate federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function.
Speaker 12
Yeah. And for you, that lawful government function is the certification process, I suppose, on January 6.
Speaker 4
Well, it's slightly broader than that. It's the collecting, counting, and certifying of the votes. Our view of the evidence is that it begins from the point of time that the electors are certified through the counting of the votes. So that would be.
Speaker 4
My recollection as it's pled in the indictment, as I sit here, I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it's from December 14. I think that was the day of the voting. Okay. So you can't recall, but
Speaker 12
If for you, it's from the certification moving forward to the sort of actual ratification of the certification process on inaugural day.
Speaker 12
So you've managed to filibuster right out of this thing, but your beef was you said that president Trump engendered a level of distrust. You said he made false statements to state legislators, to his supporters of all sorts. And somehow you discerned that his supporters were angry and that that was somehow related to a criminal offense. I find that absolutely weak. I think it's misdirected.
And.
Speaker 31
Mister Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. Axios dated 08/02/2023. Bar says Trump's First Amendment argument in January 6 case is not valid.
Speaker 1
Objection. Did you have one? No. Okay. General Lady from North Carolina is recognized.
Speaker 32
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, many of us were here on January 6, and directly experienced what happened. Yet some of my colleagues across the aisle still insist that Trump had no role in the violence. In videos of the raging battle against our brave Capitol police officers, many rioters were screaming things like, we were invited here by the president. Mister Smith, did your investigation uncover evidence that some of the rioters had gone to the capital because they really believed the president had invited them there?
Speaker 4
There were, I believe, there's video of rioters saying, in fact, that, as we plead in the indictment, the knowing lies Donald Trump put out in the weeks leading up to that led to a level of distrust, and he ultimately knew that the crowd at the Capitol or at the ellipse, I should say, was angry before he told them to march toward the Capitol.
Speaker 32
And we've seen report after report of rioters who have said that if Donald Trump had not convinced them that the election had been stolen, they might not have even come to Washington. I'm gonna share some quotes from some of those rioters. I believed I was following up on the instructions of former president Trump, one rioter said about going to the Capitol. I marched to the US Capitol because President Trump said to do so, another said. He personally asked me to come that day, said another.
Can you give us a few examples of Trump's rhetoric and language that inspired people to go to the Capitol, believing that they were going on the president's direct order?
Speaker 4
One instance I can recall is during the speech he gave to his supporters, and in context, his supporters, he told them to come to Washington DC and be wild. He was on notice that they were angry, and he told that crowd, we can't let this happen. And he told them that my recollection is multiple times at a time when there was nothing that could be done to stop the outcome of the election but to obstruct it. In addition to that, he told them when there is fraud, you can go by different rules. And my recollection is there is a videotape of when he's making these sort of statements and he's saying that they need to fight if they want to save their country, there are, in fact, people in the crowd chanting fight for Trump.
That all happened during the lip speech before people headed towards the capital, and the capital was attacked.
Speaker 32
And did your investigation find any of the rioters trying to use Trump's words and calls to action as a defense in the criminal cases against them? I can read you something from the special counsel report.
Speaker 4
Just gonna say, I think we cited a number of rioters who ultimately admitted that they had committed their crimes at the behest and in the name of Donald Trump. Okay.
Speaker 32
And it happened several times, and many of those accounts are on page 86 and page 87 of the special counsel report. Even the lawyer for Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon shaman, highlighted how the words affected his client. He was heard the words of the president. He believed them. He genuinely believed them, he thought that the president was actually going to walk with them to the capital.
For my final question, Mister Smith, do you believe that Donald Trump motivated and was responsible for the violence that occurred on that day, even if he didn't walk with them to the capital?
Speaker 4
Yes. As we stated in our report, the results of our investigation following the facts and following the law was that he was the person most responsible for what happened at the capital and that he caused what would happen at the Capitol and that it was foreseeable to him.
Speaker 32
I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record a tweet from Representative Biggs on 01/07/2021 in which he said, quote, yesterday, criminal rioters hijacked a joint session of Congress. Objection. No objection. And, the second one is a unanimous consent to enter into their record an interview from March 2024 on the Capitol Hill show in which you called on those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 to be, quote, held accountable because, quote, that's the way our system does work and should work.
Speaker 28
Thank you, chairman. Mister Smith, how many members of Congress or the Senate did you subpoena phone toll records from?
Speaker 28
Is this the complete list right here? Let me ask you this. Am I on this list? Did you target my records and subpoena my phone toll records?
Speaker 4
My understanding is your records were subpoenaed by prosecutors before I became special counsel.
Speaker 28
Well, the staff will put this up on the screen. Thankful for the great staff who discovered the email where I learned for the first time, a few weeks ago, that my phone records were indeed targeted. We called AT and T, and we've learned that they were given to the Department of Justice, as this email indicates, because I've been in communication with Scott Perry, one of my colleagues here in Congress, who literally had his phone taken from him in front of his family. And, of course, we've already talked about it in this document. It talks about you could be in violation of the privilege by even obtaining and possessing this information if the member objected to the disclosure.
This happened four years ago, in May 2022, and I couldn't object because I didn't know. I didn't know until about 3 weeks ago. My question here is, was there any limits to your investigation or the investigation that preceded you, Mr. Smith? Because as egregious a violation of separation of powers this is, as an egregious and abusive power it is, it's far more concerning you are clearly targeting American citizens for merely being conservative or supporting the president. We've got memos that we've already been talking about in this hearing from April 2022 that preceded you, that established and opened the investigations, one of which has Attorney General Merrick Garland's signature on it.
And the focus was on the electors. Now that was six months before you were appointed. You testified earlier. You met and interviewed Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, and you briefed the AG and deputy multiple times. Did you brief them on the electors and the prosecution of their supposed crimes?
Speaker 4
I don't recall specific conversations, but I'm sure that in the course of briefing them, I discussed
Speaker 28
That the purpose of the entire investigation, as it was set out? Because putting aside that in 1960, we already talked about my friend Mister Tiffany that Hawaii put forward an alternate slate of electors. The investigation pivoted to President Trump and, frankly, anybody who knew him. Do you know who Cleta Mitchell is?
Speaker 28
She's an election lawyer that was involved in filing an election contest on behalf of President Trump in Georgia in December 2020. A 64-page complaint with over 1,100 pages of exhibits, witness affidavits, expert witness reports documenting thousands of votes cast in violation of Georgia law, but which were nevertheless included in the vote totals. Now notwithstanding the disposition of the cases that was filed, is that a criminal act filing an election contest on behalf of a candidate for office, a client? Is that a criminal act? Yes or no?
Speaker 28
Why did you deem it appropriate to monitor Cleda Mitchell's long distance phone records in 2023, two and a half years after the election context was filed and after the presidential electors were certified? What about Jen Ellis? What about Sidney Powell? What about Bill Sepian? What crime did you suspect had been committed by them that would warrant monitoring their phone records two and a half years after the 2020, the 2020 election was certified?
Speaker 4
With respect to Sydney Powell, she is one of the co-conspirators alleged in the indictment. I don't know what you mean by monitoring, sir, if you're
Speaker 28
Well, there were some 400 plus Republican conservative groups and leaders who were targeted by your investigation. Their financial records were obtained. Records of the RNC, the Trump campaign, Cletum Mitchell, the Conservative Partnership Institute, the America First League Policy Institute, NRCC, NRSC, PACs, conservative groups, people all across the country, citizens. Because we hear a lot about members of Congress, and we should, because of separation of powers and the egregious abuse of power. But what we're not talking about enough, in my opinion, are the American citizens who have been targeted.
Because, frankly, are there any limits to the power of a special prosecutor or special counsel? So much so in your abuse of power that in 2024, the indictment involving classified documents was dismissed after determining your appointment violated the appointments clause of the constitution, but you continue to sign your name on court filings until the time you resigned from office in January 2025. A federal judge has recently stated a prosecutor who continues to sign his name in court filings after a disqualification order should face disciplinary action or disbarment. I yield back. Gentleman yields back.
