Jim Jordan (00:00:00):... the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on oversight of the Office of Special Counsel, Jack Smith. Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Florida to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.Speaker 1 (00:00:11):I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.Jim Jordan (00:00:34):We'll begin today's hearing with opening statements. Chair's now recognized for an opening statement. It was always about politics. And to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything. January 7th, 2023, Kevin McCarthy becomes Speaker of the House. 16 days later, Jack Smith issues a subpoena for his phone records. Phone records from two years prior for a two-month timeframe, election day 2020 to January 7th, 2021. Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department get the phone records of the top Republican in government, the guy second in line to the president. They know who he called, who called him, when the call took place, and how long it lasted. You can pattern an individual's life. They know who the speaker talked to before big votes, who he talked to after big votes, when he calls his colleagues, when he calls his family. And to add insult to injury, they go to the judge with a subpoena for a gag order on the carrier. AT&T, don't tell your customer, the speaker of the house that you just gave his phone calls to Jack Smith and Joe Biden. And here's the kicker. They say to the court, "We need this gag order because he's a flight risk. Someone might tamper with witnesses or with evidence." Are you kidding me? The Speaker of the House is going to run? They got my phone records for two and a half years. Even the Democrats said this was wrong. But of course, we shouldn't be surprised. Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years, for a decade. And the country should never, ever forget what they did. Over the next few hours, we're going to hear a lot of yelling and screaming, I assume, from the other side. But we should never forget what took place, what they did to the guy we the people elected president twice.(00:02:38):It all started in 2016 when they spied on his campaign. The Clinton campaign hired the law firm, Perkins Coie, who hired the public relations firm, Fusion GPS, who hired a foreigner, Christopher Steele, to put together the fake dossier. Bunch of garbage in that document, but that was used by Jim Comey's FBI. And we all know Jim Comey. He was the guy who just last year was strolling along the beach when the good Lord had the waves wash up on shore seashells in the formation of 8647. That guy took that dossier to the FISA court, lied to the court, and then spied on the other party's campaign. This, of course, led to the Mueller investigation. Two and a half years, 19 lawyers, 40 agents, $ 30 million to find nothing. No conspiracy, no coordination whatsoever.(00:03:38):Then it was impeachment one. Anonymous whistleblower. We couldn't even know who was bringing the charge against the guy they were trying to take, the guy we elected, who they were trying to kick out of office. We couldn't know. Secret hearings in the bunker, in the basement of the Capitol. Again, nothing. Then it was impeachment two. No secret hearings here because they didn't have any hearings. 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 Democrat National Committee consultant, and the number three guy at the Department of Justice. And then of course, it's Fani and Nathan, Fani Willis and Nathan Wade in Fulton County, Georgia.(00:04:41):We actually deposed Mr. Wade. One of the most interesting depositions I've sat through. We said to him, "You billed taxpayers in Georgia thousands of dollars for meetings in DC with the January 6th 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 Capitol? Did you meet the White House? Where'd 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 where they searched Barron's room in the first lady's closet. In our deposition with Steven D'Antuono, 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.(00:05:51):He said, "First of all, the case was run out of DC. Normally you run it out of the Miami field office." "No, no, no. We're going to 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 Maine Justice was no, which brings us back to Mr. Smith. On November 18th, 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 Mr. Smith does is put on his team the very people responsible for the raid on President Trump's home. The very people.(00:06:47):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 and 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 Chutkan 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's a candidate for president. Thank goodness Mr. 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 want to read two sentences from this.(00:07:46):"Mr. Smith seemed unconcerned about interfering in the Democratic process by seeking to muzzle a candidate for a high office. Three appellate judges, all nominated by Democrat presidents ruled that Mr. 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. "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 and the separation of powers." And of course, on July 1st, 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that President Trump had immunity for actions taken in his official capacity as the president.(00:08:59):One month later, after this decision by the Supreme Court, Jack Smith files a superseding indictment on August 27th, 2024, but Mr. Smith doesn't stop there. He does something unprecedented. On October 2nd, 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 Mr. Smith skips the second step, and the brief that he files is 165 pages, almost four times the court limit. Even Liberal Judge Chutkan, 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 would he abandon proper procedure? Why would he ignore court rules? Why would he do that? Because he's running out of time.(00:10:04):There's an election around the corner. It's coming in 33 days and he's got to get President Trump. He's got to stop President Trump from running, tie him up in court. He's got to get to trial or at a minimum, insert an 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 we 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.(00:11:08):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've blown a hole in the First Amendment. And with that, I yield to the gentlemen from Maryland.Jamie Raskin (00:11:23):Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by recognizing the presence of four American heroes here today, four of the hundreds of officers who defended us on January 6th, 2021, Michael Fanone, Aquilino Gonell, Daniel Hodges, and Harry Dunn. And I thank them for being here today. Mr. 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 the politics. Well, maybe for them, but for us, it's all about the rule of law, who's going to stand by the rule of law and who's going to oppose it. Now, Mr. 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 Office, where you prosecuted sex crimes and domestic violence cases, the Eastern District of New York where you prosecuted murderers, rapists, gang bangers, and other violent criminals.(00:12:31):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.(00:13:47):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 believed 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 6th, you said, " Our view of the evidence was that he caused it and 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.(00:14:50):Trump's top campaign advisors 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 that he made. Trump himself even privately acknowledged it, gesturing to Joe Biden on TV and saying, "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 in 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 6th.(00:16:11):While more than 1140 officers were being brutally assaulted by Trump's mob while rioters 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 DOJ 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.(00:17:21):Our 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, Mr. Smith, if Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would've gotten toll records for them too.(00:17:58):I trust our colleagues get the point because America certainly gets the point. There is much Mr. Smith still can't talk about, though 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 materials over to the FBI and having his staff delete incriminating security tape footage. But today, we're not going to 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 Eileen Cannon. 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.(00:19:04):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, Mr. Smith, if any of our colleagues foolishly choose to attack you and vilify you today, and I know that's not going to happen from some serious prosecutors over there, like Mr. Knott and Mr. 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 has now pardoned and released into our community's hundreds of extremists, insurrectionists and cop-beating felons who have proceeded to commit dozens more crimes against the American people since they were pardoned.(00:20:17):Mr. Smith, I understand you are a long distance marathon runner. I read that you're a triathlete who's done more than a hundred triathlons and nine Ironman 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.Jim Jordan (00:20:42):Gentlemen yields back without objection. All of their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness. Mr. Jack Smith was appointed as special counsel on November 18th, 2022. He served until January 7th, 2025. We welcome our witness today. We will 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 belief so help you God?Jack Smith (00:21:11):I do.Jim Jordan (00:21:12):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. Mr. Smith, you may begin.Jack Smith (00:21:26):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.(00:22:14):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.(00:23:28):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 of '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 a bathroom.(00:24:12):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 a Democrat or a 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, of which I had no intention of doing. I remain grateful for the counsel, judgment and advice of my team.(00:25:11):President Trump has sought to seek 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. Thank you.Jim Jordan (00:26:24):Gentlemen, we will now proceed under the five-minute rule. We have votes coming in any minute now, but I think we'll have time for three or four members to get their five-minute question in before the committee will take a recess to go vote. They are not going to close the vote until we get there. I know that much. So we will start with the gentleman from California recognized for five minutes.Speaker 2 (00:26:47):Good morning, Mr. Smith. When Attorney General Garland appointed you, he cited the particularly sensitive matters at issue and extraordinary circumstances as the reason for appointing a special counsel. What did you take that to mean?Jack Smith (00:27:03):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 2 (00:27:14):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?Jack Smith (00:27:26):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 2 (00:27:38):So certainly you would agree it was important to approach the investigation with humility and restraint. Is that fair?Jack Smith (00:27:47):Yes. And that's what I sought to do. I sought to conduct-Speaker 2 (00:27:49):And you thought you possessed to those qualities. In fact, you testified at your deposition, "I thought I was the right person for the job." Of course, some disagreed. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, for example, has said, "Jack Smith has a reputation for stretching criminal statutes beyond the breaking point." I assume you disagree with that statement by Professor Turley.Jack Smith (00:28:11):I do disagree with that statement. I think my career speaks for itself. I have been-Speaker 2 (00:28:17):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 versus the 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?Jack Smith (00:28:45):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 2 (00:28:56):I see. So Mr. Smith, I've had the opportunity during my time on this committee to review the work of two special counsels, John Durham, appointed during the Trump administration and Robert Hur 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 reigned 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?Jack Smith (00:29:53):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 2 (00:30:10):But they said there was a litigation risk and you moved 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, with asking the judges for a non-disclosure order without telling them these are members of Congress?Jack Smith (00:30:48):When we secured these toll record subpoenas, it was done consistent with department policy. You're correct in that that policy has since changed.Speaker 2 (00:30:59):They changed the policy based upon the actions that you took. Similarly, you issued a gag order against President Trump that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated as over-broad. Is that correct?Jack Smith (00:31:12):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 2 (00:31:23):They narrowed the order because it was over-broad. In addition to that, you saw 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 Mr. 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 justices, 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?Jack Smith (00:31:59):If I have anySpeaker 6 (00:32:00):... you regret?Jack Smith (00:32:01):It would be not expressing enough appreciation for my staff who worked so hard in these investigations. We followed the facts and the law. These people who worked 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.Jim Jordan (00:32:19):From the gentleman in the-Speaker 6 (00:32:19):No mistakes. There's that humility. Mr. Chair, I yield back.Jim Jordan (00:32:22):Yeah, the timing of the gentleman's right. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for five minutes.Jamie Raskin (00:32:25):Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the good gentleman from California certainly knows because he was a student of mine that lawyers go to court and 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.(00:32:51):But let's go to the toll records since that's been raised, Mr. Smith. First of all, Congress has allowed toll records to be subpoenaed. 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.(00:33:21):Explain why did you want those toll records?Jack Smith (00:33:28):We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters that was assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with a 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.Jamie Raskin (00:33:53):And that's normal investigative practice, right?Jack Smith (00:33:58):In conducting a criminal investigation, securing non-content toll records, as you described, is a common practice in almost any complex conspiracy-Jamie Raskin (00:34:09):Okay. 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've 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?Jack Smith (00:34:50):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.Jamie Raskin (00:35:20):And the case law is perfectly clear on this, right? All frauds are perpetrated by speech, right?Jack Smith (00:35:25):Yes.Jamie Raskin (00:35:25):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 6th 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?Jack Smith (00:35:53):It does not.Jamie Raskin (00:35:58):William Barr, by the way, was somebody who was perfectly clear about that. 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 Iowa, including my good friend, the Chairman, denounced the violence that took place on January 6th. The cats got their tongue 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.(00:36:35):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 6th?" He said, "Of course, everyone's interested in holding people accountable who did wrong." The FBI is doing that. The Justice Department is doing that appropriately so.(00:36:55):What do you think about the attack on the Department of Justice and the special counsel for doing your jobs?Jack Smith (00:37:05):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.Jamie Raskin (00:37:48):Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you.Jim Jordan (00:37:50):Gentlemen yields back. Mr. Smith, is Cassidy Hutchinson a liar? She was their star witness. January 6th 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 prime time hearing Tuesday, June 28th, 2022, 8:00 in the evening, and she told some stories. I mean, these were some stories. She talked about President lunged across the backseat, grabbed the steering wheel, tried to drive the car to the Capitol. And I just want to know, you think she was lying?Jack Smith (00:38:37):Chairman Jordan, my assessment of that particular issue is that with respect to the testimony about 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.Jim Jordan (00:38:56):You familiar with the name Tony Ornato?Jack Smith (00:38:59):I'm sorry, sir.Jim Jordan (00:38:59):You familiar with the name Tony Ornato?Jack Smith (00:39:02):Yes.Jim Jordan (00:39:02):White House Deputy Chief of Operations, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, right? You remember what he said about it?Jack Smith (00:39:11):As I sit here right now, I do not.Jim Jordan (00:39:13):Yeah. He said it didn't happen. How about Bobby Engel? Are you familiar with that name?Jack Smith (00:39:18):Yes, I am.Jim Jordan (00:39:19):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 Ms. Hutchinson testified in the primetime hearing as their star witness of the January 6th Committee. By the way, did you ever confirm her testimony about this particular incident?Jack Smith (00:39:46):We conducted, as I said before, our own independent investigation of all aspects of the case that we thought was relevant. Attorneys from my office-Jim Jordan (00:39:57):Did you ever confirm it? That's a simple question.Jack Smith (00:39:59):Well, we interviewed her, I should say, attorneys in my office before-Jim Jordan (00:40:03):Did you ever confirm the President leaping across the seat, grabbing the steering wheel, this whole concoction she brought up in the January 6th hearing? Did you ever confirm that?Jack Smith (00:40:12):Right. We interviewed another firsthand witness who was in the car who did not confirm that that happened, but also stated that-Jim Jordan (00:40:22):In your deposition to the committee last month, Mr. Smith, you said this, "My recollection with Ms. Hutchinson was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay." You remember us making that statement to us last month in the deposition?Jack Smith (00:40:36):I did. And I was referring particularly to what we're talking about now.Jim Jordan (00:40:40):Yeah. And you also said Ms. Hutchinson regarding this particular claim was a second or even third hand witness. We asked 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 and Ms. 