Speaker 4
With respect to the last point, Judge Cannon's order specifically limited her finding to that proceeding. So there would be nothing improper about continuing to litigate the cases in Washington, the case in Washington DC. And with respect to Florida, there was nothing improper about taking an appeal of that very decision.
Speaker 33
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mister Smith, I wanna discuss volume two of your report, which summarizes the findings of your investigation into President Trump's hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his efforts to obstruct the FBI's investigation. Mister Smith, is it generally the practice for a special counsel's report to be made public to the American people?
Speaker 4
I wanna say first, I'm limited in what I can say about volume two because Understand. Judge Cannon's order. I can say generally that with respect to special counsels, there are regulations that direct a special counsel to draft a report. Whether that report becomes public is determined. The attorney general has the authority to determine that.
Speaker 33
To the best of your knowledge, was special counsel Mueller's report made public in full?
Speaker 4
My recollection is his report was made public in full. I believe that's correct.
Speaker 33
Okay. Now I understand that the district judge, Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who oversaw the case in Florida, issued a gag order that prevents you from discussing any parts of the classified documents investigation that are not already public. I understand that, including your findings that you laid out in volume two of the report. Am I correct that the reason your report is not available in full to the public is because of this gag order?
Speaker 4
I wrote a report. The attorney general, it was submitted to him. I understand generally that there's been litigation about whether this report would be public or not. I have not been a party to that litigation. I just know that there is an order, and I know the Department of Justice, the current Department of Justice, has interpreted that order in a way that I cannot speak about anything that could possibly be in that report, in its findings.
Speaker 33
And when judge Cannon issued that gag order, she cited pending cases against Trump's codefendants. Is that correct?
Speaker 33
When Judge Cannon issued the gag order, she cited pending cases against Trump's codefendants. Is that correct?
Speaker 33
Are those cases still pending? No. They're not. No. They're not.
So there is no reason from where I sit for this important information to not be made public. At this point, I wanna turn now to President Trump's attacks on you. Trump has a playbook for how he handles people who try to hold him accountable. In August 2023, right after your office indicted him, President Trump shared that playbook on social media for everyone to see. He wrote, if you go after me, I'm coming for you.
Trump has said that you, Mr. Smith, should be investigated and put in prison. He called you a disgrace to humanity, a radical left Marxist, a criminal. In fact, Trump has used the words deranged Jack Smith 185 times on Truth Social. How do you think that these statements have impacted you, your staff, and your investigation?
Speaker 4
With respect to me, I think the reports. I'm sorry. The statements are meant to intimidate me. I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others about what will happen if they stand up. And I am, as I say, I'm not gonna be intimidated.
We did our work pursuant to the department policy. We followed the facts, and we followed the law. And that process resulted in proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed serious crimes. I'm not gonna pretend that didn't happen, because he's threatening me.
Speaker 33
And, mister Smith, do you believe that president Trump's Department of Justice will find some way to indict you?
Speaker 4
I believe they will do everything in their power to do that, because they've been ordered to by the president.
Speaker 33
That's very concerning, obviously. It's very concerning to all of us, at least on this side of the aisle. This is Trump's playbook at work. Complain loudly, gin up hatred and resentment, then express our hope that somebody will do something, but never explicitly order anyone to act. And then watch as his followers and loyalists go after their targets.
This is what happened on January 6. Trump stood at the Ellipse and gave a campaign speech to his supporters. And he said, if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore. And I think it's clear that his intimidation will stop at nothing. I wanna speak on behalf.
In closing, I wanna speak on behalf.
Speaker 33
Thank you. On behalf of the people of the state of Vermont, thank you for all of your 30 years of service to this country and to the police officers sitting here. I'm ashamed that you have not gotten your due. Time of the gentleman has expired. Back.
Gentlemen from New Jersey's rec.
Speaker 2
Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. The first is a New York Times article titled Hunting Leaks. Trump DOJ officials seized records of Democrats explaining how the Trump administration subpoenaed Apple for data from the council, at least a dozen people tied to the House Intelligence Committee in 02/17-18, including representative Swalwell and senator Adam Schiff.
Speaker 2
And the other similarly, is Trump's DOJ secretly obtained phone and text message logs of 43 congressional staffers and two members of Congress. That's 12/10/2024.
Speaker 24
Thank you, chairman. You know, I don't even know where to go because there's so much, mister Smith. There really is. But it isn't what I do know is it's much more than how much people like or hate you, or like or hate Donald Trump, or like or hate Republicans, or like or hate Democrats. This is about the system.
It's about what the Department of Justice did. It's about what you did. The core of the hearing is all about can Americans still trust the justice system? Is it fair? Was it fair on you?
And all they expect, they don't expect you to be perfect, but they expect you to treat everyone the same, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. But that wasn't the case. When you treat people differently because of their political status, their political party, their ideals, that's hypocrisy. And I'm sorry to say, and I don't say it lightly, I do consider you to be a hypocrite. With that being said, you know, I think the prosecutors and the people around you stretch norms, change standards depending on who was under investigation, so you don't like Donald Trump, and so you're a liberal Democrat, whatever the case may be.
And they went after him. And by the way, it's interesting. In all those congressional records that were subpoenaed, all those congressional records that were looked at, was one of them a Democrat? No. The answer is no.
I'll answer for you. So I got simple questions. I always say I'm a simple guy, but it really boils down to this. How much can Americans trust this system? In your special counsel report, you stated President Trump engaged and was guilty of criminal conspiracies, and he was guilty of criminal conduct, and you publicly testified you believed you had the proof, etcetera.
If prosecutors deal this way with cases, if they declare that it's guilty and it's over before a jury verdict, would Americans trust the justice system more, or would they? Would they trust the system more? The answer goes ahead. Answer, please. Answer.
Speaker 24
So when this was all going on before, and I believe it was political, before there was an entire case and we went through the whole case, you pretty much declare, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing through again, that president Trump was guilty. That wasn't your job. That's a judge's job. It's a jury's job. It's not your job.
Don't you think that's unfair, that that's wrong, that wasn't making the playing field level? Did it make people less trustworthy of the system? Yes or no?
Speaker 4
No. When I announced the charges in the election case, I specifically stated that the case needed to be tried and that he had a right to go to trial, he was presumed in
Speaker 24
the system. And thank you, I just want a simple answer because we are limited on time. I disagree with you. I don't think you did. Your office secretly subpoenaed phone records of members of Congress, and you kept those subpoenas hidden through nondisclosure orders.
That's wrong. They should have known. You wanna do that, fine. It's wrong. Number one, it's wrong because people have a right.
The American public has a right to know. The elected officials have a right to know. It's your right to subpoena them, but they should know. Secondly, and I brought this up before, not one democrat, it's all republicans. Everything you've done, everything you've ever done, is always against Republicans.
Do you think that puts more trust in the system when you're so partisan in that way? Yes or no?
Speaker 4
No. Politics played no role in our investigation. I have prosecuted Republicans and Democrats throughout my career. I have dismissed cases against Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 24
But you didn't have proof. If prosecutors routinely rely on politically imbalanced investigations, and by this, I mean, let me appeal to your sense of fairness. You're saying you're a fair man. We had a January 6 committee, select committee, that was appointed only by a Democrat, the then speaker Nancy Pelosi. Everybody on it was a Democrat except two Republicans that hated Republicans.
Was that fair? Was that fair? I mean, look at our system here in Congress. We've got Democrats, man, they speak up. You've got Republicans, we speak up.
You hear both sides. That's the way a select committee should be, and you based everything on this biased, unfair, prejudiced system. How is that fair? Tell me how that's fair.
Speaker 4
That's not correct. We did collect their records. We conducted our own independent investigation, following the facts and the law.
Speaker 24
The reality is a lot of their information, mister Smith. I don't mean to cut you off. I've got limited time. Joe Biden took classified records that were not to be taken when he was vice president and when he was in senate. And I know you didn't deal directly with that case.
Mhmm. Mister chairman. But nevertheless, he did. Is that fair? Because he let him go.
Don't do anything to him. But on the other hand, when it's President Trump who did it as president, then there was, and you raided Mar-a-Lago. Is that fair?
Speaker 1
I'm the gentleman. Mister Jr. I'm a gentleman. I'd like him to answer. If the witness would like to respond, he can.
Speaker 11
Yes. I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the government's sentencing memorandum for capital rioter Cody Mattis, who said that, quote, when the former president asked his supporters to march on the capital, it was not a call to peacefully and patriotically make your
Speaker 2
This is a press release from Congressman Jeff Van Drew's statement on storming the Capitol Building, calling it unacceptable, un-American, and disrespectful of democracy.
Speaker 34
Thank you, chairman, and thank you, Mr. Smith, for being here today. Let's remember why we're here today. Donald Trump incited an insurrection in 2020 because he refused to accept that he lost the election. And when he took classified documents with him and put them in Mar A Lago. Republicans support impunity for criminals, not accountability.
There's no clearer example than that of the blanket pardon of nearly 1,600 insurrectionists on day one of this disgraceful presidency. Trump pardoned people convicted of seditious conspiracy who brutalized police officers. There are four of them who can testify to that here, and who wanted to kill Vice President Pence. People who've committed more crimes since the insurrection: sexual assault, child molestation, aggravated kidnapping. That's who Trump pardoned, and that's whose side Republicans are on.
They may not want to, but they are because they refuse to tell the truth. Mister Smith, let me ask you something. Does pardoning violent rioters who brutalized law enforcement officers, spray peppering them, tasering them, beating them up, kicking them, smashing them in door frames, make our country safer? Absolutely not. As a prosecutor, can you describe why these pardons make our communities less safe and undermine our criminal legal system more broadly?
Speaker 4
The people who assaulted police officers and were convicted after trial, in my view, and I think in the view of the judges who sentenced them to prison, are dangerous to their community. As you've mentioned, some of these people have already committed crimes against their communities again, and I think all of us, if we're reasonable, know that there's going to be more crimes committed by these people in the future. I do not understand why you would mass-pardon people who assaulted police officers. I don't get it. I never will.
Speaker 34
That's exactly right. And none of this is a coincidence. The entire purpose of the Republican Party, unfortunately, has become to help criminals and corporate interests evade accountability. Republicans want impunity, not accountability. They want impunity for the January 6 people, for the classified documents case, for the Epstein files, for billionaires and big corporations, and for terror that DHS is sowing on our streets.
The Gestapo tactics by ICE and CBP are the obvious result of President Trump and the Republican Party that protect anyone who helps them turn our country into an authoritarian gangster state. Whether it's storming the capital to overthrow an election or murdering people in broad daylight, Republicans will back you if you back their political mafia and racketeering operation. That's why Democrats must fight for accountability through oversight, through legislation, evidence collection, and through prosecution for the openly criminal acts that we're seeing in our communities every day. Democracy doesn't exist without accountability, but you gotta have a spine. I thank you, Mr. Smith, for doing your part.
Our community, our fight continues for accountability, not for impunity. Thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 9
Mister Smith, I just wanna take a minute and allow you to explain why you requested the toll records of those officials for January 6.
Speaker 4
Well, with regard to the toll records that were subpoenaed regarding the period of the fourth, I think it was to the seventh, we had evidence that the president had directed Rudy Giuliani, one of his co-conspirators, to contact members of Congress, to try to further delay the proceedings and exploit the violence that happened in the capital. We had evidence that those calls had happened. We wanted to get more evidence of that to corroborate it for the trial. That is, again, as I've mentioned earlier today, a standard part of an investigation to understand who a conspiracy is trying to reach out to, how they're trying to influence people.
Speaker 1
I feel bad. The gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Texas, Mister Nells, is recognized.
Speaker 35
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, I'll just cut right to the chase here. Your investigation and attempted prosecution of President Trump, it wasn't about justice. It was about politics. Politics.
From day one, under the Biden-Harris DOJ, you weaponized the law to go after their top political opponent. You push flawed legal theories, and even the far-left Washington polls called you out. They called you out, sir, for violating the First Amendment. You tried to criminalize political speech, slap unlawful gag orders on a presidential candidate, and spy on Republican members of Congress in violation of the speech or debate clause, including the sitting Speaker of the House. Mister Smith, you mishandled documents, pressured defense lawyers, and dumped a massive trove of so-called evidence right before the election, and you did it.
You did it to sway voters. That's why you did it. And don't get me started on that raid at Mar-a-Lago or your unconstitutional appointment, which a federal judge in Florida rightly tossed out. A very bad day for you. This wasn't, Mister Smith, about upholding the law. It was about tearing down president Trump and anyone close to him.
You even tried to ram through a politically motivated final report after your cases collapsed, including the presidential transition act and basic fairness. But here's the good part, America. Here's the good part. The American people saw right through it. They rejected, sir, your witch hunt loud and clear in November, handing President Trump a commanding victory.
The voters spoke loud and clear. They wanted an end to the weaponization of our justice system. In your opening statement, you spoke about proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Mister Smith, I will give you proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Donald Trump winning the popular vote by over 2,000,000 votes.
The electoral college by 85 votes, along with every single swing state. Now, sir, that is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the crap you were shoveling did not pass the smell test with the American people. To put it bluntly, Mister Smith, the stink remains on you. And lastly, I would like to quickly address the police officers of January 6. Mister Don, mister Fanon, mister Gonau, mister Hodges, I'm a member of the new select committee to actually examine what happened that day.
And I can tell you, gentlemen, that the fault does not lie with Donald Trump. It lies with Yogananda Pittman and the US Capitol leadership team. We know they had the intelligence, and there was going to be a high propensity for violence that day. Claim my time. Yeah.
Speaker 1
You will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Texas. We've had some disruptions already. We don't need that. Let the gentleman may continue.
Speaker 35
We know the Capitol leadership team, specifically Yogananda Pittman, had the intelligence, and there was going to be a high propensity for violence that day. And the capital itself was the target. We knew the extremist groups were gonna be there. And why do I say that? It was zero report from your intelligence section, the IICD, which was run by Pittman in the January 3 special event section.
It was in it. It was in it. And, mister Dunn, I believe that you thought that day would be just like any other. In your testimony to the January 6 committee, you said you found out how Doug Dougie was gonna get on a cell phone. Somebody sent you some information on social media.
The point is you were all unprepared to deal with that day, and that's because your leadership failed to share the intelligence with you. It was their fault, folks. It was their fault. It was not president Trump, and we are going to expose it for the first time because Benny Thompson, the sham committee, didn't do it.
Speaker 35
Question, committee didn't do it. The report is 845 pages. Donald Trump's name is mentioned 4207 times. We know what the committee wanted to do is to not allow Donald Trump to come back and win again. And they failed miserably.
And I hope you can now see that. With that, mister chairman, I yield the balance to my distinguished colleague from Jersey.
Speaker 24
I just wanna quickly go over something, because we keep rewriting history. The president said, peacefully and patriotically.
Speaker 24
What don't we understand about peacefully and patriotically? He asked for the National Guard. That was ignored. He asked Speaker Pelosi. What don't we understand?
Speaker 2
For the general news, for the question? Are you saying Nancy Pelosi controls the National Guard? Wait a minute. The president could have won the National Guard if he wanted to.
Speaker 24
And you know that. My time. I lost some of my time. The time belongs to the.
Speaker 24
And finally, how many elected officials say we're gonna fight to win an election? Your terminology is used all the time. Seriously. And, of course, if they were guilty, they should be prosecuted. The problem was there were many in the mix.
Speaker 35
Last thing, your hand gestures, Mister Trump. No. No. That's you need meditation. Expired.