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?Jack Smith (00:41:00):Yes, that's correct, sir.Jim Jordan (00:41:01):That's correct, right? Were you going to put her on the witness stand if you ever got to trial?Jack Smith (00:41:07):We had not made final determinations as to who we were going to call as a witness. We had a large-Jim Jordan (00:41:13):You were still considering her?Jack Smith (00:41:14):We had a large choice of witnesses in this case.Jim Jordan (00:41:17):Are you familiar with what Washington Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis said in their book? They did this book, 300 some pages book 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 fiercely 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 Leonnig and Aaron Davis who wrote this, are they lying?Jack Smith (00:42:00):My recollection is that I certainly had not made any final determinations about who we were going to call.Jim Jordan (00:42:07):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 or didn'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 do it. By the way, you know how many times Cassidy Hutchinson was mentioned in their report, the January 6th report? Any idea, Mr. Smith?Jack Smith (00:42:41):I do not.Jim Jordan (00:42:41):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.(00:42:57):We better take a recess for votes. We will resume as soon as votes are over back here 10 minutes after. Mr. Smith, you guys can go back to the room that you were in.Jack Smith (00:43:11):Thank you.Jim Jordan (00:43:11):Gentlemen from Ranking Member is recognized for [inaudible 00:43:13] consent request.Jamie Raskin (00:43:14):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, May 1, 2024, Trump acknowledges he wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6th.Jim Jordan (00:43:29):Objection.Jamie Raskin (00:43:29):Carol Leonnig, who you quoted, Carol Leonnig outlines Tony Ornato's history of lies. That's June 30, 2022.Jim Jordan (00:43:37):Objection.Jamie Raskin (00:43:38):In July one, 2022, the men disputing Hutchinson's testimony are two of Trump's biggest accolades. And finally, June 29, 2022, CNN, Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony amid pushback. Thank you very much.Jim Jordan (00:43:54):Gentlemen from New York is recognized.Speaker 3 (00:43:56):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, over the past few years, Republicans have waged constant attacks on you. Donald Trump has said you are totally compromised, a political hitman, a 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.(00:44:18):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.(00:44:45):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?Jack Smith (00:45:08):Yes, during my... 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 in, it mattered the facts of the case.(00:45:34):In doing that, there were cases I brought against 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, I 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 3 (00:46:11):When it comes to deciding whether to pursue a criminal prosecution of an individual, what factors do you consider?Jack Smith (00:46:21):The primary factors are the facts and the law. As a federal prosecutor and making a prosecutorial decision, you're guided by the Federal Principles of Prosecution, which guide one not only to look at the facts and the law, but the federal interests. And that is exactly what we did in this case as set forth in my final report.Speaker 3 (00:46:43):Does partisan politics play a role in your decision whether or not to prosecute someone?Jack Smith (00:46:48):None.Speaker 3 (00:46:50):To be clear, did partisan politics play a role in your decision to charge Donald Trump?Jack Smith (00:46:56):It did not.Speaker 3 (00:46:58):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?Jack Smith (00:47:12):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 3 (00:47:37):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 the clear narrative to a jury. How would you characterize the evidence against Mr. Trump about inciting an insurrection against the laws of this country? Did you have too much?Jack Smith (00:48:01):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 advisors.(00:48:32):I will say, however, with respect to the charge of insurrection, we did not charge that. As I set forth in my report, while I believe that courts have found that 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 and the law. I thought the charges we brought were appropriate given the evidence that we had.Speaker 3 (00:49:02):Thank you, Mr. 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.Jim Jordan (00:49:14):Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from California is recognized.Speaker 4 (00:49:17):Mr. Smith, 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.(00:49:45):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?Jack Smith (00:50:03):Sir-Speaker 4 (00:50:05):No, 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 that's one of the things the First Amendment allows for, isn't it?Jack Smith (00:50:52):Yes, sir. Our case-Speaker 4 (00:50:54):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?(00:51:15):Chairman Jordan and myself have something in common along with a number of others here, we saw a wrongdoing. And on January 6th, 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 going to come here and say, "Oh, I just followed the law."(00:51:40):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, in what basis would it be any of your business other than you believe that there was a conspiracy without conspiracy as a basic premise?(00:52:17):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?Jack Smith (00:52:37):No.Speaker 4 (00:52:38):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?Jack Smith (00:53:27):My office didn't spy on anyone.Speaker 4 (00:53:29):Wait a second. The question I asked you, Mr. Smith, was pretty straightforward. Did you withhold that information from an Article III judge in the process of taking the records of the Speaker of the House?Jack Smith (00:53:44):We complied with department-Speaker 4 (00:53:45):Did you hold that any information-Jamie Raskin (00:53:46):Mr. Chairman, would you please instruct the gentleman to allow the witness to answer the questions?Speaker 4 (00:53:51):It's not your time. I'd like my time back, if you can, please.Jamie Raskin (00:53:53):Mr. Chairman, you have repeatedly done that in the past. The witness has the right to answer the question.Speaker 4 (00:53:57):And there'll be due time to answer the question. Would you please put my time back and let me finish this?(00:54:04):Mr. Smith, I asked you a question and you were not responsive to it, and I want you to be responsive to it. 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?Jim Jordan (00:54:27):The time the gentleman is-Speaker 4 (00:54:28):No, please give me back the time that was taken away.Jim Jordan (00:54:31):No, no, no. Time has expired, but we're going to let the witness answer your question because it's an important question. The witness can respond.Jack Smith (00:54:36):We did not provide that information to the judge when we requested a non-disclosure order, consistent with the law and consistent with department of [inaudible 00:54:45]-Speaker 4 (00:54:44):Mr. Chairman, the amazing thing here today is that we have an admission that an Article I-Jamie Raskin (00:54:50):Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's time has expired by now 34 seconds.Jim Jordan (00:54:53):Time-Jamie Raskin (00:54:54):He gets more than five minutes [inaudible 00:54:56] question?Speaker 4 (00:54:55):How many times are you going to interrupt me?Jim Jordan (00:54:57):The time belongs to the gentleman from California, but it has expired.Speaker 4 (00:55:01):I will be brief in my address to the chairman. We have the evidence that an Article I representative on behalf of the President withheld an Article III-Jamie Raskin (00:55:11):Mr. Chairman, are we going to be [inaudible 00:55:13]-Speaker X (00:55:12):... additional time.Speaker 4 (00:55:13):With that, I yield back-Jim Jordan (00:55:14):Time to yield back.Speaker 4 (00:55:15):... in disgust of this witness.Jim Jordan (00:55:17):Sticking with California, the gentle lady from California is now recognized.Speaker 5 (00:55:22):Mr. Smith, thank you for being here today. 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 Mr. Ornato, not that she had personal knowledge. And of course, Mr. Ornato was a 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 Capitol while that argument occurred.(00:56:06):But having said that, I want to focus on something my colleagues across the aisle seemed 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 showed the same pattern in Trump's Georgia criminal case.(00:56:29):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 him Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it." Martians, that's from Senator Graham speaking under oath.(00:57:10):So here's my question. Mr. 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, that the President's closest allies are telling him that his claims of election fraud are wrong.(00:57:30):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?Jack Smith (00:57:45):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 5 (00:58:35):In terms of the grand jury testimony that's now been released, the fact that Donald Trump, according to Senator Graham, would believe that Martians stole the election, what does that tell you about Trump's state of mind?Jack Smith (00:58:53):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.(00:59:26):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 5 (00:59:47):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?Jack Smith (01:00:01):There were a range of witnesses. They ranged from people on his campaign team who had wanted him to win, 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 co-conspirators to provide evidence to support their claims, and invariably they never did. It included officials, advisors, 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.Jim Jordan (01:00:48):The time of the gentleman lady has expired.Speaker 5 (01:00:50):Mr. Chairman, with my fellow California, you were allowing the witness-Speaker X (01:00:54):Yeah, that's a good question. Isn't that grounds to let him answer?Jim Jordan (01:00:57):I've given him 30 seconds extra, the gentle lady 30 seconds extra. If the gentleman can be concise and finish up here quickly, we will allow him to finish.Jack Smith (01:01:05):Yes, sir. And just conclude saying we felt that that constituted powerful evidence of the knowing falsity of his statements in furtherance of the fraud.Speaker 5 (01:01:16):Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield back noting the presence of officers who were severely attacked-Jim Jordan (01:01:22):Got nothing to yield back. [inaudible 01:01:24] over. The gentleman from Texas?Speaker 5 (01:01:24):... protecting our lives on January 6th.Jim Jordan (01:01:26):The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gill is recognized for five minutes.Mr. Gill (01:01:30):Mr. Smith, in January of 2023, did you subpoena then Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy's toll records?Jack Smith (01:01:39):Yes, sir. We did.Mr. Gill (01:01:40):Yes, you did. And the subpoena covered the time period between November 2020 and January 2021. Is that right?Jack Smith (01:01:47):I'm sorry, sir. Could you say that again?Mr. Gill (01:01:49):We're not going to delay like this. The subpoena covered the time period between November of 2020 and January 2021. How many days after Kevin McCarthy was sworn in as speaker did you subpoena his records?Jack Smith (01:02:02):I don't recall, but those two things had nothing to do with one another.Mr. Gill (01:02:04):It was 16 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?Jack Smith (01:02:19):I do not. And I want to be clear that the toll records-Mr. Gill (01:02:22):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 non-disclosure order ensuring that neither he nor any of the American people knew about these subpoenas. Is that right?Jack Smith (01:02:51):The toll record, the non-content toll record subpoenas, we did secure non-disclosure orders for those subpoenas because [inaudible 01:02:59]-Mr. Gill (01:02:58):You did. And let me ask you, Mr. Smith, at the time you secured those non-disclosure orders, was Speaker McCarthy a flight risk?Jack Smith (01:03:06):The non-disclosure order was based on concerns about-Mr. Gill (01:03:11):Was Speaker McCarthy a flight risk?Jack Smith (01:03:13):He was not.Mr. Gill (01:03:13):He was not. Then why did your non-disclosure 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."Jack Smith (01:03:29):Sir, when securing a non-disclosure order, the risks don't have to be associated-Mr. Gill (01:03:37):You think that the Speaker of the House is a flight risk?Speaker X (01:03:39):Can he finish answering the question?Mr. Gill (01:03:40):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 going to hop on a plane and leave the country?Jack Smith (01:03:50):No. What I was trying to explain is with respect to a non-disclosure order, the risks aren't necessarily associated with the subscriber to the phone. There areJack Smith (01:04:00):The risks to investigation.Mr. Gill (01:04:03):Okay. This was clearly in reference to Speaker McCarthy and you were using clearly false information to secure a non-disclosure 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 of 2023, you also issued subpoenas for toll records of nine US senators and an additional representative. Is that right?Jack Smith (01:04:29):In May of 23, we did issue-Mr. Gill (01:04:32):You did. And there were non-disclosure orders in conjunction with those subpoenas as well, right?Jack Smith (01:04:37):That's correct. Consistent with department policy and the law.Mr. Gill (01:04:39):Right. So again, nobody would know what you were doing. The senators wouldn't and the representatives wouldn't. The American people wouldn't know what you were doing; is that right?Jack Smith (01:04:47):The toll records that we secured and the non-disclosure orders were consistent with policy and consistent-Mr. Gill (01:04:54):And knew whenever you were doing that, that there was a risk you were violating the speech or debate clause; is that right?Jack Smith (01:05:01):The toll record subpoenas that we secured were with the concurrence of the public context-Mr. Gill (01:05:05):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 Public Integrity Section to your team. "As you are aware, there is some litigation risk regarding whether compelled disclosure of toll records of a member's legislative cause 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?Jack Smith (01:05:31):Sir, with respect to the item you just put up on the screen, the last sentence states-Mr. Gill (01:05:36):Oh, we're going to get to the last sentence. we're going to get to the last sentence. And you cite case law in here, "The bar on compelled disclosure is absolute." Is that right? Or do you think that you didn't have to abide by that precedent?Jack Smith (01:05:51):To be clear, this statement is not from my office. This is the statement of public defendants.Mr. Gill (01:05:55):This is your 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. "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 going to know about it because you issued NDOs. Nobody's going to sue this. So who cares? We're going to do it anyways. I mean, you walked all over the Constitution throughout this entire process-Speaker 7 (01:06:35):Mr.Chairman, the gentleman's times has expired.Mr. Gill (01:06:36):... spying on members of Congress and you know it. It's absolutely disgraceful.Mr. Chairman (01:06:40):The time-Mr. Gill (01:06:41):I yield back.Mr. Chairman (01:06:42):Gentlemen yields back. Not going to be charged. They're not going to see it. They're not going to know because we're not going to tell them. So let's go ahead and do it, is exactly what happened. The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 8 (01:06:54):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 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 Mr. Gill 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 because of the risk to the investigation?Jack Smith (01:07:14):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 non-disclosure orders from a judge because I had grave concerns about obstruction of justice in this investigation, specifically with regards 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 co-conspirators.(01:08:11):I had a duty to protect 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 evidence, and to protect the witnesses in our case.Speaker 8 (01:08:55):And just make clear, you did not see any of the discussion. It was just the content that they made a call to the president and vice versa, but nothing about any content whatsoever.Jack Smith (01:09:06):That's correct. A toll record subpoena gives you who a call is from, who it is to, and the length of that call. It does not tell you the content of what people are speaking about.Speaker 8 (01:09:18):You felt that you had 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've used at trial that you believe has not been presented to the public in the past or have been misrepresented to the public?Jack Smith (01:09:39):Is there anything-Speaker 8 (01:09:40):Essential facts that you had that you felt would've resulted in a conviction of the president on the charges that he was indicted upon?Jack Smith (01:09:51):I think my report, the report of our case, the final report, summarizes the evidence, I think, in a way that gives a fair rating of the strength of the case.Speaker 8 (01:10:02):And you have no question that it would have been successful before a jury?Jack Smith (01:10:07):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 8 (01:10:26):Did Merrick Garland ever pressure you to bring an indictment or to do anything in your investigation?Jack Smith (01:10:33):No.Speaker 8 (01:10:34):Did anybody else in the administration, President Biden, Vice President Harris, et cetera?Jack Smith (01:10:39):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 in the department.Speaker 8 (01:10:49):And you dropped the case. Why did you drop the case?Jack Smith (01:10:51):The cases against Donald Trump were dismissed pursuant to department policy.Speaker 8 (01:11:02):Department Policy, Office of Legal Counsel said if somebody's president, you can't bring a charge against them or they can't be held liable; is that correct?Jack Smith (01:11:09):That's correct. There had not been a case of this nature ever where someone was elected president with charges pending, and so that was slightly different. So we consulted with public... I'm sorry, with the Office of Legal Counsel, and they determined pursuant to policy that the cases needed to be dismissed.Speaker 8 (01:11:30):And you weren't pleased with that, but you had to follow the law, and that's what you did.Jack Smith (01:11:34):We followed policy throughout my investigation. My job was not to set policy. My job was to follow it, and that's what we did.Speaker 8 (01:11:45):I want to 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. And you're an example of the type of person they should follow. I yield back the balance of-Mr. Chairman (01:12:03):Gentlemen, you're back. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.Speaker 9 (01:12:05):Mr. 