Speaker 1
The time the gentleman expired, the audience will be in order, the committee will be in order, and the gentlelady from Georgia is recognized for unanimous consent.
Speaker 30
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two unanimous consent requests to enter into the record two articles.
Speaker 30
An article dated 12/29/2025 titled Wall Street Journal editorial board calls out MAGA's latest 2020 stolen election nonsense. Objection. And the second article, an article dated 12/23/2025, titled fact check. Fulton County's 315,000 unsigned early votes are not proof of electoral fraud.
Speaker 1
No objection. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized for unanimous consent.
Speaker 34
Thank you, chairman. Under unanimous consent, I ask to enter into the record the judiciary Democrats January 2026 report titled, Where Are They Now? The perpetrators of January 6 and the defenders of democracy who stopped them, which profiles the illustrious career trajectories of some of the key actors from January 6. Okay. Were pardoned by Donald Trump. Okay.
And secondly, Objection. A second report, January 2026 report from Judiciary Democrats, one year later assessing the public safety implications of President Trump's mass pardon of 1,600 January 6 rioters in his directions.
Speaker 31
Thank you, mister Chair, and thank you, mister Smith, for joining us. You know, most people are wondering why you are even here today, but it's because we've heard conspiracy after conspiracy that the 2020 election was rigged, and Capitol police officers were harmed and died because of those conspiracies. And we have important elections coming up, and the people want them to happen, and they want them to be fair. And the one person who should be telling the truth about the elections is the president. But Donald Trump has not and is still not telling the truth about the 2020 elections.
In fact, there is a January 6 page on the taxpayer-funded White House website that says the election was stolen from Trump, a blatant, disproven lie he knows is totally false. So one of my Republican colleagues earlier brought up Trump's mind state that he knew he lost, and he knew that what he was saying was untrue, but that you had no proof. So, mister Smith, what evidence did you develop to suggest Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election?
Speaker 4
We had evidence from a variety of sources, evidence from people who were close to Donald Trump and who he relied on, people who wanted him to win the election, people who were employed by his campaign to help him win the election. Our evidence is that this was a conspiracy, and that Donald Trump specifically sought to prey on party loyalty. Our investigation involved interviewing and subpoenaing records of Republicans, because that's who Donald Trump sought to prey on to stay in office. And the reality is certain people refused to do that. The vice president refused to go along with that.
People in various states' legislatures refused to go along with that. And the reality is that if we took this case to trial, a good number of our witnesses would be Republicans. If a Democrat had committed these crimes, had done these things, I would have subpoenaed a number of Democrats. I would have subpoenaed their records.
Speaker 31
And I'm just gonna ask you about that. But correct. It's not like he was calling Nancy Pelosi. So why is it legally important to know that Trump knew he was lying when he said the election was stolen?
Speaker 4
That was part of our proof at trial, and it was relevant to the charges, specifically to the first charge to defraud The United States. It is permissible for someone to lie, but when they use speech to commit a crime, to facilitate a crime, that is not protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has been very clear on that, and this very issue was litigated in the case. The defense raised this very issue. And one thing I wanna be clear about today, the case that I investigated and the case we had, it was built to be tried in a courtroom.
Speaker 4
Our case was built to withstand the crucible of litigation, and our assessment was that we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that we would do that.
Speaker 31
So what I heard you say is that when you lie and you know you're lying, and then you act on that lie to overturn the democratic process, that that is a felony. A January actually said, if I can't trust him, then who can I trust? Exactly. You know, we cannot even trust our own president. And in fact, there are so many other things that you can say that you're not allowed to say because.
Speaker 31
A Trump-appointed judge sealed the documents, refusing to release the files yet again, which is why we could probably ask you far more questions if those were unsealed. So I know I don't have that much time. I wanna now shift to these allegations from my Republican colleagues about the collection of phone records of Republican senators. I guess some of the ones that were trying to get $500,000 of taxpayer dollars. So many of the phone records of members were requested before you were appointed special counsel.
Yes or no? Is that true? Is that accurate?
Speaker 31
And you, what do you say to those who claim you chose to target Republicans because you only collected phone records for Republicans?
Speaker 31
That's right. And so you would have requested any relevant call records necessary for your investigation of a Republican or a Democrat?
Speaker 4
That's correct. And to be clear, if a Democrat committed these acts, we would have sought those. I could just add one thing. We interviewed Rudy Giuliani in the course of this investigation, and we asked him, why did you say, why did you, in one of the voicemails he left for the senator, mention the fact that it was Republicans that you are reaching out to? And he said, because the Democrats weren't gonna help us, and even some Republicans wouldn't help us.
And so, our evidence shows repeatedly that the plan was to see if you could prey on people's party.
Speaker 1
General, lady yields back. The general lady from Wyoming is recognized for 5 minutes.
Speaker 36
Mister Smith, it was during your deposition with our committee that you revealed that you tasked your team, specifically JP Cooney, to engage with the January 6 committee. You had to have known at the time the controversy surrounding this committee, the fact that all of the members had been appointed by Nancy Pelosi, who disallowed the Republicans from being able to engage. Yet you proceeded anyway, raising numerous questions as to your strategy for conspiring with the j six committee. You had every possible resource available to you. Your prosecution of President Trump was clearly a priority for the Biden administration, and it is clear that you had an unlimited budget.
And yet you also left no stone unturned, even subpoenaing records from sitting members of the house and senate. So what information could the J6 committee possess that you and the nation's top law enforcement agency could not obtain on your own?
Speaker 36
What information did they have that you did not, you were not able to obtain on your own?
Speaker 36
Was there anything there? Did you find that they had information that you were not able to obtain?
Speaker 4
I don't recall every bit of information. What I can tell you is, we took in their information because we wanted to collect any information that could be relevant. We made our own independent assessment of the.
Speaker 36
So from the time that you were appointed as special counsel up to the date of your resignation in January 2025, did you personally have any contact with any members, staff, or contractors of the House? And if so, who?
Speaker 36
The January 6 committee failed to archive or preserve its video recordings of witness interviews, deleting or destroying as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts involving more than one full terabyte of digital data. I repeat, the 6th committee destroyed evidence. Let that sink in. Why would they do such a thing? I think we have a dang good idea.
The committee actually used selective clips from these videos and transcripts during their hearings, and yet by destroying this evidence, they have denied Congress and the public the ability to obtain their full content and context. They created their narrative by selective use of the evidence before them. So how very convenient. Did you or your team receive any of those witness transcripts or video recordings of transcribed interviews from the select committee that were not released to the public?
Speaker 4
What I can tell you is that I requested J P Cooney to contact the select committee.
Speaker 36
Do you know if you received any of the evidence or testimony that the J6 committee eventually destroyed?
Speaker 4
No. What I am telling you is that I requested all the information we could get from January 6.
Speaker 36
Of the information that you requested, has been preserved? All of the information from the J6 committee, has that been preserved?
Speaker 36
Has it been preserved? Yes. As profiled, and were you or your team advised, or did you get the impression from anyone affiliated with the January 6 committee that these documents were not for public release, even though portions of them had already been shown to the American people? Were you advised to keep any of the information from the J6 committee confidential?
Speaker 36
Did the J6 committee provide you with the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony as part of the trove of documents that you received?
Speaker 36
Well, are you familiar with her testimony, aren't you? I am. And in fact, wouldn't you agree with me that Miss Hutchinson's testimony, especially the most explosive allegations made, was comprised of hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay. Come on. You're an attorney.
Mister Smith, you can answer the question. Of course, it was hearsay.
Speaker 36
And hearsay isn't admissible in a court of law, is it? Why? Because it is inherently unreliable and the victim or the target of a prosecution is not able to cross examine. Isn't that correct? In fact, mister Smith, if you had attempted to walk into court with Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, you would have been thrown out on your ear.
No judge, no legitimate judge would have ever allowed the testimony of Cassidy Hutchins to be admitted in a court of law, would they?