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 Marshall 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 Marshall Miller?Jack Smith (01:12:28):Yes.Speaker 9 (01:12:30):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 Mr. Miller, you overlapped at DOJ from 2014, 2015, when you were chief of DOJ's Public Integrity Section and Mr. Miller was chief of staff for DOJ's criminal division; is that accurate?Jack Smith (01:12:54):I believe that is accurate, yes.Speaker 9 (01:12:55):Okay. So were the two of you social outside of work?Jack Smith (01:12:59):I would say intermittently, yes.Speaker 9 (01:13:05):Okay. But after 20 years of knowing each other, it's safe to say you were friends, correct?Jack Smith (01:13:10):Yes.Speaker 9 (01:13:10):Okay. So let's fast forward to 2022. Mr. Miller's appointed principal associate deputy attorney general at DOJ, the number three at DOJ. You call your friend to congratulate him, and according to the deposition transcript, you say you'd be interested in a position at DOJ, is that correct?Jack Smith (01:13:28):Yes. What I recall is that I expressed an interest. If the right position came up, I would be interested in considering it.Speaker 9 (01:13:35):But at that point, there's no discussion about special counsel; is that correct?Jack Smith (01:13:41):This is some time ago, and so I don't have a specific recollection of all these conversations.Speaker 9 (01:13:46):So you were first approached about special counsel and that role before the 22 midterm elections, and according to the deposition transcript in October of 2022, you fly to DC, meet with DAG, and the deputy attorney general; is that correct?Jack Smith (01:14:04):Yes. I flew to DC, I believe it was in October, and I met the deputy attorney general, and also I met the attorney general.Speaker 9 (01:14:11):So in multiple conversations with your friend Marshall Miller, he never once tipped you off that the attorney general or deputy attorney general have you on the short list for special counsel? That never came up?Jack Smith (01:14:25):Again, 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 9 (01:14:38):So he was at the meetings. Was he at the meetings? So just to tie all this together, you've known Mr. Miller since you were both AUSA in New York. You stayed in touch over 20 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 Marshall Miller... Did he become a two-way conduit throughout the investigation with DOJ?Jack Smith (01:15:21):No, and I would not take direction from a political person, a political figure, about how I should conduct an investigation.Speaker 9 (01:15:29):But you never spoke to him throughout the entire time you were conducting an investigation?Jack Smith (01:15:36):No, I didn't say that. What I said was 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 9 (01:15:52):I mean, I don't want to assume anything, but Mr. 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 him.Jack Smith (01:16:06):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 and necessary for this position, and that's why I accepted it.Speaker 9 (01:16:29):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.Jack Smith (01:16:42):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 9 (01:16:55):Well, Chairman Jordan, I think the next deposition should be with Marshall Miller at this point. I yield back.Mr. Chairman (01:17:02):Gentlemen yields back. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.Speaker 10 (01:17:06):And while we are deposing Marshall Miller, maybe we can depose Donald Trump about why he chose his personal lawyer to be the head of the DOJ. On January 6th, 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 January 6th, 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 insurrectionist with 15 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.(01:18:08):Mr. Smith, I want to 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 January 6th, 2021. For example, this Trump propaganda site claims that the 2020 election was "stolen." Mr. 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?Jack Smith (01:18:46):Yes, it did.Speaker 10 (01:18:47):And did your investigation uncover 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?Jack Smith (01:19:05):Yes. We cited instances of that in our case.Speaker 10 (01:19:11):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 webpage with a text box titled, "Fraudulent election, stolen election certified." The site also has a subsection reading in part, "FBI entrapment operation exposed." Mr. Smith, did your investigation develop any evidence to support the allegation that the FBI entrapped insurrectionist into committing crimes on January 6th?Jack Smith (01:19:57):Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused January 6th, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence.Speaker 10 (01:20:08):This website also accuses you of being a "Biden prosecutor" who brought "weaponized charges against Mr. Trump." Mr. Smith, were you a Biden prosecutor who weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump?Jack Smith (01:20:26):Absolutely not.Speaker 10 (01:20:28):Did Attorney General Merrick Garland direct you to prosecute Trump because Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden in the presidential election?Jack Smith (01:20:38):No.Speaker 10 (01:20:39):There are also allegations that President Trump was the victim of "lawfare" and accusations that the Department of Justice lawyers who prosecuted Donald Trump used "fabricated indictments and rigged show trials." Did you, Mr. Smith, or the men and women working on your team work to fabricate indictments or put on rigged show trials?Jack Smith (01:21:07):No, we secured indictments from grand juries and we were prepared to prove our case in court beyond a reasonable doubt.Speaker 10 (01:21:14):Did you use your appointment as special counsel to conduct a politically motivated witch hunt, scam investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump?Jack Smith (01:21:25):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 10 (01:21:36):And those indictments have been dismissed. Can they be rebrought or resurrected after Trump leaves office?Jack Smith (01:21:48):They were dismissed without prejudice.Speaker 10 (01:21:50):So they can be refiled. And he can be prosecuted after he leaves office; is that correct?Jack Smith (01:21:56):I'm not going to speak to that. I can only speak to what we did, which was dismissed the case without prejudice.Speaker 10 (01:22:02):All right. The website put out by the Trump White House on the anniversary of January 6th 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 January 6th, 2021. And with that, I yield back, but I would like to, Mr. Chairman, offer for the record-Speaker 11 (01:22:28):Unanimous consent.Speaker 10 (01:22:28):... Unanimous consent. A statement from Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released on November 12th, 2020 that states the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.Mr. Chairman (01:22:42):Objection.Speaker 10 (01:22:47):And also I would like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record the September 24th, 2020 testimony of Trump's former FBI director, Chris Ray, who told Senate Homeland Security, excuse me, the Homeland Security Committee of the Senate that the FBI had "not seen or historically had any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election."Mr. Chairman (01:23:17):Objection. Objection.Speaker 10 (01:23:18):And last but not least, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled Disputing Trump Bar says no widespread election fraud.Mr. Chairman (01:23:32):Without objection, gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 12 (01:23:36):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, on November 18th, 2022, AG Garland appointed you a special counsel. Can you tell me about your swearing in or the oath of office that you took after that?Jack Smith (01:23:50):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 12 (01:23:57):You don't remember who swore you in?Jack Smith (01:23:59):I don't.Speaker 12 (01:24:00):Would you agree that taking the oath of office is a legal requirement for the job that you had?Jack Smith (01:24:08):I've taken oaths of office regularly. I haven't researched whether it's required or not, but I have done that. I think in every government case-Speaker 12 (01:24:17):It is required. Terms I heard earlier today were atypical, irregular, no proper procedure. Yet in your opening statement, you said that we followed 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, how you were sworn in. It's pretty significant. We all get sworn in here and I remember every day. You don't remember who swore you in?Jack Smith (01:24:41):I don't remember the details of it as I sit here today. I know-Speaker 12 (01:24:44):But you did take the oath of office before you got rolling?Jack Smith (01:24:47):I think my recollection is, it was when I was appointed.Speaker 12 (01:24:52):It strikes me as odd that Attorney General Garland had you retake the oath of office on the 14th of September of the following year. Why did he make you do that?Jack Smith (01:25:06):As I sit here right now, I do not recall. I know that there is the oath of office that I signed. I believe it was on the 18th, 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 know that-Speaker 12 (01:25:22):Wait you signed it on the 20th of November 2022, but there was no witness. 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 got to have him sign this on the 14th day of September of the following year." So why did you take the oath of office again on the 14th of September of the following year when you say you took the office in November of 2022? Why'd you need to do it twice?Jack Smith (01:26:04):My recollection is that I took the oath of office. As you said, it was the 18th of the 20th and 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 12 (01:26:18):You signed it, but there was no witness. There was supposed to be either 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?Jack Smith (01:26:37):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 12 (01:26:45):Well, that is just wild to me. I'd like to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Jordan.Mr. Chairman (01:26:51):Well, which one was the official one? Which one counted? I think that's what the gentleman's asking.Jack Smith (01:27:03):I understood myself to have taken the oath of office when I assumed the job-Mr. Chairman (01:27:09):Okay. How much money did you spend in the investigating President Trump? How much money did your office spent?Jack Smith (01:27:17):I do not recall as I sit here now, but I know that pursuant to, I believe it's the special council regulations, reports were issued each six months detailing how much-Mr. Chairman (01:27:28):We gathered at $35 million. And what I want to know is how much of that $35 million of taxpayer money did you 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 elected president?Jack Smith (01:27:56):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-Mr. Chairman (01:28:13):But W=who's the source?Jack Smith (01:28:15):I do not know the identity of the source.Mr. Chairman (01:28:18):How many other payments went to this source or other sources?Jack Smith (01:28:24):As I sit here, I do not know the answer to that question. My role as special counsel-Mr. Chairman (01:28:29):$35 million 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 got subpoenas for bank records for people sitting right there in the front row. Why did you have to pay people for information when you could subpoena them and get it?Speaker 13 (01:28:51):Time Mr. Chairman. Time has expired.Mr. Chairman (01:28:54):Time's expired. You can answer the question though. Country would like to know why you had to do it.Jack Smith (01:28:59):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 Capitol, attacking police officers, obstructing the proceeding, and seeing if we could prove that some of those people had come directly-Speaker 7 (01:29:26):That wasn't my question, but my time has expired. The gentleman from California is recognized.Speaker 14 (01:29:32):Mr. Smith, I want you to have the utmost confidence in what you did. You did everything right. Harry Dunn, Danny Hodges, Sergeant Gonell, Mike Fanone, 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 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.(01:30:21):Everyone remembers Matt Gaetz coming over here after a committee hearing. He would laugh at how stupid he thought Trump was. This is all a show. And Mr. Smith, you're just the latest act that they've brought in, but they can't erase what happened on January 6th because we saw it with our own eyes. Mr. Smith, after the mainstream media called the race for Biden about a week after the election, did Donald Trump concede the election?Jack Smith (01:30:49):He did not.Speaker 14 (01:30:51):The next month, the electoral college met in every state and voted, Biden is the winner. Did Donald Trump concede then?Jack Smith (01:30:58):He did not.Speaker 14 (01:30:59):Shortly after that, the last court case that Donald Trump brought was thrown out. Did he concede then?Jack Smith (01:31:06):No.Speaker 14 (01:31:07):Is it your judgment then that only Donald Trump could have convened the mob in the size that it was assembled on January 6th?Jack Smith (01:31:18):Our assessment of the evidence is that he is the person most responsible for what happened on January 6th. 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 14 (01:31:33):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?Jack Smith (01:31:48):That's correct.Speaker 14 (01:31:49):Mr. Smith, do you know who Edward Loya is?Jack Smith (01:31:53):I'm sorry?Speaker 14 (01:31:54):Edward Loya, L-O-Y-A.Jack Smith (01:31:57):I believe Mr. Loya worked at the public integrity section when I was there.Speaker 14 (01:32:00):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 Mr. James McGovern is?Jack Smith (01:32:14):Yes. He was a prosecutor I worked with in New York.Speaker 14 (01:32:17):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?Jack Smith (01:32:29):I have no partisan loyalties. I don't know if I'm registered as independent or not registered at all.Speaker 14 (01:32:37):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?Jack Smith (01:32:47):I don't regret it.Speaker 14 (01:32:50):Do you remember where you were on September 11th?Jack Smith (01:32:54):I do.Speaker 14 (01:32:55):What did you think of that day?Jack Smith (01:32:58):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 14 (01:33:12):Do you remember where you were on January 6th?Jack Smith (01:33:16):On January 6th, I was living in Europe working for the State Department seccunded to a war crimes tribunal.Speaker 14 (01:33:22):What did you think as you watched on television what happened at the Capitol that day?Jack Smith (01:33:29):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 14 (01:33:34):What did you think when you saw it?Jack Smith (01:33:38):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 14 (01:33:51):What shocked you about it?Jack Smith (01:33:53):I just never seen anything like that happen in our country.Speaker 14 (01:33:57):Mr. 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.Mr. Chairman (01:34:19):Gentlemen yields back. The gentlemen from Alabama is recognized.Speaker 15 (01:34:25):Hey Mr. Chairman. Mr. 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 a 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 longstanding Department of Justice policies designed to prevent prosecutors from influencing elections. Mr. Smith, you claimed in your investigation, you developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal scheme to overturn the results in the 2020 election and to prevent lawful transfer of power. However, a few weeks ago in Georgia, Fulton County election board officials stated that 315,000 ballots were certified without required signatures on the tabulator tapes for poll workers.(01:35:25):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 advance and consent 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.Speaker 15 (01:36:00):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 phone subpoenaed or their record subpoenaed. Some use their phones. Even then Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, one of the highest ranking Republicans in the country had his phone record subpoenaed all for political gang. These subpoenas clearly violated the speech and debate clause.(01:36:36):As John Keller of the DOJ's public integrity section addressed this issue in an email dated May 17th of 2023, DC Circuit President stated that the speech and debate clause, and the bar is this... I'm sorry, bar on compelled disclosure is absolute. These instances are not only the tip of the iceberg about you and your team's flagrant disregard of the constitution. Mr. 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. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll give you the balance of my time for questions.Jim Jordan (01:37:18):I thank the gentlemen for yielding. I want to go back to that email. If we could put that up, this email that Mr. Gill 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, the total records of members of Congress. And there's a couple things I want to 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 to Jack Smith's team. And then you go down later, as Mr. Gill pointed out, the case law is clear, a legislator may intervene and oppose such use. So the risk is real.(01:38:02):But here's the deal. There was really no risk because we weren't going to know. They weren't going to 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 going to know because we're not going to charge any of these guys. They didn't do anything wrong. And so therefore the litigation risk should be minimal. They're not going to be charged. We're not going to go after them. The litigation risk is minimal and it's minimal because frankly, it's nonexistent because they're not going to know.(01:38:41):And we're going to make sure they don't know because we're not even going to tell the judge who we're getting the gag orders on. And yet Mr. Smith thought that was A 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? Because 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 got to get the president. That's what this was all about. You go back to the gentleman from Alabama.Speaker 15 (01:39:23):Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.Speaker 16 (01:39:25):Mr. Chairman, as a chairman, I have a unanimous consent request.Jim Jordan (01:39:29):Gentlemen from New York's recognized.Speaker 16 (01:39:32):Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter the record. A transcript of the voicemail that President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, left Senator Tuberville on January 6th, in which he states, "I'm calling you because I want to 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."Jim Jordan (01:39:52):No objection? Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California.Speaker 17 (01:40:00):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 Mr. Smith, I just want to 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.(01:40:47):Republicans would rather talk about the criminality of Donald Trump in trying to steal an election and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power and the criminality of Donald Trump in stealing classified documents of obstruction justice than about Donald Trump's associations with Jeffrey Epstein and his pedophilia ring. I demand this committee, this chairman, and Republicans to call immediate hearing asking why the Department of Justice is refusing to release 99% of the Epstein files and why the DOJ is violating law right now. I have questions, Mr. Smith, for you, and thank you for being here today. My questions center on interactions or lack of interactions between the Biden administration and yourself. 