Speaker 2
Can I do one UC request first? Gentleman is recognized. This is from factcheck.org. Meme rehashes old false claim that J6 committee destroyed evidence from 10/15/2024. And this is from the District of Columbia National Guard website, stating that this is the only National Guard unit in America which reports exclusively and only to the president.
Speaker 13
You, Mister Chairman. I mean, we're definitely not in a court of law today. Half this shit wouldn't come in if we were. I mean, good God. You know?
You know, I want to talk about something one of my colleagues, Mister Nell, said from Texas. He sits on this new January 6 subcommittee, which I also happen to sit on. And he said the same thing in the subcommittee the other week that it wasn't president Trump that inspired January 6. Right? It wasn't him.
He said in the subcommittee that it was actually Ray Epps. Ray Epps, he was the one who told people to break the law and the windows and the doors and to beat police officers and hang my pants and try to break it into the floor of the house and wiping feces on the walls. It was all this guy, Ray Epps. Right? So who is Ray Eps?
Why is he so powerful? So, I mean, I just did a quick, you know, Google search of Ray Epps, and his Wikipedia page says the powerful Ray Epps is a wedding planner to the oath keepers. This is the wedding planner? That's the mastermind of Jan, you couldn't, you went from Donald Trump. It wasn't Donald.
Who do well, who are we going to blame? Who could it be? How about the wedding planner to the Oath Keepers? I mean, it's just pathetic. But, you know, my colleagues love the past, Mr. Smith.
Love the past. That's why you're here before Pam Bondi. Okay? We haven't had the attorney general here. We didn't have her last year.
She's the only one in the cabinet to not come and commit a reference, but they love the past. Oh, they, you know, love talking about January 6, Hunter Biden, COVID, Barack Obama, and Hillary's emails. They love the past. These people love the past so much, they're still reenacting the civil war. Okay?
Love the past.
Speaker 13
But I hate talking about the present. But you know what? Let's talk about the past, real quick. Here are some quotes, because I heard one of my colleagues call you a hypocrite. Here are some quotes from my colleagues.
Chairman Jordan, right after January 6. Stop the violence. Support Capitol Police. Ted Cruz. Those storming the Capitol need to stop right now.
The constitution protects, but not violence. Chip Roy. Today, the people's house was attacked, which is an attack on the republic itself. Steve Scalise, United States Capitol Police, saved my life. Lindsey Graham, when it comes to accountability, the president needs to understand his actions were the problem.
Troy Nells, oh my God. Him again. I'm happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Capitol Police, Daryl Isa. The violence and turmoil we witnessed in Washington, DC was completely unacceptable. Rep McClintock, the attack on the Capitol strikes the most sacred act of our democracy.
And former speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy, whose name we heard a lot today, what did he have to say about it? Let me be clear. Last week's violent attack on the Capitol was undemocratic, un-American, and criminal. And make no mistake, those who were responsible should be brought to justice. The president bears responsibility, period.
You know, but let's talk also about, you know, the present. That's the past. Let's talk about the present. These are the guys who created the weaponization committee for the DOJ. So let's talk about the present.
Jerome Powell facing an investigation. Okay? In fact, we, you know, we heard about Jonathan Turley, that he's some legal messiah. Jonathan Turley calls the Jerome Powell thing legitimate concerns of retaliation. Lisa Cook under investigation.
Mark Kelly, United States senator, is under investigation. Adam Schiff, United States senator, is under investigation. Eric Swalwell, United States representative, under investigation. Chris Christie, potentially under investigation. Jack Smith, oh, that's you under investigation.
K? Miles Taylor, former chief of staff, United States Department of Homeland Security, under investigation. Christopher Krebs, former director of cybersecurity, is under investigation. Indicted James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton. It's weird that they indicted John Bolton but stole his foreign policy.
Accused of crimes, former president Joe Biden, former president Barack Obama, revoked or threatened with revocation of secret service protection, Kamala Harris, Hunter Biden, Ashley Biden, the daughter of president Joe Biden, Mayorkas, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, general Mark Milley, John Bolton, doctor Anthony Fauci, the guy Trump gave a medal to. Security clearance revoked. Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, Jacob Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zayed, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Andrew Weisman, Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Kamala Harris, Adam Kinzinger, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman. Miles Taylor, I could keep going. Any questions about any of that?
We know you don't.
Speaker 2
Because you have a way of synthesizing that nobody else does, Mr. Moskowitz. Listening to our colleague today, I wonder if they actually believe any of this would have happened had Donald Trump simply accepted the results of the election. You mean, like Al Gordon when he lost 5 to 4 at the Supreme Court? Yeah. Yeah.
Would any of
Speaker 2
Would the fake counterfeit slates have happened? No. None of the threats against Vice President Pence?
Speaker 13
No. None of it would have happened. And Leon Panetta would still have a security clearance. So would John Brennan show up with Michael Morell, Michael Vickers. I just I can't get them all in, mister chairman.
I can't get them. I have, like, four more pages of the weaponization of the department. Gentleman from Florida.
Speaker 1
Concern. Has expired. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. Thank.
Speaker 37
You, mister chairman. Mister Smith, when was the initial indictment issued on President Trump? 08/01/2023.
Speaker 37
Correct. And on that election case, after that, you asked for a trial date. When?
Speaker 37
Okay. So after the indictment, in August, you asked for a January trial date. That's about five months? Five months? How much evidence did you have?
Millions of pages?
Speaker 37
Your testimony, they talked about a number, 13,000,000 pages. Is that a ballpark accurate number?
Speaker 4
I think that was the question asked of me. And as I sit here, I don't have an accurate number.
Speaker 37
So let's just assume that that's true. Right? Because you had a bunch of stuff. You had $50,000,000 that you blew through the treasury on a trial that went nowhere. How many pages per day is that?
100,000? That sounds about right? What if we break that down per hour? It's 4,166. Per minute is 70 pages.
You like to read, sir? You like to read? I do. Do you read 70 pages a minute?
Speaker 37
would be remarkable. So how do you prepare for a trial in five months if you're asking the defense counsel to read 70 pages a month? How do you do that and prepare a defense, and look at all the witness testimony and video evidence that you supposedly had? How do you do that? You know what's shocking to me?
I think that one of the most egregious aspects of this case, mister Smith, is that if you get a traffic ticket in Washington DC, you're not going to trial in five months. But you want the president, the former president of the United States, to have a trial date with 13,000,000 pages of documents within five months. I think that's ridiculous. And I think that speaks exactly to what we talk about when we examine not only your record, but the things in this case that are deeply troubling. That this was not the pursuit of facts and law, and letting the judge and the jury decide.
That this was an exercise in political, it was a political hit shop, timed perfectly against the president of The United States. Sir, in the Florida case and the records case, what happened ultimately in that case?
Speaker 4
I'm gonna answer because I don't think this is covered by Judge Cannon's order of the, we move to dismiss that case pursuant to Justice Department policy.
Speaker 37
The records case in Mar-a-Lago. Were you ruled to be, what was the ruling in that?
Speaker 4
That was Judge Cannon's ruling, and she ruled my appointment unlawful. And we sought to appeal that, and that appeal was pending at the time we dismissed the cases.
Speaker 37
So from the very beginning, were you ever confirmed by the United States Senate?
Speaker 4
I have never been confirmed by the United States Senate. I will say that the history supporting my appointment is over 100 years old. Other special counsel.
Speaker 37
Isn't there a statute of limitations on my appointment? I mean, you have to be confirmed by the Senate. So I think that's kind of interesting. But I think the point is from the very beginning, on the documents case and others, you weren't even lawfully appointed, and that's why Judge Cannon ruled the way that she did. And from the beginning, we talk about you that you follow Department of Justice policy.
You followed the facts. You followed the law. You followed the constitution. That's what you have said all throughout this day, parroted by the Democrats, that you have done nothing wrong. But from the very beginning, you weren't even lawful and you can't even recall who swore you in.
So we don't, we as we sit here today, based on your testimony in the transcribed interview, can you tell us who swore you in as special prosecutor?
Speaker 4
As I said, I know I took the oath of office. I don't recall who swore me in. What I can share with you I
Speaker 37
Don't know, sir. Call me naive, but, like, that's a milestone career move for you that you get to do this, and you don't remember the circumstances. I just find that a little odd. But here's the thing, I'm gonna wrap up quick. You're unconstitutionally appointed.
You breached the sixty-day rule releasing this very partisan attack against the president right before the election. You tampered with evidence in the Mar-a-Lago case that you admitted to in court filings. You subpoenaed members of Congress and their phone records in violation of the Constitution or current statute. You didn't even let the court know that these were members of Congress. How are we to assume otherwise that this wasn't political?
Because it absolutely was, sir.
Speaker 1
And I yield back. Someone yields back. The gentleman from New York is recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 9
I would caution my friend from South Carolina and others against jumping into bed with Judge Cannon who's been rebuked repeatedly by the Eleventh Circuit because she is completely lawless. But let's go back to the actual evidence, rather than all the procedural stuff about when you were sworn in or not. I don't blame you for not remembering that. You've probably been sworn in a dozen times. It doesn't jump out at you.
I wanna go back to the evidence that Donald Trump knew that he was lying about the election. And I'd ask you to say if.
Speaker 9
Specifically, who gave evidence to you that supported your conclusion that he knew that he was lying?
Speaker 4
That came from a number of sources. It came from staff in the White House who talked to him and told him that his fraud claims were not true. It came from staff on his campaign who told him that. It came from members of the Department of Justice. It came from state officials, who, when he tried to press them to do things in contravention of their oath, they refused to.
They asked him for evidence and his coconspirators, and he never provided it. Over and over again, the people who had the best who were best situated to know how the elections were conducted in these states, he either avoided contacting them or disregarded the clear debunkings that were provided to him, such as by the Georgia secretary of state.
Speaker 9
Right. And, I mean, that's a lot of evidence, but we know that his attorney general at the time also concluded, quote, he knew well that he lost the election, Bill Barr. And yet he incited a riot on January 6, and four of the brave officers who defended the capital and defended my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are here today. Not a single Republican member of this committee has recognized them or thanked them for their service, and I would like to do so today. Thank you, gentlemen.
Now my colleague from California referred to a couple of statements from your former colleagues in Penn and the Eastern District about your impeccable reputation as an apolitical career politician. As an alum of the Southern District of New York myself, I can tell you that many of my former colleagues also feel the same, and that's saying something coming from the SDNY to the EDNY, as you know. Mister Smith, did you ever speak to President Biden about this case? Never. Did you ever receive orders or direction from President Biden or anyone else in the White House about this case?
No. Did you ever receive any direction from the attorney general Merrick Garland regarding how you should, whether or not you should charge this case?
Speaker 9
An independent special counsel. Exactly. I just wanna point out to my colleagues who seem to think this is a politicized investigation that on February 10, 2021, over a month after January 6, Marco Rubio said the January 6 attack on the capital was far more dangerous than most realized, and we have a criminal justice system in place to address it. Who oversaw the Department of Justice on 02/10/2021? Who was the president?
Speaker 9
So Marco Rubio wanted Joe Biden's Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump in his January 6 insurrection. I wanna ask you in my last few seconds, Mr. Smith. You're not the first special counsel to investigate Donald Trump. Special counsel Mueller, also of impeccable integrity, concluded that the 2016 Trump campaign welcomed foreign interference from Russia and used it to help them. Donald Trump has made it a litmus test to be hired in this administration to say that the 2020 election was fraudulent, even though, as you have established, it was not.
And now there are senior officials in this government who are responsible for protecting our elections, who are our election deniers. Can you describe, in a few seconds, what your concerns are about the upcoming election based on your investigation and what we know today?
Speaker 4
I believe political litmus tests are not proper for career prosecutors. I think my experience over thirty years as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice is having people who are not guarded, guided by party allegiance, but guided by experience. That's how you can trust the criminal justice system. It's the same way with our election system.
Speaker 26
Yeah. First of all, just a couple of comments. There are probably 10 people on this committee who have more conversations with Donald Trump than myself. But anybody who says that Donald Trump thought he won that election, that is just plain not true. No way, unless he's the best actor in the history of this building.
We agree. Did Donald Trump believe? Order. Order. Donald Trump did not believe he lost that election.
He just did. No way. And I think on January 6, I think I can't believe there were any congressmen here who didn't think Joe Biden was going to be sworn as president. So this was a riot, but it wasn't a threat to the future of the republic. Okay.
Now we should have posted up here a document for you to look at. Here we are. Okay. This is something we received with regard to Arctic frost. It's a list of about 70 names.
I don't know whether you are familiar with the document.
Speaker 26
Okay. The document contains just about every person who was higher up in the Donald Trump campaign. There's a little more emphasis here on people involved in Wisconsin, but you're not familiar with the document.
Speaker 26
Would you know what was in this document? These names, you're familiar with them at all? They're under the impression that most of these people, maybe almost all of them, were subpoenaed by you at some time or other, if that helps you.
Speaker 4
Some of these names I am familiar with. Others, I'm not familiar with or I don't recall, as I sit here now.
Speaker 26
Okay. We'll eventually submit another question for you on this later. From the time you were appointed as special counsel to your resignation in January 2025, did you ever have contact with the January 6 select committee?
Speaker 4
I did not personally. When I became special counsel, I directed my deputy to ask the select committee to provide us whatever evidence they would.
Speaker 4
I directed my deputy to make contact to collect evidence from them. And that's JP Cooney? JP Cooney, my deputy. Correct.
Speaker 26
Okay. Did you have any concern that the evidence collected by the partisan select committee would be in any way biased by politics?
Speaker 26
Because of the door. I'm sorry. We had people going through here. Did you have any concern that the evidence collected by the partisan select committee would be in any way tainted by politics?
Speaker 4
I intended to conduct an independent investigation, and my goal was to collect the evidence, assess it, and consider it with all the other evidence we would collect, and make an independent determination in my investigation, separate from that investigation.
Speaker 26
I'm gonna go back and ask you something on that one before because I think I know the answer. There's a person on that list by the name of Vicki McKenna who we believe did have her record subpoenaed. Are you familiar with that name at all?
Speaker 26
Okay. Thank you. With regard to, part of the documents that you received was regarding Cassidy Hutchison. Right?
Speaker 4
We requested that they give us everything they were willing to give us. As I sit here now, I don't recall if specifically her information was in there, but I'm not denying that it was. It may well have been.
Speaker 26
Okay. We'll go back. Your team issued subpoenas to various financial institutions, telecommunications providers, and conservative entities, requesting communications between them and President Trump's campaign. Right?
Speaker 26
Okay. And the bank records, you would say or we could describe, were fairly broad, the request?
Speaker 4
We issued subpoenas for certain bank records as part of our investigation. Yes.
Speaker 26
Okay. Shortly after you're appointed, you issued subpoenas to state and local officials for their communications with President Trump. Is that correct? And his campaign.
Speaker 4
I as I sit here now, I'm trying to recall specifically which officials, but I know we issued a number of subpoenas in our investigation to understand the communications between President Trump and various entities, including state officials.
Speaker 26
Yeah. Do you really believe that President Trump thinks he lost that election?
Speaker 4
Yes. Our investigation following the facts and the law. Okay. Determined that.
Speaker 9
I actually have two. One is entitled with AG Bondi next to him. Trump says deranged Jack Smith must be investigated. And the other is a tweet from Marco Rubio. There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill.
This is third world style anti-American anarchy.
Speaker 38
Well, okay. Fine. So I it's curious because you've sat here all day, and thank you so much for showing up, because this was something that you wanted to do. The Republicans wanted to make sure that you were hid in a room with no cameras, because I was there. They didn't really want you out in public because they were afraid of what you would say, which is that you could have proven your case because you are a career prosecutor.