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?Jack Smith (01:41:45):No.Speaker 17 (01:41:46):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?Jack Smith (01:41:59):No.Speaker 17 (01:42:00):Did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever direct you to take any prosecutory step whatsoever?Jack Smith (01:42:08):No.Speaker 17 (01:42:09):Okay. Donald Trump made it clear he wanted to seek retribution against New York Attorney General Tish James. Trump relentlessly attacked her saying, "She should be prosecuted," and, "arrested and punished." Because she dared to hold Trump accountable for Trump's fraud in New York. Trump weaponized the Department of Justice, and the Trump DOJ opened a sham investigation into her alleged mortgage fraud. We know it's a sham investigation because they could even get twice grand juries to secure indictments against her. When interim US Attorney Erik 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 US attorney. Mr. Smith, did President Biden or anyone else in the Biden White House ever tell you that Donald Trump should be "arrested and punished"?Jack Smith (01:43:09):No.Speaker 17 (01:43:10):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?Jack Smith (01:43:18):No.Speaker 17 (01:43:19):Donald Trump also directed the Trump DOJ to open investigations into his own appointees who refused to do his bidding. His DOJ recently investigated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell because Powell won't seed 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?Jack Smith (01:43:43):No.Speaker 17 (01:43:43):Okay. I just want to 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?Jack Smith (01:43:57):No, I don't believe anybody should be above the law.Speaker 17 (01:43:59):And US Senators are not above the law, correct?Jack Smith (01:44:02):No.Speaker 17 (01:44:03):Yeah. And members of Congress are not above the law, right?Jack Smith (01:44:05):No.Speaker 17 (01:44:06):Yeah, that's right, because we're not. And what Republicans want to 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 a law like everybody else. And by the way, the speech and debate clause only applies to legislative acts, communications with legislative acts. Stealing a fricking 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.(01:44:36):And this is so stupid. I'm a former prosecutor. You'd never investigation go and try to get someone's tow 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 Republican is saying today is just idiotic. I'm so pleased. You're here on national TV telling the American people that Trump was indicted, he was indicted lawfully and multiple grand juries to secure those indictments. Thank you for your service and history will look upon you well. [inaudible 01:45:06].Jim Jordan (01:45:06):Gentle lady from Florida is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 18 (01:45:11):Mr. 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?Jack Smith (01:45:33):That is correct. That's from the federal principles of prosecution.Speaker 18 (01:45:36):And in this case, 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 in 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?Jack Smith (01:46:11):I believe that's correct. It requires knowing deceit targeted a lawful government function.Speaker 18 (01:46:17):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?Jack Smith (01:46:33):A mistake certainly would. We needed to prove and intended to prove at trial that the false statements that Donald Trump made were knowingly false.Speaker 18 (01:46:42):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 or 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?Jack Smith (01:47:11):That's correct.Speaker 18 (01:47:12):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?Jack Smith (01:47:24):Well, I-Speaker 18 (01:47:26):Not correctly convicted.Jack Smith (01:47:29):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 18 (01:47:45):But there too, there's a requirement of intent that this conduct must be knowing and intentional. Isn't that right?Jack Smith (01:47:52):There is an intent requirement. Yes, correct.Speaker 18 (01:47:54):And didn't you also acknowledge in your deposition that the president was receiving information from multiple advisors, Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Powell, and in your deposition you said he was almost just regurgitating what they told him. Isn't that right?Jack Smith (01:48:16):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 anything.Speaker 18 (01:48:30):But you would agree that those people or some people were giving the president conflicting advice at that time, would you not?Jack Smith (01:48:41):You are correct in that his original campaign staff told him he had lost. He fired them and brought in people who would-Speaker 18 (01:48:49):But criminal liability under the statutes you used in your indictment requires proving intent, not simply the undermining of democratic norms or expressing an opinion with which you do not agree. So is it not correct, sir, that here you charged 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?Jack Smith (01:49:20):I felt we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I felt that that proof included direct testimony from a number of witnesses to prove the knowing falsity of his claims.Speaker 18 (01:49:32):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, Mr. 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 any election.Jack Smith (01:50:07):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 18 (01:50:18):Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.Jim Jordan (01:50:20):Gentle lady yields back. The chair recognizes the ranking member for UC.Speaker 19 (01:50:24):Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. This is from John Dowd. I was Donald Trump's lawyer. Jack Smith should be celebrated, not vilified, December 16th, 2025 last month.Jim Jordan (01:50:34):No objection?Speaker 19 (01:50:36):I asked to announce consent to enter the record a criminal complaint filed by the Trump Department of Justice in December 13, 2025, detailing how Kash Patel in FBI used a confidential human source and an undercover FBI agent to investigate a bomb threat-Jim Jordan (01:50:51):Objection?Speaker 19 (01:50:52):... in Los Angeles. And then finally, this is an article published by the Verge on October 19, 2023, titled Peter Thiel was reportedly an FBI informant, which reports that Peter Thiel served as a confidential human source for the FBI.Jim Jordan (01:51:07):Without objection. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for unanimous consent.Speaker 20 (01:51:10):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First one is from msn.com. Biden's the FBI paid anti-Trump sedition hunters as informants and J6, Arctic Frost probes.Jim Jordan (01:51:19):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:20):Jack Smith team approved $20,000 payment to informant to snitch on Trump during Arctic Frost Probe.Jim Jordan (01:51:25):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:28):AT&T turned Kevin McCarthy's cell phone records over to Jack Smith.Jim Jordan (01:51:31):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:33):Biden's legal team met with Jack Smith aid before Trump indictment.Jim Jordan (01:51:36):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:37):Jack Smith deposition gives insight into failed effort to hold Trump accountable.Jim Jordan (01:51:41):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:42):Trump's special counsel Jack Smith was involved in Lois Lerner IRS scandal.Jim Jordan (01:51:47):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:48):Special counsel Jack Smith's mixed history pursuing high profile politicians.Jim Jordan (01:51:52):No objection?Speaker 20 (01:51:53):And FBI resisted opening probe into Trump's role on January 6th.Jim Jordan (01:51:56):Without objection. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 21 (01:52:01):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's our turn. Do you yield your time?Jim Jordan (01:52:07):Lost track after all those unanimous consent requests. Gentle lady from Washington is recognized, and then the gentleman from North Carolina.Speaker 22 (01:52:14):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, thank you for coming here today. Your willingness to speak directly to us and to the American people about your investigation is professional, it's 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 January 6th, 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 "walk down to the Capitol and fight like hell on January 6th."(01:52:58):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 insurrectionist 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 violence at the Capitol. And so I want to 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?Jack Smith (01:54:00):Yes.Speaker 22 (01:54:01):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 communication. Did your investigation find that Donald Trump attempted to manufacture fraudulent state slates of presidential electors in seven states that he lost?Jack Smith (01:54:25):Yes.Speaker 22 (01:54:26):Did he pressure state officials to ignore true vote counts in those states?Jack Smith (01:54:33):Yes.Speaker 22 (01:54:34):Did he spread lies and conspiracies to his followers to make them believe that the election had been illegally rigged against him?Jack Smith (01:54:43):Yes.Speaker 22 (01:54:44):Did he pressure DOJ officials to stop the certification of the election?Jack Smith (01:54:51):He did.Speaker 22 (01:54:52):Did he pressure his own vice president, Mike Pence, to stop the certification against the oath of office that he had sworn to the Constitution?Jack Smith (01:55:00):He did.Speaker 22 (01:55:01):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?Jack Smith (01:55:13):Our proof showed that he caused what happened on January 6th, that it was foreseeable and that he exploited that violence.Speaker 22 (01:55:22):Did Donald Trump know that his allegations of election fraud were lies when he spread them?Jack Smith (01:55:29):Our proof was that he did, and we intended to prove that at trial.Speaker 22 (01:55:32):In fact, as the quotes from your report behind me show, he even privately admitted that he lost the election, correct?Jack Smith (01:55:42):Yes.Speaker 22 (01:55:43):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 about 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?Jack Smith (01:56:10):I do.Speaker 22 (01:56:12):I want to 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?Jack Smith (01:56:32):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 22 (01:56:55):And what do you think the toll is for future elections and future presidents who try to steal an election?Jack Smith (01:57:02):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 Capitol on January 6th was, and the Court of Appeals in Washington DC said this, it was an attack on the structure of our democracy.Speaker 22 (01:57:39):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.Jim Jordan (01:57:47):Gentlemen, yields back gentlemen from North Carolina, excuse me, North Carolina is recognized.Speaker 21 (01:57:51):Mr. Smith, just briefly, if there was no mob on January 6th that attacked the Capitol, we would not be here today, would we?Jack Smith (01:58:06):I can't speak to hypotheticals. The case I investigated involved a mob of supporters of Donald Trump's support.Speaker 21 (01:58:15):Sure. I understand that. I understand that. But had there not been a mob that rushed the Capitol, if they had just stayed in the original speech, if they had obeyed the instruction, go peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard, we would not be here. Isn't that correct?Jack Smith (01:58:31):Well, in that case, Donald Trump wouldn't have done many of the things-Speaker 21 (01:58:36):No, no, no. 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 "the attack on the foundations of our democracy". Correct?Jack Smith (01:58:50):That's a hypothetical and I think it's a counterfactual hypothetical.Speaker 21 (01:58:54):Well, and 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, Mr. Smith, I've charged many conspiracies. There's obviously a lot of benefit to that charge.(01:59:17):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?Jack Smith (01:59:44):I believe so, yes.Speaker 21 (01:59:46):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 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 charged. There was no seditious conspiracy charged, and there was only one defendant, correct? Donald Trump.Jack Smith (02:00:29):That is correct.Speaker 21 (02:00:30):Despite six co-conspirators identified in the indictment, only one person was charged. Is that correct?Jack Smith (02:00:39):Yes.Speaker 21 (02:00:40):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?Jack Smith (02:01:01):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 21 (02:01:25):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 underneath him, correct?Jack Smith (02:01:36):Correct.Speaker 21 (02:01:36):Despite that charge requiring it, you would agree that a criminal conspiracy federally is a criminal agreement, correct?Jack Smith (02:01:45):Yes.Speaker 21 (02:01:45):So by extension, 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.Jack Smith (02:02:00):I had not yet charged anyone besides the president.Speaker 21 (02:02:03):You decided not to charge anybody but Donald Trump in that indictment.Jack Smith (02:02:08):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 21 (02:02:19):I understand that. I understand your position, but you made the decision to charge one person and nobody else, correct?Jack Smith (02:02:27):I made the decision to make the charges in this case.Speaker 21 (02:02:30):And in regards to the way that the case handled from there, sir, I just want to get this on the record, in regards to your press conference, politics played no role, correct?Jack Smith (02:02:41):That is correct.Speaker 21 (02:02:41):The charges you brought, politics played no role, correct?Jack Smith (02:02:46):Correct.Speaker 21 (02:02:47):The expedited trial date played no role. Politics played no role, correct?Jack Smith (02:02:52):I followed the facts and the law, the department policy and the [inaudible 02:02:56].Speaker 21 (02:02:55):The speedy trial request, there was no role in politics, correct?Jack Smith (02:03:00):That's correct. Supreme Court precedent emphasizes that [inaudible 02:03:04]-Speaker 21 (02:03:03):And even your brief that the court found atypical, politics played no role.Speaker 23 (02:03:09):Mr. Chairman, the time's expired.Jim Jordan (02:03:10):Time of the gentleman has expired. The gentle lady from Pennsylvania's recognition.Speaker 24 (02:03:15):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.(02:03:49):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 Mr. 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.(02:04:24):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.(02:04:50):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.(02:05:15):Despite this, he and his co-conspirators continue to make false statements about that result to advance their criminal plan. Can you describe the evidence that these were false claims and they knew they were false, including statements by election officials, court cases and conversations between Trump and his Republican allies in the state?Jack Smith (02:05:39):Sure. 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 and 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 that was a mistake. And so that's one of several. With respect to witnesses 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 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 was a Republican who supported Donald Trump, but wanted him to win. I submit he would've been a credible witness at trial.Speaker 24 (02:07:11):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 co-conspirators solicited folks who had been planning to be Trump electors if he won and asking 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?Jack Smith (02:07:50):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 formerJack Smith (02:08:00):... a US attorney and former member of this Congress.Speaker 25 (02:08:03):I mean the bottom line is that despite the facts and overobjections from his allies, Trump still went to The Ellipse on January 6th and lied about Pennsylvania's votes to direct his angry mob to attack the Capitol. So I just want to 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 26 (02:08:29):Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent.Mr. Chairman (02:08:31):The lady is recognized.Speaker 26 (02:08:33):Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a record a speech by former Vice President Pence published on C-SPAN in June of '23-Mr. Chairman (02:08:43):Objection.Speaker 26 (02:08:44):... which he calls the president's comments on January 6th 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 to put them over the Constitution should never be president. I [inaudible 02:09:00]."Mr. Chairman (02:09:00):Without objection. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 27 (02:09:05):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:09:18):Yes.Speaker 27 (02:09:20):Did you believe that same thing, that your interpretation of the law, your reading of the law would have resulted in the conviction when you went after Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell back in 2014? Did you believe it at the time?Jack Smith (02:09:37):I did believe and-Speaker 27 (02:09:38):Ultimately, you got a conviction in lower court, but that was overturned by the Supreme Court, correct?Jack Smith (02:09:44):Yes. The Supreme Court changed the law on what constituted an official act.Speaker 27 (02:09:48):Actually that's incorrect.Jack Smith (02:09:49):They felt that conviction was overturned.Speaker 27 (02:09:50):That's incorrect. They applied the law and they said in their ruling, "Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ballgowns. 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.(02:10:18):Now did you believe when you went after John Edwards that your interpretation of the facts and the law were correct and that you would convict John Edwards of corruption?Jack Smith (02:10:28):Yes.Speaker 27 (02:10:29):But in fact that case resulted in a jury deadlock on five charges and acquittal on another charge. Is that correct?Jack Smith (02:10:39):That is my recollection. That's correct.Speaker 27 (02:10:42):Let's move on to the court's interpretation of your gag order requests. Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:11:06):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 (02:11:14):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?Jack Smith (02:11:33):Well, we filed for an order in the district court. The district court granted an order. 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 (02:12:11):Did you have any evidence that President Trump's statements about the cases against him intimidated witnesses or prevented them from coming forward?Jack Smith (02:12:18):I had evidence that he said, "If you come after me, I'm coming after you." 