Who knows how to prosecute criminals? So just to be clear, today, it seems like the Republicans have not really fought very much about whether Trump was guilty or not. In fact, their fight seems to be over whether or not you were authorized to prove their guilt. Do you recall a number of Republican members asking about whether or not your appointment was okay, even though we know that you've testified about the more than 100 year precedent that allowed for your appointment?
Speaker 4
I was asked questions about that today, and our position as we filed in our appeal is that there was strong support for my appointment, including Supreme Court precedent directly on point.
Speaker 38
Thank you so much. Additionally, you know, everybody's been out gingerly here today, but I don't know why we're acting surprised that a man who had close to 90 allegations from four different jurisdictions and ultimately ended up with 34 convictions after a jury was able to hear all the evidence would possibly be committing a criminal act on January 6. In fact, considering the fact that we are now under the impression that he is violating people's due process rights, he is ignoring court orders. He's starting wars without congressional authority, in contradiction to the constitution. He's enriching himself to the tune of over $1,400,000,000.
He's shaking down elected to draw maps that will help him stay in power because the Republicans don't understand that they swore an oath to the constitution and that we are supposed to do checks and balances. He's also shaking down TV stations to get money. So why are we trying to pretend as if it is out of the realm for this particular man to commit the crime he committed on January 6? And, frankly, the only reason he ran for president was to make sure that he would not be prosecuted, because I fully believe that you would have put him under the jail based on our long form conversation that we had. But according to your counsel, your special counsel report on page 137, it states the department's view that the constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution.
And that, quote, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. In other words, Donald Trump ran for president, like I said, so he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life in prison. The chairman and other members of this committee have spent all day attacking you and trying to rewrite the history of January 6. But mister Jim Jordan, the chairman, failed to mention how he was running around the capital terrified by the possibility that all those insurrectionists would harm him. In fact, on page 97 of the deposition transcript, you mentioned how Mark Meadows, the president's chief of staff, quote, unquote, never saw Jim Jordan so scared. The chairman also failed to mention that he was in direct contact with the White House in the days leading up to and on January 6, which is why his toll records were subpoenaed by your office.
Let me be clear, because they're trying to act like this is Democrats on Republicans, and I guess you are a covert Democrat that knew that he was gonna try to steal an election before he tried to steal that election. And so, therefore, you were somehow put into place. I mean, the conspiracy theories make your head spin. But nevertheless, were you going to subpoena the toll records of every single Republican simply because they were Republican?
Speaker 4
No. We subpoenaed the toll records in the course of this investigation because they were relevant to our investigation.
Speaker 38
Relevant. Oh, okay. Alright. So that means something about the facts. So let's talk about facts.
Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. Yes or no?
Speaker 38
Okay. In fact, 60 federal and state courts have found that there was no evidence of election fraud. Trump's own attorney general and vice president knew that he lost the election, but he still tried to steal the election by pressuring state officials, designing fake elector plans, nearly having Mike Pence hanged, and ultimately demanding that his supporters, quote, fight like hell. Correct?
Speaker 38
We all saw it happen once they reached the US Capitol. As your report outlines, President Trump knew that he would incite violence at the Capitol that day. In fact, some of Trump's senior advisers were pushing for violence. For example, page 81 of the report details how coconspirator number two, John Eastman, tried to convince Mike Pence to break the law, stating that, quote, violence was necessary. So it isn't just Trump who was responsible for the death of multiple law enforcement officers and the injuries of thousands of people.
A lot of Republican members of Congress are also responsible. A 147 Republicans voted to overturn the 2020 election results, including multiple members currently serving on this committee, and I will yield.
Speaker 39
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, we've heard a lot of information that's gone across this day as we spin it here. We've heard disregard for the First Amendment at times. We've heard talk about solely seeking charges against Donald Trump, obviously targeting. We've talked about the amount of time and a reasonable time frame.
But I wanna ask you for a moment about some troubling reports that a prosecutor from your office, Jay Bratt, implied to Stanley Woodward that the administration would look more favorably on a judgeship application if he managed to get his client, Walt Naughty, to cooperate against President Trump and to flip on him. And we know this because Stanley Woodward himself came forth with this information. And I guess my question for you is, is this appropriate behavior for a special counsel's office to leverage attorneys' future career prospects?
Speaker 4
Sir, I believe I can answer this question even though it's regarding the Florida case because we did filings on it, and I'm not referring to anything in the final report. And my answer to you, sir, is that when I was first notified about this issue, which was nine months after it allegedly occurred, this is alleged to have occurred before I was even special counsel. What I did is I directed my deputies to look into it. We made sure, the person involved self referred it to OPR, and then we did a filing to the court. There was a motion by President Trump's attorneys.
We responded, and we laid out our position. And our position was that I did not believe that allegation was credible. At best, it was a misunderstanding because the people in the room did not understand any threat to be made. Even Mr. Woodard, in his allegation, claimed it was only an inference. Nine months went by where we interacted with Mister Woodard, in which we had no hearing of a complaint.
When the complaint was raised for the first time, which is on the eve of that indictment being brought, it was raised in the guise of asking the court to delay the indictment while an investigation of it happened. So I take allegations of misconduct very seriously. I would not want any of my attorneys threatening anybody. Ultimately, when I looked at this, I did not credit it, and we responded with our position in court. But we also it was clear that it was referred to the office of professional responsibility, which is what good prosecutors do in that situation.
Speaker 39
Well, again, to just say that you didn't consider it to be credible, I guess we have The United States associate attorney general Stanley Woodward who claims that this threat was made to him, and I don't see what he would stand to gain from not telling the truth there. And I understand that you tasked two of your attorneys with investigating those statements, made by Brad. But given the amount of publicity and the scrutiny that was surrounding this entire investigation, why in the world did you not initiate an independent investigation into these very alarming allegations?
Speaker 4
Well, two points there. You stated that, you don't, why would he do this? When he made the allegation, when this allegation first came from, President Trump's attorneys and then days later from Mister Woodard, he did ask for the case, the indictment to be put off in result of this. So there was a thing he was asking for as a result. And with respect to an independent investigation, that's exactly why you refer this to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
They conduct an independent investigation outside my office.
Speaker 39
Well, let me just say for four years, we watched the Biden administration politicize and weaponize the Department of Justice. From going after pro-life activists to spying on faithful Catholics, the Biden administration showed disregard for impartiality. And this blatant disregard was perhaps no clearer than in the targeting of president Trump. We've talked about it all throughout the day. They knew they couldn't beat him at the ballot box, so they pursued alternative options.
And I'm grateful for this committee's efforts today to investigate this conduct and to ensure accountability. And while elections are not akin to jury trials, I feel strongly that the results of the 2024 election sent a clear message about how the American people feel about these politicized charges. And I think they absolutely made a difference in those 24 elections. And with that, Mister Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 38
This is, let's see. I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record this DOJ press release titled Houston man sentenced to prison for assaulting law enforcement with dangerous weapons during January 6 capital breach.
Speaker 38
My second one is I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record an article titled, they ransacked the US capital and want the government to pay them back, published by The Washington Post 01/21/2024.
Speaker 40
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Smith, after indicting the leading Republican candidate for the president of the United States on 08/01/2023, you asked for a trial date of January 2024, five months later. During your deposition, you did not dispute that it would have given Trump's legal team just five months to review 13,000,000 pages and thousands of hours of video evidence, working out to nearly 100,000 pages per day. Mister Smith, you claim that you acted independently of the upcoming presidential election, and yet you pushed for a trial date ahead of the election. Why such a rush to charge and try to pursue conviction on President Trump?
Speaker 4
I sought to move that case forward expeditiously because the public has a right to a speedy trial as well as a defendant, that is, there is Supreme Court precedent directly on point regarding that. I felt it was my duty to do that. I considered all options. I listened to.