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 (02:12:34):But you weren't able to identify a single witness who didn't come forward because they were intimidated by President Trump.Jack Smith (02:12:41):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 (02:12:53):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, that maybe you should reconsider the gag order.Jack Smith (02:13:05):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 (02:13:17):Did anyone on your team raise concerns that this expansive gag order you were seeking would infringe on President Trump's First Amendment rights?Jack Smith (02:13:26):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.(02:14:03):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 27 (02:14:22):And the court stayed that motion on August 3rd, 2024. I yield back.Mr. Chairman (02:14:26):Gentleman yields back. I should have mentioned this a little bit earlier. Mr. Smith, if ever you 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 five minutes.Jack Smith (02:14:37):Can we-Speaker 28 (02:14:37):Mr. Smith-Speaker 29 (02:14:37):[inaudible 02:14:38].Mr. Chairman (02:14:37):[inaudible 02:14:39].Jack Smith (02:14:42):Yeah. Can we take a short break?Mr. Chairman (02:14:43):[inaudible 02:14:44]. We will take a 5, 10-minute recess, then we'll be right back at it.Speaker 30 (02:14:52):Mr. Chairman?Mr. Chairman (02:14:52):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.Speaker 29 (02:15:01):There's a UC request with [inaudible 02:15:03].Mr. Chairman (02:15:03):Gentlelady from Washington is recognized.Speaker 30 (02:15:05):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a unanimous consent request.Mr. Chairman (02:15:08):Gentlelady's recognized.Speaker 30 (02:15:09):This is an order of the DC Circuit dated December 8th, 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 "Nazis, dirty Jews, and child molesters" and represent, "Mr. Trump's documented pattern of speech-Mr. Chairman (02:15:30):Yup.Speaker 30 (02:15:30):... and its demonstrated real-time, real-world consequences-Mr. Chairman (02:15:34):Without.Speaker 30 (02:15:34):... pose a significant-Mr. Chairman (02:15:35):Without.Speaker 30 (02:15:35):... and imminent threat to the functioning-Mr. Chairman (02:15:37):Okay.Speaker 30 (02:15:37):... of the criminal trial process in this case."Mr. Chairman (02:15:39):Without objection, a lot. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 28 (02:15:46):Thank you. Mr. 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 6th?Jack Smith (02:16:01):[inaudible 02:16:06].Speaker 28 (02:16:05):Let me share this with you. This is a quote of his from a press release on January 8th. "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." Mr. Smith, this is theater.Audience (02:16:27):Yes.(02:16:27):Yes.Speaker 28 (02:16:29):Republicans are trying to rewrite history.Audience (02:16:32):Yes.Speaker 28 (02:16:32):That's what this is. Many of them were with us in the House Chamber on January 6th. 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, Mr. 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. Mr. Smith, you're of course aware that President Trump was impeached for his conduct connected to January 6th, right?Jack Smith (02:17:36):Correct.Speaker 28 (02:17:36):Do you know how many members of Congress voted to impeach him?Jack Smith (02:17:40):I don't recall.Speaker 28 (02:17:40):232. Do you know how many Republican members of Congress voted to impeach him?Jack Smith (02:17:45):I don't recall.Speaker 28 (02:17:46):10 Republican members of Congress voted to impeach him for his conduct related to January 6th, 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, Mr. Smith?Jack Smith (02:18:14):I don't recall.Speaker 28 (02:18:15):57 senators. Do you know how many Republicans voted to convict him?Jack Smith (02:18:19):I don't recall.Speaker 28 (02:18:19):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.(02:18:35):So they can engage in as much histrionics as they want to try to rewrite history, but facts are facts. They talk about weaponization. They accuse you of weaponization of the justice system while the Federal Reserve board chairman rings the alarm about political retaliation by this Department of Justice.(02:19:01):Mr. Smith, I don't know if you're aware of this. I don't know if your council has made you aware that President Trump is live tweeting, live, I guess you call it, Truth Socialing as we speak. Are you aware of this, about this hearing?Jack Smith (02:19:15):No.Speaker 28 (02:19:16):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 prosecutions. 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."(02:19:43):We have a word for this. It's called weaponization. It's called corruption. Mr. 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. 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.(02:20:16):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.Jack Smith (02:20:28):I don't have anything to add.Speaker 28 (02:20:29):All right. Thank you for your service. I yield back.Mr. Chairman (02:20:32):Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.Speaker 31 (02:20:35):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 2010, Mr. Smith, did you work for the President Obama's Department of Justice?Jack Smith (02:20:43):Yes. In 2010, I was the chief of the public integrity section.Speaker 31 (02:20:46):During that time, did you have any contact or connection with Lois Lerner with the Obama IRS?Jack Smith (02:20:53):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-Speaker 31 (02:21:02):Did you attempt to work with Lois Lerner and the IRS to investigate nonprofits?Jack Smith (02:21:09):What I did was I asked for a meeting with the IRS about nonprofits. They sent-Speaker 31 (02:21:16):So the simple answer is yes, correct?Jack Smith (02:21:19):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 31 (02:21:24):They went after Second Amendment groups, correct? If you remember correctly, 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?Jack Smith (02:21:39):Separate from this, there was an investigation of that that I was a part of, public integrity.Speaker 31 (02:21:46):You prosecuted Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. This was asked earlier. You prosecuted him, correct?Jack Smith (02:21:53):I was part of the prosecution, yes. It was-Speaker 31 (02:21:56):That ended up with a ... That decision ended up being unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court, correct?Jack Smith (02:22:04):That is correct, sir.Speaker 31 (02:22:05):Yeah. Including Justice Ginsburg joined in on that opinion, correct?Jack Smith (02:22:11):I believe that's correct.Speaker 31 (02:22:12):Yeah. You also prosecuted John Edwards and Bob Menendez, and those both ended in mistrials. Is that right?Jack Smith (02:22:21):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 there.Speaker 31 (02:22:30):So, Mr. Chairman, what we heard from the other side here is that this gentleman is the gold standard for prosecution here 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 a gold standard here in America?(02:22:56):I would just say this, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. 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, Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:23:21):That had happened. Not anything similar to this situation, but you're correct. I think it was Hawaii in, I want to say, the 1960s.Speaker 31 (02:23:30):The election? So it has happened before that there was an alternate slate of electors that was sent to Congress which does the electoral count, correct?Jack Smith (02:23:41):There was a prior time that an electoral slate was sent where there was litigation and recounts going on.Speaker 31 (02:23:48):Actually, there's twice that had happened, Mr. 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 here.Mr. Chairman (02:24:02):Objection.Speaker 31 (02:24:02):With that, I yield to the chairman.Mr. Chairman (02:24:04):I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The gentleman from Colorado talked about noise from this side. It's not noise, it's facts. The fact is you approved a $20,000 payment to a confidential human source. 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?Jack Smith (02:24:30):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 assisting-Mr. Chairman (02:24:43):Well, confidential just raises the question of what were you trying to hide?Jack Smith (02:24:48):Well-Mr. Chairman (02:24:48):Why not tell us? We know you hid the fact that you were getting phone records from members of Congress. We want to 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.Jack Smith (02:25:02):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 Capitol and given the violence in that, it makes complete sense to me that the Bureau would [inaudible 02:25:20]-Mr. Chairman (02:25:19):Do you know of any of the other special counsels who approved payments to ... 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 a special counsel having to pay secret money to someone to get information when you had the broadest subpoena power you could possibly have. Are you aware of any of the other special counsels who had to do this?Jack Smith (02:25:48):I am not aware whether confidential sources were or were not used in those investigations.Mr. Chairman (02:25:54):That's because I don't think they were. I don't think they were.Jack Smith (02:25:56):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.Mr. Chairman (02:26:06):The time of the gentleman from Wisconsin has expired. I now yield to the gentlelady from Georgia for five minutes. Miss McBath?Miss McBath (02:26:12):Thank you, Chairman, and, Mr. 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 disfranchised our voters. In fact, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Georgia in 2023, challenging recently passed voter suppression legislation.(02:26:46):That lawsuit was later withdrawn by Donald Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi. 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.(02:27:19):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." Mr. Smith, what did your investigation reveal about President Trump's interactions with Georgia's officials regarding his fraud claims?Jack Smith (02:27:43):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.(02:28:14):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 as fraud in that state.Miss McBath (02:28:35):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?Donald Trump (02:28:44):We're angry. The people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that you've recalculated.Brad Raffensperger (02:28:52):Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.Donald Trump (02:29:01):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.Miss McBath (02:29:14):Mr. Smith, you explained in your deposition that Georgia 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?Jack Smith (02:29:28):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. I believe that call ended ... My recollection is that 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.Miss McBath (02:30:06):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" Republican officials in Georgia and other states who believed would help him." Mr. Smith, Donald Trump thought these officials would break the law out of party loyalty. When those officials, his own political allies, told him the truth, he dismissed them and continued to spread the lies anyway. Is that correct?Jack Smith (02:30:35):That is correct.Miss McBath (02:30:38):Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:30:50):Yes. After an investigation following the facts in the law, we believed we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt to prove those charges.Miss McBath (02:30:59):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?Jack Smith (02:31:11):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. President Trump and his co-conspirators tried to use those alternative fake elector certificates to get Mike Pence [inaudible 02:31:35].Speaker 29 (02:31:35):Mr. Chairman, regular order.Miss McBath (02:31:37):Okay. Well, Mr. 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-Mr. Chairman (02:31:49):The time of the gentlelady's expired.Miss McBath (02:31:49):... to overturn their free and fair rights, and I yield.Mr. Chairman (02:31:52):Gentleman from Alabama has a unanimous consent request.Speaker 32 (02:31:55):Thank you, Mr. Speaker. December 6th, 2025, Atlanta News First, Fulton County admits to verifying 315,000 votes into 2020 without poll worker signatures. I yield back.Mr. Chairman (02:32:08):Without objection, the chair now recognizes for five minutes the gentleman from Arizona.Speaker 33 (02:32:12):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:32:28):That is correct. There has to be an agreement.Speaker 33 (02:32:31):And so, when you made the determination to charge President Trump with conspiracy, you surely knew that you had somebody else that he had must have agreed upon somewhere to engage in this act that generated the conspiracy, right?Jack Smith (02:32:51):That's correct. We alleged specific individuals in the indictment as co-conspirators.Speaker 33 (02:32:57):So you knew who you were going to charge when you pursued the indictment. You knew who the agreeing parties were, but you chose to list them as co-conspirators, but you didn't indict them. How often have you done that in the past?Jack Smith (02:33:18):In the past, I have had a number of cases where I have charged some members of a conspiracy and not charge others.Speaker 33 (02:33:25):No, no, no. One member of the conspiracy. How many times have you done that, charged one member of the conspiracy and let everybody else off the hook?Jack Smith (02:33:34):I'm sure that's happened. That is not an uncommon-Speaker 33 (02:33:37):You don't remember doing that?Jack Smith (02:33:39):That is not an uncommon thing to do in an investigation-Speaker X (02:33:41):[inaudible 02:33:44].Jack Smith (02:33:43):... in my [inaudible 02:33:44].Speaker 33 (02:33:45):Okay. I dispute that, but we're going to 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?Jack Smith (02:33:59):When you say to decertify-Speaker 33 (02:34:00):You make a motion to decertify on that January 6th, that way every four years. That's not a crime, right?Jack Smith (02:34:10):Correct.Speaker 33 (02:34:12):If another elected official urged someone to join them in that decertification, that's not a crime either, right?Jack Smith (02:34:19):As you stated, it's not.Speaker 33 (02:34:21):Several member 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 are 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?Jack Smith (02:34:42):No, it's not a crime to talk about that over breakfast.Speaker 33 (02:34:46):In your deposition, 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.Jack Smith (02:35:02):I believe it's a lawful government function is.Speaker 33 (02:35:04):Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, lawful government function. That's what you said. You remember saying that?Jack Smith (02:35:10):I said lawful government function. Could you read back what you said again? I'm sorry.Speaker 33 (02:35:13):Yeah. Let's see. An elected official who 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 23? Do you want me to actually read this back? Surely you remember that position. That's your position.Jack Smith (02:35:32):I'm not denying it, and I apologize. I'm just trying to listen to you closely.Speaker 33 (02:35:35):Okay. Let's just go right from this. You said, "As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election," right?Jack Smith (02:35:46):That is correct.Speaker 33 (02:35:47):He's even free to say falsely, falsely that he won the election, correct?Jack Smith (02:35:53):That's correct.Speaker 33 (02:35:54):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.Jack Smith (02:36:08):That is correct.Speaker 33 (02:36:08):Yeah. For you, that lawful government function is the certification process, I suppose, on January 6th.Jack Smith (02:36:16):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 33 (02:36:30):So the entire certification process from the state to the Fed?Jack Smith (02:36:35):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 14th. I think that was the day through the voting-Speaker 33 (02:36:46):Okay. So you can't recall, but for you, it's from the certification moving forward to the actual ratification of the certification process on inaugural day [inaudible 02:36:57].Jack Smith (02:36:57):My recollection, that's what we pled in the indictment, yes.Speaker 33 (02:36:59):Okay. 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, well-Speaker 29 (02:37:28):[inaudible 02:37:29].Mr. Chairman (02:37:29):Time of the gentleman's expired.Speaker 33 (02:37:29):Yeah.Mr. Chairman (02:37:29):Gentleman yields back.Brad Raffensperger (02:37:33):Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record Axios dated August 2nd, 2023. Bar says Trump's First Amendment argument in January 6th case is not valid.Mr. Chairman (02:37:47):Objection? Did you have one?Speaker 29 (02:37:49):No.Mr. Chairman (02:37:50):Okay. Gentlelady from North Carolina is recognized.Joan (02:37:53):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, many of us were here on January 6th 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." Mr. Smith, did your investigation uncover evidence that some of the rioters had gone to the Capitol because they really believed the president had invited them there?Jack Smith (02:38:40):I believe there's video of rioters saying in fact that, as we pled in the indictment, the knowing lies that 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.Joan (02:39:09):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 going to 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 for 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?Jack Smith (02:40:00):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 sorts 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 Ellipse speech before people headed towards the Capitol and the Capitol was attacked.Joan (02:41:07):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?(02:41:21):I can read you something from your Special Counsel Report if you'd like.Jack Smith (02:41:24):I was just going to 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.Joan (02:41:35):And it happened several times. 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 heard the words of the president. He believed them. He genuinely believed them, and he thought that the president was actually going to walk with them to the Capitol. For my final question, Mr. 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 Capitol?Jack Smith (02:42:21):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 Capitol, that he caused what would happen at the Capitol, and that it was foreseeable to him.Joan (02:42:39):Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have two UCs.Chairman (02:42:42):Joan can state, read a unanimous consent request.Joan (02:42:44):I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record a tweet from Representative Biggs on January 7th, 2021, in which he said, "Yesterday, criminal rioters hijacked a joint session of conduct."Chairman (02:42:59):Objection. Got an objection.Joan (02:43:00):And the second one is a unanimous consent to enter into their record and interview from March 2024 on the Capitol Hill Show in which you called on those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th to be "held accountable," because "that's the way our system does work and should work."Chairman (02:43:22):Objection.Joan (02:43:24):Thank you very much.Chairman (02:43:25):Then I'll recognize the gentleman from Texas.Speaker 34 (02:43:27):Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Smith, how many members of Congress or the Senate did you subpoena phone toll records?Jack Smith (02:43:35):As I sit here right now, I do not recall a specific number.Speaker 34 (02:43:38):Is this the complete list right here?(02:43:45):Well, let me ask you this. Am I on this list? Did you target my records and subpoena my phone toll records?Jack Smith (02:43:56):My understanding is your records were subpoenaed by prosecutors before I became special counsel.Speaker 34 (02:44:03):Well, staff would 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&T and we've learned that they were given to the Department of Justice, as this email indicates, because I had 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 in this document it talks about you could be in violation of privilege by even obtaining and possessing this information if the member objected to the disclosure. This happened four years ago in May of 2022, and I couldn't object because I didn't know. I didn't know until about three weeks ago.(02:44:48):My question here is: was there any limits to your investigation or the investigation that preceded you, Mr. Smith? Because as egregious as a violation of separation of powers this is, as egregious in abuse of power it is, it's far more concerning you were 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 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?Jack Smith (02:45:35):Did I...? I'm sorry, sir.Speaker 34 (02:45:36):Did you brief them on the electors and their supposed crimes?Jack Smith (02:45:41):I don't recall specific conversations, but I'm sure that in the course of briefing them I discussed-Speaker 34 (02:45:47):Wasn't that the purpose of the entire investigation as it was set out? Because putting aside that in 1960 was already talked about, my friend, Mr. 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?Jack Smith (02:46:05):Yes, I do.Speaker 34 (02:46:06):She's an election lawyer that was involved in filing an election contest on behalf of President Trump in Georgia in December of 2020, a 64-page complaint with over 1100 pages of exhibits, witness affidavits, and 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?Jack Smith (02:46:39):No. In fact, we stated-Speaker 34 (02:46:40):So why did you deem it appropriate to monitor Cleta 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 Stepien? 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 election was certified?Jack Smith (02:47:10):With respect to Sidney 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 talking about-Speaker 34 (02:47:19):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, Cleta Mitchell, the Conservative Partnership Institute, the America First Policy Institute, NRCC, NRSC, PACs, conservative groups, people all across the country, citizens. 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 that have been targeted, because, frankly, are there any limits to the power of a special prosecutor or special counsel?(02:47:52):So much so in your abuse of power that, in the summer of 2024, the indictment involving classified documents was dismissed after determining your appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the constitution, but you continued to sign your name on court filings until the time you resigned from office in January of 2025. A federal judge just 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.Chairman (02:48:22):Gentleman yields back.Jamie Raskin (02:48:23):Did the gentleman have the opportunity to respond?Chairman (02:48:26):If the gentleman wants to respond, he can.Jack Smith (02:48:28):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 case in Washington DC. And with respect to Florida, there was nothing improper about taking an appeal of that very decision.Chairman (02:48:51):The gentlelady from Vermont is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 35 (02:48:53):Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Smith, I want to discuss Volume II 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. Mr. Smith, is it generally the practice for a special counsel's report to be made public to the American people?Jack Smith (02:49:17):I want to say first, I'm limited, what I can say about Volume II, because-Speaker 35 (02:49:21):I understand.Jack Smith (02:49:22):... of 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 35 (02:49:41):To the best of your knowledge, was Special Counsel Mueller's report made public in full?Jack Smith (02:49:48):I know it was made public. I'm not sure if it was made public in full.Speaker 35 (02:49:51):What about Special Counsel Hur's report?Jack Smith (02:49:55):My recollection is his report was made public in full. I believe that's correct.Speaker 35 (02:50:01):And Special Counsel Weiss's report?Jack Smith (02:50:05):I do not know.Speaker 35 (02:50:07):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 is not already public. I understand that. Including your findings that you laid out in Volume II of that report, am I correct that the reason your report is not available in full to the public is because of this gag order?Jack Smith (02:50:34):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 current Department of Justice has interpreted that order in a way that I cannot speak about anything that could possibly be in that report and its findings.Speaker 35 (02:51:03):And when Judge Cannon issued that gag order, she cited pending cases against Trump's co-defendants. Is that correct?Jack Smith (02:51:10):I'm sorry?Speaker 35 (02:51:11):When Judge Cannon issued the gag order, she cited pending cases against Trump's co-defendants. Is that correct?Jack Smith (02:51:19):That's my recollection.Speaker 35 (02:51:20):Are those cases still pending?Jack Smith (02:51:24):No, they're not.Speaker 35 (02:51:25):No, they're not. So there is no reason, from where I sit, for this important information to be not made public. At this point, I want to turn now to President Trump's attacks on you.(02:51:38):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?Jack Smith (02:52:23):With respect to me, I think the statements are meant to intimidate me. I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others, what will happen if they stand up. And as I say, I'm not going to be intimidated. We did our work pursuant to 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 going to pretend that didn't happen because he's threatening me.Speaker 35 (02:53:00):And Mr. Smith, do you believe that President Trump's Department of Justice will find some way to indict you?Jack Smith (02:53:08):I believe that they will do everything in their power to do that because they've been ordered to by the president.Speaker 35 (02:53:16):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 a 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 6th. Trump stood at the Ellipse and gave a campaign speech to his supporters. He said, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." And I think it's clear that his intimidation will stop at nothing. In closing, I want to speak on behalf of the people-Jamie Raskin (02:53:57):No closing. Chairman, regular order.Speaker 35 (02:54:00):No, I'm sorry.Jamie Raskin (02:54:01):Mr. Chairman, regular order.Speaker 35 (02:54:03):I'm sorry. You have gone over numerous times.Chairman (02:54:06):Time belongs to the gentlelady from Vermont.Speaker 35 (02:54:06):I am taking my few moments.Chairman (02:54:06):I'll let you go a couple more seconds-Speaker 35 (02:54:06):Thank you, Mr. Chair.Chairman (02:54:06):... like you have all day.Speaker 35 (02:54:06):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. I'm ashamed that you have not gotten your due.Chairman (02:54:26):Time to the gentlelady has expired.Speaker 35 (02:54:26):I yield back.Chairman (02:54:27):Gentleman from New Jersey is-Jamie Raskin (02:54:28):I've got a UC request.Chairman (02:54:29):Gentleman, ranking members recognize for UC.Jamie Raskin (02:54:31):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 accounts of at least a dozen people tied to the House Intelligence Committee in 2017, '18, including Representative Swalwell and Senator Adam Schiff."Chairman (02:54:52):No objection.Jamie Raskin (02:54:53):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 December 10, 2024.Chairman (02:55:05):Without objection, the Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey.Speaker 36 (02:55:07):Thank you, Chairman. I don't even know where to go because there's so much, Mr. Smith. There really is, but 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 under 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.(02:55:53):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, I think the prosecutors and the people around you stretch norms, change standards depending upon 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 that all those congressional records that were subpoenaed, all those congressional records that were looked at, was one of them a Democrat?(02:56:39):No. The answer's 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, etc. 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? Would they trust the system more? The answer? Go ahead, answer. Please answer.Jack Smith (02:57:17):I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you were asking me.Speaker 36 (02:57:20):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 going to 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 didn't make the playing field level? Did it make people less trustworthy of the system, yes or no?Jack Smith (02:57:49):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 and he was presumed innocent.Speaker 36 (02:58:01):And thank you for... 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 and got records of members of Congress, and you kept those subpoenas hidden through non-disclosure orders. That's wrong. They should've known. You want to 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. 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?Jack Smith (02:58:47):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 36 (02:58:57):Because you didn't have the 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 6th 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 upon this biased, unfair, prejudiced system? How is that fair? Tell me how that's fair.Jack Smith (02:59:46):That's not correct. We conducted an independent investigation.Speaker 36 (02:59:49):You based a lot on that commission. You got all their records.Jack Smith (02:59:52):That's not correct. We did collect their records. We conducted our own independent investigation following the facts and the law. The reality is-Speaker 36 (02:59:59):And you used a lot of their information, Mr. Smith. I don't mean to cut you off. I've got limited time.(03:00:04):Joe Biden took classified records that were not to be taken when he was vice president and when he was sen. And I know you didn't deal directly with that case.Speaker 37 (03:00:15):Mr. Chairman?Speaker 36 (03:00:16):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 you raided Mar-a-Lago. Is that fair?Chairman (03:00:29):Time to the gentleman expired.Speaker 36 (03:00:31):I'd like him to answer.Chairman (03:00:31):If the witness would like to respond, he can.Jack Smith (03:00:34):I have no response.Speaker 36 (03:00:35):It's damn unfair. That's the answer.Jamie Raskin (03:00:37):We've got a UC request, Mr. Chair.Chairman (03:00:37):UC requests from the gentlelady from California.Speaker 37 (03:00:40):Yes. I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the government's sentencing memorandum for Capitol rioter, Cody Mattice, who said that, "When the former president asked to support us to march on the Capitol, it was not a call to peacefully and patriotically make your voice-Chairman (03:00:57):Objection.Speaker 37 (03:00:57):... but to storm and seize the building."Jamie Raskin (03:00:59):And I've got one, Mr. Chairman.Chairman (03:01:00):Gentleman's recognized.Jamie Raskin (03:01:01):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.Chairman (03:01:10):Without objection. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois.Speaker 38 (03:01:17):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 that election. And then he took classified documents with him and put them in Mar-a-Lago. Republicans support impunity for criminals, not accountability. There's no clear 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.(03:02:06):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.(03:02:24):Mr. Smith, let me ask you something. Does pardoning violent rioters who brutalize law enforcement officers, spray-peppering them, tasering them, beating them up, kicking them, smashing them in doorframes make our country safer?Jack Smith (03:02:42):Absolutely not.Speaker 38 (03:02:45):As a prosecutor, can you describe why these pardons make our communities less safe and undermine our criminal legal system more broadly?Jack Smith (03:03:02):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 38 (03:03:40):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 6th 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.(03:04:13):The Gestapo tactics by ICE and CBP are the obvious result of President Trump and the Republican Party to protect anyone who helps them turn our country into an authoritarian, gangster state. Whether it's storming the Capitol 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 got to have a spine.(03:05:04):I thank you, Mr. Smith, for doing your part. Our fight continues for accountability, not for impunity. Thank you, and I yield back.Speaker 39 (03:05:17):May I have the time?Speaker 38 (03:05:19):Mr. Chairman, I would yield to the gentleman from New York.Speaker 39 (03:05:22):Mr. Smith, I just want to take a minute and allow you to explain why you requested the toll records of those officials for January 6th.Jack Smith (03:05:34):For the January 6th investigation, you mean-Speaker 39 (03:05:36):Yeah.Jack Smith (03:05:38):... correct? Well, with regard to the toll records that were subpoenaed regarding the period of the 4th, I think it was, to the 7th, 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 Capitol. We had evidence that those calls had happened. We wanted to get more evidence of that to corroborate it for 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 39 (03:06:22):And you want a documentary confirmation?Jack Smith (03:06:25):Yes, correct.Speaker 39 (03:06:26):Yield back.Chairman (03:06:27):Time to the gentleman is expired. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Nehls, is recognized.Troy Nehls (03:06:31):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 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 pushed flawed legal theories. And even the far left Washington Post 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. Mr. Smith, you mishandled documents, pressured defense lawyers, and dumped a massive trove of so called "evidence" right before the election, and you did it to sway voters. That's why you did it. And don't get me started on that raid at Mar-Lago or your unconstitutional appointment, which a federal judge in Florida rightly tossed out. A very bad day for you.(03:07:43):This wasn't, Mr. 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 of beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Smith, I will give you proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Donald Trump winning the popular vote by over two million votes, the electoral college by 85 votes, along with every single swing state.(03:08:50):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, Mr. Smith, the stink remains on you. And lastly, I would like to quickly address the police officers of January 6th. Mr. Dunn, Mr. Fanone, Mr. Gonell, Mr. 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 U.S. Capitol leadership team. We know. We know they had the intelligence and there was going to be a high propensity for violence that day. Claim my time, yeah.Chairman (03:09:43):You will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Texas. We've had some disruptions already. We don't need that. The gentleman may continue.Troy Nehls (03:09:52):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 Capitol itself was the target. We knew the extremist groups were going to be there. And why do I say that? It was your report from your intelligence section, the IICD, which was run by Pittman in the January 3rd special event section. It was in it. And Mr. Dunn, I believe that you thought that day would be like just any other. In your testimony to the January 6th committee, you said you found out how Dougy was going to 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 the Bennie Thompson, the sham committee didn't do it.Jamie Raskin (03:10:55):Will the gentleman yield for a question?Troy Nehls (03:10:56):The sham committee didn't do it. The report is 845 pages. Donald Trump's name is mentioned 4,207 times. We know what the committee wanted to do, is to not allow Donald Trump to come back and win again. And they failed, and they failed miserably. And I hope you now can see that. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield a balance to my distinguished colleague out of Jersey.Speaker 36 (03:11:22):I just want to quickly go over something, because we keep rewriting history. The president said "peacefully" and "patriotically". 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 that?Jamie Raskin (03:11:38):Will the gentleman yield for a question? Are you saying Nancy Pelosi controls the National Guard?Speaker 36 (03:11:41):Wait a minute.Jamie Raskin (03:11:42):The president could've ordered the National Guard if he wanted to, and you know that.Speaker 36 (03:11:45):[inaudible 03:11:45] my time. I lost some of my time.Chairman (03:11:47):The time belongs to the gentleman from New Jersey. You have a few more seconds.Speaker 36 (03:11:49):And finally, how many elected officials say we're going to fight to win an election? It's terminology used all the time, seriously. And of course, if they were guilty,Speaker 36 (03:12:00):They should be prosecuted. The problem was there were many in the mix.Speaker 40 (03:12:04):Under unanimous consent, the gentleman yields back. The gentleman [inaudible 03:12:07] back.Speaker 36 (03:12:07):And last thing, your hand gestures, Mr. Fanone-Speaker 40 (03:12:09):No, no, no, no, no.Speaker 36 (03:12:09):You need medication.Speaker 40 (03:12:10):The time of the gentleman expired. The time of 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 41 (03:12:18):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two unanimous consent requests to enter into the record, two articles.Speaker 40 (03:12:24):The gentlelady can proceed.Speaker 41 (03:12:25):An article dated December 29th, 2025 titled Wall Street Journal Editorial Board calls out MAGA's latest 2020 stolen election nonsense.Speaker 40 (03:12:34):Objection.Speaker 41 (03:12:35):And the second article, an article dated December 23rd, 2025 titled Fact Check: Fulton County's 315,000 Unsigned Early Votes Are Not Proof of Electoral Fraud.Speaker 40 (03:12:47):Without objection, the gentlemen from Illinois is recognized for unanimous consent.Speaker 42 (03:12:50):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 6th and the Defenders of Democracy Who Stopped Them, which profiles the illustrious career trajectories of some of the key actors from January 6th who were pardoned by Donald Trump. And secondly-Speaker 40 (03:13:12):Without objection.Speaker 42 (03:13:13):A second report, a January 2026 report from Judiciary Democrats one year later assessing the public safety implications of President Trump's mass pardon of 1,600 January 6th riders and insurrections.Speaker 40 (03:13:27):Without objection, the gentlelady from California is recognized.Speaker 43 (03:13:29):Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Smith for joining us. 