Speaker 40
But isn't the right to a speedy trial primarily a right of the defendant? I honestly before your arguments, I've never heard of the idea that the prosecution has a right to speed up a trial and require the defense to review 100,000 pages a day in order to get a trial in before an election. I've never heard of such a thing.
Speaker 4
The Supreme Court in at least, as I sit here now, three different cases has stated pretty explicitly that the right to a speedy trial is the public's as well as the defendant's.
Speaker 40
And that you were trying to get president tried, convicted, and hopefully in prison before election day. I understand. Mister Smith, I think it's very telling that during your deposition, you could not articulate any evidence that President Trump instructed individuals to unlawfully enter the Capitol on 01/06/2021. You claim that President Trump was, quote, responsible for the events at the Capitol on January 6, which was not charged in your indictment. How do you reconcile that with the position of the department in other GA six related cases that President Trump wasn't responsible for the events at the Capitol that day?
Speaker 4
I'm not aware of the department taking a position that Donald Trump was not responsible. I think my recollection is the position that the department took in other cases is other defendants weren't responsible themselves because of Donald Trump, that blaming him wasn't gonna be a valid defense in their case. That's my recollection.
Speaker 40
So on 01/06/2021, President Trump tweeted, quote, please support our Capitol police and law enforcement. They are truly on the side of the country. Stay peaceful! This seems to show clearly that Trump urged his supporters at the capital remain peaceful. Is that not right?
Speaker 4
He sent that tweet, but he sent that tweet only after being harangued by people to send something to stop the violence.
Speaker 40
The capital. Let's get the timeline straight then. At 01:55 PM, there was a breach of the bike racks at the Northeast perimeter. At 02:13, there were protesters breaching the Capitol, breaking into the Northwest Senate window, and opening the doors. At 02:38, President Trump tweeted what I just quoted.
That's twenty-five minutes between the Capitol Building breach. Is twenty-five minutes, that's too slow? Would Trump have been guilty of insurrection if it were 15 minutes? Would it be five minutes? How quickly was he supposed to send that tweet to remain peaceful?
Speaker 4
My recollection as set forth in the indictment is the timeline of when the attack of the Capitol happened, including the tweet that endangered Vice President Mike Pence's.
Speaker 40
Life was different than he's saying. So that tweet was after, of course, the riot had started. But, president Trump also said, quote, we've come to demand that congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully selected. I know that everyone will soon be marching to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voice heard. Peacefully and patriotically, is that an incitement to a riot?
That is not. Okay. So in November 2016, Hillary Clinton, disputed chief for actually for years, called president Trump an illegitimate president. He knows he stole the election as recently as September 2019. Had there been a riot around the 2016 presidential election, would Hillary Clinton be guilty of inciting insurrection?
Speaker 4
I'm not gonna engage in hypotheticals. I will say that President Trump's conduct was without historical analog.
Speaker 33
Mister chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the first superseding indictment for Capitol rioter and oath keeper Kelly Meigs who brought weapons and armor with him to DC and wrote to a friend. Trump said it's gonna be wild. It's gonna be wild. He wants us to make it wild. That's what he said.
Speaker 33
He's calling us to the Capitol, and wants to make it wild. Sir, yes, sir, gentlemen. We're heading to DC to pack our shit. And, mister chair, objection. I have a unanimous consent request.
I ask unanimous consent to enter in the record this superseding indictment filed by the Department of Justice on 08/27/2024 that outlines how Donald Trump, among other felonies, conspired to defraud the United States in his effort to fraudulently and violently overturn the results of the 2020 election that
Speaker 23
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, 5 hours later, here we are. One of the benefits of being a freshman member of this committee with the least amount of seniority is you get the benefit of getting everybody else listening to them talk first. Let's start by saying that, I starting out, I was not real familiar with this issue. In fact, when the chairman of the committee told me we had Jack Smith coming in, my first response, privately, was, who's Jack Smith?
And I say that because my wife and I have 5 young children. We don't have cable television. And by the time we get them to bed, you know, we're either watching Netflix or, better yet, reading books. So when I came to this, I wanted to take a real, honest look at what had happened. And I should also say that, you know, a little about what I think happened on January 6.
I think, like, most Americans think Donald Trump was cruising a reelection in 2019 with the booming economy, and then COVID happened. George Floyd happened. A lot of things got changed. But I do think in those circumstances that Joe Biden won the election. I also think, like most Americans, that January 6 was a terrible attack.
I think it was a terrible riot. I don't believe it was an insurrection determined to overthrow the government, but I think it was an important day for America. I also think, like most Americans, it was extremely unfortunate for this country that the January 6 committee was a partisan event, and there was not an ability to put folks from both sides of their choosing on that committee. So there could have been a full and honest debate for the American people. I think it was politically motivated what Nancy Pelosi did with that committee.
And so when I came to this issue with a fresh look, with those kind of my priors and what I got into, what I wanted to find was that in the goodness of the rule of law that you as an investigator carried this out to the highest ideals, and it was not a politically motivated investigation. And I think a lot about that in the 250th anniversary of America. I think about what the framers would have thought of this and the state of the rule of law, you know, what makes special America special with checks and balances, you know, what keeps us from being a banana republic. But what I was disappointed to find when I looked into this issue and how you conducted the investigation was that it was a politically motivated investigation determined to influence the election in 2024. And I say that, and the thing I cannot get around as I look into this is the timing, that you fought for, in when the court cases would be held.
Now, to my understanding, the Department of Justice says you're not supposed to have politically motivated timing of a court case. But when I look at the timing that you pushed for and the jurisdictions between New York and Florida, and with all the other things that President Trump was engaged in, that looks very politically motivated to me. And I think the American people, as they take a look at this issue, try to influence the election. So that's where I come down, after you tell us today's hearing, my own independent investigation, and your commentary. I sincerely hope that that conclusion is incorrect, but that's a conclusion I come to.
And I think when most people, if they look through this not through a partisan lens, I think they'll come through. They will not be able to get around the fact of how you timed these elections. I think that's really to the detriment of the American republic and for where we sit today as a country. And so my one question for you, Jack Smith, is, are you familiar with the Vietnamese city of Ben I am not. Well, Ben Tre was the site of an intense firefight in early 1968.
And after that intense firefight that destroyed the town, a reporter from the Associated Press interviewed a US major, and he said it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it. Now historians do not know what was the name of that US major, but I think when they look back at your engagement with our democracy in this republic, they will remember your name. And when it comes to the rule of law, that is the foundation of this country, they will remember someone who helped destroy the rule of law. And with that, Mr. President.
Speaker 2
Okay. This is from Politico. 10/20/2023, Kenneth Chesbrough, an architect of Trump's fake elector scheme, pleads guilty to the offense in Georgia.
Speaker 26
I've talked to Donald Trump over a period of time. Donald Trump is 100% certain he won that election. There is a 0% chance that he believes he lost. And I say that based on private conversations, which just boom. So, okay.
Wanna clarify that.
Speaker 1
Noted for the record. We appreciate that. This concludes today's hearing. We thank.
Speaker 2
you. Miss Truman, for me, I just have one final question for you. That it begins really just as a point of order.
Speaker 2
Because of nothing you've done and nothing that I've done, Jack Smith has not been able to answer the vast majority of questions about what's in volume 2 of his special counsel report relating to the stolen documents. Now, it's been said that the judicial order that Aileen Cannon imposed will be lifted in February. And so I would, I guess, my point of order is, do we intend to bring him back so we can answer questions about volume two and about the stolen documents case?
Speaker 2
I got you. Well, then in that event, I've got the signatures of every member on our side who are writing to notify you of our intent to call him to testify in continuation of this hearing to answer all of the unanswered questions about the second half of his work.
Speaker 2
Okay. Because we have a right on the minority day to have a witness, and we will exercise that right.
Speaker 1
We look forward to seeing the letter, and we'll find out. Thank you. We'll take it all under advisement, as we said. That concludes today's hearing. We thank the witness for appearing before the committee today. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witness or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
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