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.(03:13:56):And the one person who should be telling the truth about 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 6th 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.(03:14:23):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 Mr. Smith, what evidence did you develop to suggest Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election?Jack Smith (03:14:45):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.(03:15:12):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.(03:15:32):People in various states or 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 43 (03:15:57):And I'm going to 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?Jack Smith (03:16:12):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.(03:16:37):And this very issue was litigated in the case. The defense raised this very issue. And one thing I want to be clear about today, the case that I investigated in the case we had, it was built to be tried in a courtroom, not in the media. Our case was built to withstand the crucible of litigation, and our assessment was that we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would do that.Speaker 43 (03:17:04):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 6er actually said, "If I can't trust him, then who can I trust?" Exactly. We cannot even trust our own president.(03:17:24):And in fact, there's so many other things that you can say that you're not allowed to say because 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.(03:17:42):So I know I don't have that much time. I want to 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 as special counsel, yes or no? That's true? Is that accurate?Jack Smith (03:18:04):Yes, some subpoenas occurred before I was special counsel.Speaker 43 (03:18:07):And what do you say to those who claim you chose to target Republicans because you only collected phone records for Republicans?Jack Smith (03:18:16):The conspiracy I was investigating targeted Republicans, as I mentioned earlier.Speaker 43 (03:18:22):That's right. And so you would have requested any relevant call records necessary for your investigation of a Republican or of a Democrat?Jack Smith (03:18:30):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, in one of the voicemails he left for the Senator, mention the fact that it was Republicans that you were reaching out to?"(03:18:54):And he said, "Because the Democrats weren't going to help us, and even some Republicans wouldn't help us." And so, our evidence showed repeatedly that the plan was to see if you could prey on people's party-Speaker 40 (03:19:08):Time the gentlelady's expired. The gentle lady from-Speaker 43 (03:19:12):Thank you, I yield back.Speaker 40 (03:19:13):Gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from Wyoming's recognized for five minutes.Speaker 44 (03:19:20):Mr. Smith, it was during your deposition with our committee that you revealed that you tasked your team, specifically J.P. Cooney, to engage with the Partisan January 6th Committee. You had to have known at the time the controversy surrounding this committee, including 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 J6 Committee.(03:19:50):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 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?Jack Smith (03:20:21):I did request J.P. Cooney.Speaker 44 (03:20:24):What did they have that you couldn't obtain on your own?Jack Smith (03:20:27):In any investigation, you-Speaker 44 (03:20:29):What information did they have that you were not able to obtain on your own?Jack Smith (03:20:34):I couldn't know that until I had their information.Speaker 44 (03:20:37):Was there anything there? Did you find that they had information that you were not able to obtain?Jack Smith (03:20:43):I don't recall specifically 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 evidence.Speaker 44 (03:20:57):Okay. So from the time that you were appointed as special counsel up to the date of your resignation in January of 2025, did you personally have any contact with any members, staff, or contractors of the House's January 6th Select Committee? And if so, who?Jack Smith (03:21:14):I do not believe I had contact with anybody personally from the January Select Committee.Speaker 44 (03:21:18):Okay. The January 6th 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 J6 Committee destroyed evidence. Let that sink in.(03:21:45):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.(03:22:05):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?Jack Smith (03:22:25):What I can tell you is that I requested J.P. Cooney to contact the Select Committee-Speaker 44 (03:22:31):Do you know if you received any of the evidence or testimony that the J6 Committee eventually destroyed?Jack Smith (03:22:39):I don't have any information that the J6 Committee-Speaker 44 (03:22:42):You don't know one way or the other as you sit here today?Jack Smith (03:22:45):No. What I'm telling you is that I requested all the information we could get from the January 6th-Speaker 44 (03:22:52):Has all of the information that you requested been preserved? All of the information from the J6 Committee, has that been preserved?Jack Smith (03:23:00):The information that we requested and received, we reviewed it. It was part of our-Speaker 44 (03:23:05):Has it been preserved?Jack Smith (03:23:06):Yes, as part of our files and-Speaker 44 (03:23:07):Thank you. Were you or your team advised or did you get the impression from anyone affiliated with the January 6th 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?Jack Smith (03:23:27):As I sit here right now, I don't recall that. I recall-Speaker 44 (03:23:30):Did the J6 Committee provide you with the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony as part of the trove of documents that you received?Jack Smith (03:23:39):As I sit here now, I don't recall, but it would-Speaker 44 (03:23:41):Well, you're familiar with her testimony, aren't you?Jack Smith (03:23:43):I am, and-Speaker 44 (03:23:44):And in fact, wouldn't you agree with me that Ms. Hutchinson's testimony, especially the most explosive allegations made, was comprised of hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay?Jack Smith (03:23:57):There-Speaker 44 (03:23:58):Come on, you're an attorney, Mr. Smith. You can answer the question. Of course it was hearsay.Jack Smith (03:24:02):There was-Speaker 44 (03:24:03):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?(03:24:14):In fact, Mr. Smith, if you had attempted to walk into court with Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, you would've been thrown out on your ear. No judge, no legitimate judge would've ever allowed the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson to be admitted in a court of law, would they?Jack Smith (03:24:32):I disagree.Speaker 44 (03:24:34):Well, and then we've already talked about your records today, so I can understand why. I yield back.Speaker 45 (03:24:36):Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady's time has long since expired.Speaker 40 (03:24:39):The time of the gentlelady has expired. The gentleman from Florida?Speaker 45 (03:24:44):Can I do one UC request first?Speaker 40 (03:24:46):The gentleman is recognized.Speaker 45 (03:24:47):This is from factcheck.org. Meme Rehashes Old, False Claim That J6 Committee Destroyed Evidence, from October 15th, 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 40 (03:25:08):Without objection, the gentleman from Florida is recognized.Mr. Moskowitz (03:25:10):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're definitely not in a court of law today. Half this shit wouldn't come in if we were. Good God. I want to talk about something one of my colleagues, Mr. Nehls said from Texas. He sits on this new January 6th subcommittee, which I also happen to sit on.(03:25:31):And he said the same thing in the subcommittee the other week, "That it wasn't President Trump that inspired January 6th," right? It wasn't him. He said in the subcommittee that it was actually Ray Epps.(03:25:45):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 Mike Pence, and try to break into the floor of the House, and wiping feces on the walls. It was all this guy, Ray Epps. So who is Ray Epps? Why is he so powerful? So, I just did a quick 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...(03:26:17):You went from Donald Trump. "It wasn't Donald." "Well, who are we going to blame? Who could it be?" "How about the wedding planner to the Oath keepers?" It's just pathetic. But my colleagues love the past, Mr. Smith, love the past. That's why you're here before Pam Bondi. Okay?(03:26:36):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 committee a reference, but they love the past. Oh, they love talking about January 6th and Hunter Biden, and COVID, and 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 49 (03:26:58):Right now.Mr. Moskowitz (03:26:59):But they hate talking about the present. But you know what? Let's talk about the past real quick. Here are some quotes, 'cause I heard one of my colleagues call you a hypocrite. Here are some quotes from my colleagues. Chairman Jordan. All right after January 6th, "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."(03:27:23):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 Nehls, oh my God, him again, "I'm happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Capitol Police. "Darryl Issa, "The violence and turmoil we witnessed in Washington D.C. was completely unacceptable."(03:27:43):Rep McClintock, "The attack on 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 violence 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. Or exclamation point.(03:28:09):But let's talk also about 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 president. Jerome Powell, facing investigation. Okay? In fact, we heard about Jonathan Turley that he's some legal Messiah. Jonathan Turley calls the Jerome Powell thing, "Legitimate concerns of retaliation."(03:28:31):Lisa Cook, under investigation. Mark Kelly, United States Senator, under investigation. Adam Schiff, United States Senator, under investigation. Eric Swaldwell, United States Representative, under investigation. Chris Christie, potentially under investigation. Jack Smith, oh, that's you, under investigation. Okay?(03:28:49):Miles Taylor, former Chief of Staff to the United States Department of Homeland Security, under investigation, Christopher Krebs, former Director of Cybersecurity, under investigation. Indicted, James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton. It's weird that they indicted John Bolton, but stole his foreign policy.(03:29:06):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, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the guy Trump gave a medal to.(03:29:26):Security clearance revoked, Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, Jacob Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zade, Norman Eisen, Leticia James, Alvin Bragg, Andrew Weissman, Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Kamala Harris, Adam Kinzinger, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, Miles Taylor, I can keep going. Any questions about any of that? We know you don't-Speaker 45 (03:29:45):But will the gentleman yield for a question?Mr. Moskowitz (03:29:47):I will, please.Speaker 45 (03:29:47):'Cause you have a way of synthesizing that nobody else does, Mr. Moskowitz. Listening to our colleagues today, I wonder if they actually believe any of this would have happened had Donald Trump simply accepted the results of the election.Mr. Moskowitz (03:30:02):You mean like Al Gore did when he lost five to four at the Supreme Court?Speaker 45 (03:30:05):Yeah.Mr. Moskowitz (03:30:05):Yeah.Speaker 45 (03:30:06):Would the violence have happened? Would the fake counterfeit slates have happened? The threats against Vice President Pence?Mr. Moskowitz (03:30:12):No, none of it would have happened. And Leon Panetta would still have his security clearance, so would John Brennan, so would Michael Morrell, Michael Vickers. I can't get them all in, Mr. Chairman. I have like four more pages of the weaponization of the department.Speaker 40 (03:30:27):The time of the gentleman from Florida has expired. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized.Speaker 46 (03:30:34):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, when was the initial indictment issued on President Trump? August 1st, 2023, does that sound about right?Jack Smith (03:30:43):That's in the election case. That's correct.Speaker 46 (03:30:46):Correct. And on that election case, after that, you asked for a trial date when?Jack Smith (03:30:54):I don't recall as I sit here right now.Speaker 46 (03:30:55):January 2024. Does that sound about right?Jack Smith (03:30:58):That sounds about right.Speaker 46 (03:30:59):Okay. So, after the indictment in August, you asked for a January trial date. That's, what, five months? Five months? How much evidence did you have? Millions of pages?Jack Smith (03:31:14):As I sit here right now, I don't recall the exact-Speaker 46 (03:31:16):I think in your testimony, they talked about a number, 13 million pages. Is that a ballpark accurate number?Jack Smith (03:31:24):I think that was the question asked of me. And as I sit here, I don't have an accurate number for [inaudible 03:31:29].Speaker 46 (03:31:29):So let's just assume that that's true, right? 'Cause you had a bunch of stuff. You had $50 million that you blew through the treasury on a trial that went nowhere. How many pages per day is that? 100,000? That sound 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?Jack Smith (03:31:55):I do.Speaker 46 (03:31:56):Do you read 70 pages a minute?Jack Smith (03:31:59):I do not.Speaker 46 (03:32:00):That would be remarkable. So how do you prepare for a trial in 5 months if you're asking the defense counsel to read 70 pages a minute? 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?(03:32:19):You know what's shocking to me? I think that one of the most egregious aspects of this case, Mr. Smith, is that if you get a traffic ticket in Washington D.C., 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 million pages of documents within five months.(03:32:39):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 job, timed perfectly against the President of the United States. Sir, in the Florida case, in the Records Case, what happened ultimately in that case?Jack Smith (03:33:14):What happened ultimately in the case?Speaker 46 (03:33:15):Yeah, the Mar-a-Lago Records Case.Jack Smith (03:33:18):I'm going to answer because I don't think this is covered by Judge Cannon's order. We move to dismiss that case pursuant to Justice Department policy.Speaker 46 (03:33:28):No, no, the Records Case in Florida.Jack Smith (03:33:33):Against Donald Trump?Speaker 46 (03:33:36):The Records Case in Mar-a-Lago, what was the ruling in that?Jack Smith (03:33:42):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 that we dismissed the cases.Speaker 46 (03:33:56):So, from the very beginning, were you ever confirmed by the United States Senate?Jack Smith (03:34:04):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 counsels-Speaker 46 (03:34:14):But isn't there a statute of appointment? Do 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.(03:34:31):And from the beginning, we talk about that you followed 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. And you can't even recall who swore you in. So as we sit here today, based on your testimony in the transcribed interview, can you tell us who swore you in as special prosecutor?Jack Smith (03:35:02):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-Speaker 46 (03:35:09):I don't know, sir. Call me naive, but 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 bit odd. But here's the thing, and I'm going to wrap up quick.(03:35:22):You're unconstitutionally appointed. You breached the 60-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.(03:35:37):You subpoenaed members of Congress and their phone records in violation of the Constitution of current statutes. 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, and I yield back.Speaker 40 (03:35:52):Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from New York is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 47 (03:35:56):I would caution my friend from South Carolina and others against jumping into bed with Judge Cannon, who's been rebuked repeatedly by the 11th Circuit because she is completely lawless.(03:36:10):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 been probably sworn in a dozen times doesn't jump out at you.(03:36:23):I want to go back to the evidence, though, that Donald Trump knew that he was lying about the election. And I'd ask you to say, if you could, specifically, who gave evidence to you that supported your conclusion that he knew that he was lying?Jack Smith (03:36:44):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.(03:37:03):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 co-conspirators, and they never provided it.(03:37:19):Over and over again, the people 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 47 (03:37:40):Right. And 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 6th." And four of the brave officers who defended the Capitol 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.(03:38:17):Now, my colleague from California referred to a couple 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. Mr. Smith, did you ever speak to President Biden about this case?Jack Smith (03:38:50):Never.Speaker 47 (03:38:51):Did you ever receive orders or direction from President Biden or anyone else in the White House about this case?Jack Smith (03:39:00):No.Speaker 47 (03:39:01):Did you ever receive any direction from the Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding whether or not you should charge this case?Jack Smith (03:39:11):No, I was given the independence to make that decision on my own.Speaker 47 (03:39:15):An independent special counsel, exactly. I just want to point out to my colleagues, who seem to think this is a politicized investigation, that on February 10th, 2021, over a month after January 6th, Marco Rubio said, "The January 6th attack on the Capitol 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 February 10th, 2021? Who was president?Jack Smith (03:39:51):On February 10th, 2021? That would be Joe Biden.Speaker 47 (03:40:01):So Marco Rubio wanted Joe Biden's Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump and his January 6th insurrectionists. I want to 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.(03:40:33):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 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?Jack Smith (03:41:08):I believe political litmus tests are not proper for career prosecutors. I think my experience over 30 years as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice is having people who are not 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 50 (03:41:30):The gentleman's time has expired.Speaker 47 (03:41:31):Thank you. I yield back.Speaker 50 (03:41:33):Gentlemen yields back. Gentlemen from Wisconsin is recognized.Speaker 48 (03:41:37):Yeah. First of all, just a couple of comments. There are probably 10, 15 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 that Donald Trump did not believe he lost that election. He just didn't. No way.(03:42:16):And I think on January 6th, I can't believe there were any congressmen here who didn't think Joe Biden was going to be sworn in as president. So it 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 or not you're familiar with the document.Jack Smith (03:42:55):I don't believe I'm familiar with this document.Speaker 48 (03:42:58):Okay. The document contains just about every person who was higher up in the Donald Trump campaign. There's a little more emphasis on here on people involved in Wisconsin, but you're not familiar with the document?Jack Smith (03:43:15):I'm sorry, sir. What was your question?Speaker 48 (03:43:17):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.Jack Smith (03:43:37):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 48 (03:43:44):Okay. We'll eventually submit another question for you on this later on. From the time you were appointed as special consult, to your resignation in January 2025, did you ever have contact withSpeaker 48 (03:44:00):... with the January 6th select committee?Jack Smith (03:44:04):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 provide us.Speaker 48 (03:44:18):So you directed people to have direct contact?Jack Smith (03:44:20):I directed my deputy to make contact to collect evidence from them.Speaker 48 (03:44:26):And that's JP Cooney?Jack Smith (03:44:27):JP Cooney, my deputy, correct.Speaker 48 (03:44:29):Okay. Did you have any concern that the evidence collected by the partisan select committee would be in any way tainted by politics?Jack Smith (03:44:38):I apologize, sir. I just couldn't hear you because of the door.Speaker 48 (03:44:41):Okay. 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?Jack Smith (03:44:50):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 48 (03:45:04):I'm going to go back and ask you something on that one before, 'cause 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 records subpoenaed. Are you familiar with that name at all?Jack Smith (03:45:22):As I sit here right now, I am not familiar with that name.Speaker 48 (03:45:25):Okay. Thank you. With regard to ... Part of the documents that you received was with regard to Cassidy Hutchison, right?Jack Smith (03:45:38):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 48 (03:45:52):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?Jack Smith (03:46:06):We did issue subpoenas for various sorts of information, correct.Speaker 48 (03:46:11):Okay. And the bank records you would say or we could describe were fairly broad, the request?Jack Smith (03:46:18):We issued subpoenas for certain bank records as part of our investigation, yes.Speaker 48 (03:46:25):Okay. Shortly after you were appointed, you issued subpoenas to state and local officials for their communications with President Trump, is that correct? And his campaign.Jack Smith (03:46:37):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 48 (03:46:55):One final question.Speaker 51 (03:46:56):One quick final question.Speaker 48 (03:46:57):Yeah. Do you really believe that President Trump thinks he lost that election?Jack Smith (03:47:04):Yes. Our investigation following the facts in the law determined that-Speaker 48 (03:47:09):No way. Thank you. That's enough.Speaker 51 (03:47:12):I have a unanimous consent request.Speaker 48 (03:47:14):No way.Speaker 51 (03:47:14):Gentleman from New York is recognized for unanimous consent.Speaker 52 (03:47:16):Actually, I have two. One is to an article 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 51 (03:47:37):Without objection. Gentlelady from Texas is recognized.Jasmine Crockett (03:47:40):Can I get an extra 33 seconds?Speaker 51 (03:47:42):You get your full five minutes.Jasmine Crockett (03:47:43):Well, okay, fine. So 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 'cause I was there. They didn't really want you out 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.(03:48:10):So just to be clear, today it seems like the Republicans have not really fought very much about whether or not 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?Jack Smith (03:48:40):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.Jasmine Crockett (03:48:53):Thank you so much.(03:48:54):Additionally, 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 out of 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 6th. 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 $1.4 billion. He's shaking down electives 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.(03:49:49):So why are we trying to pretend as if it is out of the realm for this particular man to commit the crime that he committed on January 6th? And frankly, the only reason he ran for president was to make sure that he would not be prosecuted 'cause I fully believe that you would've put him under the jail based on our long form conversation that we had.(03:50:07):But according to 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 crime's charge, the strength of the government's proof or the merits of the prosecution," and that "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.(03:50:44):The chairman and other members of this committee have spent all day attacking you and trying to rewrite the history of January 6th. Mr. Jim Jordan, the chairman, failed to mention how he was running around the Capitol 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, "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 6th, which is why his toll records were subpoenaed by your office.(03:51:23):Let me be clear, 'cause they're trying to act like this is Democrats on Republicans, and I guess you are a covert Democrat that knew that he was going to 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 a Republican?Jack Smith (03:51:45):No, we subpoenaed the toll records in the course of this investigation because they were relevant to our investigation.Jasmine Crockett (03:51:51):Relevant. Oh, okay. All right. So that means something about facts. So let's talk about facts. Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden, yes or no?Jack Smith (03:52:02):That's correct.Jasmine Crockett (03:52:03):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 "fight like hell," correct?Jack Smith (03:52:28):Correct.Jasmine Crockett (03:52:32):We all saw what happened 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 advisors were pushing for violence. For example, page 81 of the report details how co-conspirators, number two, John Eastman, tried to convince Mike Pence to break the law, stating that "violence was necessary."(03:52:57):So it isn't just Trump who is 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. 147 Republicans voted to overturn the 2020 election results, including multiple members currently serving on this committee. And I will yield.Speaker 51 (03:53:17):Gentlelady yields. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.Speaker 53 (03:53:21):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, we've heard a lot of information. It's gone across this day as we've spent 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 reasonable timeframe. But I want to ask you for a moment, I can, 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 Nauta, to cooperate against President Trump and to flip on him. And we know this because Stanley Woodward himself came forth with this information.(03:54:10):And I guess my question for you, is this appropriate behavior for a special counsel's office to leverage attorney's future career prospects?Jack Smith (03:54:20):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.(03:54:45):What I did is I directed my deputies to look into it. We made sure that 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 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. Woodward in his allegation claimed it was only an inference.(03:55:21):Nine months went by where we interacted with Mr. Woodward in which we had no hearing of a complaint. When the complaint was raised for the first time, which was 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.(03:55:44):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 53 (03:56:08):Well, again, to 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 Bratt, 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?Jack Smith (03:56:45):Well, two points there. You stated that 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 Mr. Woodward, he did ask for the case, the indictment to be put off and result of this. So there was a thing he was asking for and 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 of my office.Speaker 53 (03:57:19):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 this 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 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, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.Speaker 51 (03:58:14):Gentleman yields back to gentleman from Missouri.Jasmine Crockett (03:58:16):Mr. Chair, I actually have a UC.Speaker 51 (03:58:18):Gentlelady is recognized.Jasmine Crockett (03:58:20):This is ... Let's see. I ask 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 6th Capitol breach.Speaker 51 (03:58:31):No objection.Jasmine Crockett (03:58:32):My second one is I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an article titled They ransacked the US Capitol and want the government to pay them back published by the Washington Post January 21st, 2026.Speaker 51 (03:58:44):No objection. Gentleman from Missouri is recognized for five minutes.Speaker 54 (03:58:47):Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, after indicting the leading Republican candidate for the President of the United States on August 1st, 2023, you asked for a trial date of January 2024, just five months later. During your deposition, you did not dispute that that would've given Trump's legal team just five months to review 13 million pages and thousands of hours of video evidence, working out to nearly 100,000 pages per day. Mr. Smith, you claimed 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 and pursue conviction on President Trump?Jack Smith (03:59:37):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 54 (03:59:55):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.Jack Smith (04:00:15):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 publics' as well as the defendants' and it just-Speaker 54 (04:00:28):You were trying to get President tried, convicted and hopefully in prison before election day, I understand.(04:00:34):Mr. 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 January 6th, 2021. You claim that President Trump was "responsible for the events at the Capitol on January 6th," which was not charged in your indictment. How do you reconcile that with the position of the department in other GA6 related cases that President Trump wasn't responsible for the events at the Capitol that day?Jack Smith (04:01:06):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 were not responsible themselves because of Donald Trump, that blaming him wasn't going to be a valid defense in their case. That's my recollection.Speaker 54 (04:01:28):So on January 6th, 2021, President Trump tweeted, "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 Capitol to remain peaceful. Is that not right?Jack Smith (04:01:48):It's incorrect. First off, that ...Speaker 54 (04:01:50):He didn't send that tweet?Jack Smith (04:01:52):He sent that tweet, but he sent that tweet only after being harangued by people to send something to stop the violence at the Capitol.Speaker 54 (04:01:59):Okay. Let's get the timeline straight then. At 1:55 PM, there was a breach of the bike racks at the Northeast Perimeter. At 2:13, there were protestors breaching the Capitol, breaking into the Northwest Senate window and opening the doors. At 2:38, President Trump tweeted what I just quoted. That's 25 minutes between the Capitol building breach. Is 25 minutes, that's too slow? Would Trump have been guilty of insurrection if it were 15 minutes? Five minutes? How quickly was he supposed to send that tweet to remain peaceful?Jack Smith (04:02:39):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's life was different than what he stated.Speaker 54 (04:02:52):Okay. So that tweet was after, of course, the riot had started, but President Trump also said, "We've come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully selected, 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 of a riot?Jack Smith (04:03:15):That is not.Speaker 54 (04:03:16):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?Jack Smith (04:03:41):I'm not going to gauge in hypotheticals. I will say that President Trump's conduct was without historical analog.Speaker 54 (04:03:50):Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.Speaker 51 (04:03:51):Gentleman yields back.Speaker 55 (04:03:52):Mr. Chair, may I?Speaker 51 (04:03:54):Gentlelady from Vermont.Speaker 55 (04:03:54):Mr. Chair, I ask a unanimous consent to enter into the record the first superseding indictment for Capitol rider and oath keeper Kelly Meggs, who brought weapons and armor with him to DC and wrote to a friend, "Trump said it's going to be wild. It's going to be wild. He wants us to make it wild. That's what he said. 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 Mr. Chair-Speaker 51 (04:04:19):Objection.Speaker 55 (04:04:19):I have unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this superseding indictment filed Department of Justice on August 27th, 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 he lost.Speaker 51 (04:04:38):Without objection. The gentleman from Washington is recognized.Speaker 56 (04:04:42):Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, five 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.(04:04:53):I want to start by saying that starting out, I was not real familiar with this issue. In fact, when 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 'cause my wife and I have five young children. We don't have cable television. And by the time we get them to bed, we're either watching Netflix or better yet reading books.(04:05:18):So when I came to this, I wanted to take a real honest look at what had happened. And I should also say that a little about what I think happened on January 6th. I think like most Americans think Donald Trump was cruising to 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 that election.(04:05:44):I also think like most Americans that January 6th 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.(04:05:56):I also think like most Americans, it was extremely unfortunate for this country that the January 6th 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 PD. I think it was politically motivated, what Nancy Pelosi did with that committee.(04:06:17):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. And I think about what the framers would have thought of this and the state of the rule law, what makes America special, what checks and balances, and what keeps us from being a banana republic.(04:06:51):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.(04:07:19):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 to try to influence the election.(04:07:45):So that's where I come down after all of today's hearing, my own independent investigation and your commentary. I sincerely hope that that conclusion is incorrect, but that's the 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.(04:08:10):And so my one question for you, Jack Smith, is are you familiar with the Vietnamese city of Ben Tre?Jack Smith (04:08:20):I am not.Speaker 56 (04:08:21):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 did 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'll remember someone who helped destroy the rule of law. And with that, Mr. President-Speaker 19 (04:09:00):The gentleman yields for a question-Speaker 56 (04:09:01):... Mr. Chairman, I yield back.Speaker 51 (04:09:03):Gentleman yields back. Ranking members recognized for ...Speaker 19 (04:09:05):Oh, I was wondering whether you would yield for a question.Speaker 56 (04:09:09):I'll differ on that. I'll just yield to the chairman.Speaker 51 (04:09:11):Okay. Gentleman yields back. I think the gentleman ...Speaker 19 (04:09:13):Yeah, then I've just got one UC request, Mr. Chairman.Speaker 51 (04:09:15):You. And then I think the gentleman from Wisconsin has a request.Speaker 19 (04:09:18):Okay. This is from Politico, October 20th, 2023. Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of Trump's fake elector scheme, pleads guilty to the offense in Georgia.Speaker 51 (04:09:31):Without objection.(04:09:33):Gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.Speaker 48 (04:09:34):I just have to clarify something I said.Speaker 51 (04:09:36):Yep.Speaker 48 (04:09:37):I've talked to Donald Trump over a period of time. Donald Trump is 100% certain he won that election. There is 0% chance that he believes he lost. And I say that based on private conversations, which just boom. So I want to clarify that.Speaker 51 (04:09:54):Okay. Noted for the record. We appreciate that. This concludes today's hearing. We thank you-Speaker 19 (04:09:58):Mr. Chairman, for me, I just have one final question for you that it begins really just as a point of order.Speaker 51 (04:10:04):Okay.Speaker 19 (04:10:05):As you-Speaker 51 (04:10:05):Is a point of order or is it a point of order or a question?Speaker 19 (04:10:08):It's a point of order leading to a question, if that's all right.Speaker 51 (04:10:10):Well, that's innovative.Speaker 19 (04:10:13):Okay. It's-Speaker 51 (04:10:14):I don't think that's in order, but because I'm such a nice guy-Speaker 19 (04:10:17):Well, I appreciate it-Speaker 51 (04:10:18):... I'm going to let you state whatever you're stating.Speaker 19 (04:10:19):It's straightforward and it's in good faith.Speaker 51 (04:10:20):Okay. In good faith.Speaker 19 (04:10:21):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 two of his special counsel report relating to the stolen documents.(04:10:35):Now, it's been said that the judicial order that Aileen Cannon imposed will be lifted in February. And so I guess my point of order is, do we intend to bring him back so he can answer questions about volume two and about the stolen documents case?Speaker 51 (04:10:56):We'll take it under advisement.Speaker 19 (04:10:57):Okay. Well, then just-Speaker 51 (04:10:58):We want to see what the court decides to do, frankly.Speaker 19 (04:10:59):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 51 (04:11:17):That will certainly factor in tremendously when we make our decision.Speaker 19 (04:11:20):Okay, because we have a right on the minority day to have a witness and we will exercise that right.Speaker 51 (04:11:28):You're going to call him back again?Speaker 19 (04:11:29):Yes.Speaker 51 (04:11:29):Wow. Okay. We'll see.Speaker 19 (04:11:33):Okay. I'm citing rule 11 clause 2J1.Speaker 51 (04:11:35):We look forward to seeing the letter and we'll find out.Speaker 19 (04:11:37):Thank you.Speaker 51 (04:11:37):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.Speaker 19 (04:11:56):Awesome. Figures.
Jack Smith Congressional Testimony
Jack Smith testifies publicly before the House Judiciary Committee. Read the transcript here.
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