https://apnews.com/article/jack-smith-congress-justice-department-d35557d525fcfe51a20d08c6abb7f71dWASHINGTON (AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trumphad criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.Smith also said investigators had accrued “powerful evidence” Trump broke the law by hoarding classified documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and by obstructing government efforts to recover the records.“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”He said that if asked whether he would “prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.”
The day-long deposition before the House Judiciary Committee gave lawmakers of both parties their first chance, albeit in private, to question Smith for hours about a pair of investigations into Trump that resulted in since-abandoned criminal charges between the Republican president’s first and second terms in office. Smith was subpoenaed by the Republican-led committee this month to provide testimony and documents as part of a GOP investigation into the Trump inquiries during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.The former special counsel cooperated with the congressional demand, though his lawyers noted that he had been volunteered more than a month before the subpoena was issued to answer questions publicly before the committee — an overture they said was rebuffed by Republicans. Trump had told reporters that he supported the idea of an open hearing.“Testifying before this committee, Jack is showing tremendous courage in light of the remarkable and unprecedented retribution campaign against him by this administration and this White House,” Smith lawyer Lanny Breuer told reporters. “Let’s be clear: Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, conducted this investigation based on the facts and based on the law and nothing more.”Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the Justice Department investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Smith’s team filed charges in both investigations but abandoned the cases after Trump was elected to the White House last year, citing Justice Department legal opinions that say a sitting president cannot be indicted.
Multiple prior Justice Department special counsels, including Robert Mueller, have testified publicly but Smith was summoned for just a private interview. Several Democrats who emerged from Smith’s interview said they could understand why Republicans did not want an open hearing based on the damaging testimony about Trump they said Smith offered.The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said the Republican majority “made an excellent decision” in not allowing Jack Smith to testify publicly “because had he done so, it would have been absolutely devastating to the president and all the president’s men involved in the insurrectionary activities” of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.“Jack Smith has just spent several hours schooling the Judiciary Committee on the professional responsibilities of a prosecutor and the ethical duties of a prosecutor,” Raskin said.Democrats are demanding that Smith’s testimony be made public, along with his full report on the investigation.“The American people should hear for themselves,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.The committee chairman, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, told reporters, “I think we’ve learned some interesting things.” He declined to discuss what was being said in the room, but reiterated his position about the investigations.“It’s political,” he said.Smith’s interview is unfolding against the backdrop of a broader retribution campaign by the Trump administration against former officials involved in investigating Trump and his allies. The Office of Special Counsel, an independent political watchdog, said in August that it was investigating Smith, and the White House issued a presidential memorandum this year aimed at suspending security clearances of lawyers at the law firm that provided legal services to Smith.
The deposition also comes as Republicans in Congress, aided by current FBI leadership, look to discredit the investigations into Trump through the release of emails and other documents from the probes.In recent weeks they have seized on revelations that the team, as part of its investigation, had analyzed the phone records of select GOP lawmakers from on and around the Capitol siege, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the building to try to halt the certification of Trump’s election loss to Biden.The phone records reviewed by prosecutors included details only about the incoming and outgoing phone numbers and the length of the call but not the contents of the conversation. Smith’s lawyers have said Republicans have mischaracterized the phone record analysis and implied something sinister about a routine investigative tactic.On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a batch of internal FBI emails leading up to the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. In one email, written weeks before the search, an agent wrote that the FBI’s Washington field office did not believe that probable cause existed to search the property.But Republicans who trumpeted the emails as proof that the Biden Justice Department was out to get Trump omitted the fact that agents who later searched the property reported finding boxes of classified, even top-secret, documents. In addition, the then-head of the Washington field office has testified to lawmakers that by the time of the search, the FBI believed probable cause existed to do it.___
>>1466688People say a lot of things. I’ll believe it when I see it. If he broke the law maybe the justice department will finally grow a pair and jail his ass
If only Biden wasn't so painfully incompetent and put Jack Smith as AG instead of that Republican lite we got who refused to do anything.
>>1466699Jack Smith for President Newsom's AG has a nice ring to it
What's a little election tampering? Trump takes $450 million bribes from Arab countries out in the open.
>>1466749Emoluments Clause means that money can be seized when the rule of law returns.
>>1466698>People say a lot of things.Jack Smith was the DOJ special prosecutor, not just anybody.
>>1466698This was a closed door hearing of the House Judiciary Committee under oath. The republicans purposely made it closed door so you don't get to hear the bad things he was saying.
>>1466698dude hasn't said shit in many years and was silent during the big investigation. i dont think he shows any cards and only lays them with credibility.
>>1466693>On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a batch of internal FBI emails leading up to the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. In one email, written weeks before the search, an agent wrote that the FBI’s Washington field office did not believe that probable cause existed to search the property.>But Republicans who trumpeted the emails as proof that the Biden Justice Department was out to get Trump omitted the fact that agents who later searched the property reported finding boxes of classified, even top-secret, documents. In addition, the then-head of the Washington field office has testified to lawmakers that by the time of the search, the FBI believed probable cause existed to do it.This is why these hearings were secret.
>>1466780Yeah, the no probable cause argument is fucking ridiculous given that1. They convinced a judge there was probable causeand2. They found a metric shitton of incriminating evidenceAlso, it's a laughable vindication of Trump.>Sure I'm a crook, but the FBI was out to get me (because I'm a crook)
>>1466688Just fucking do it, stop promising you'll do it and do it. The problem is that Biden had him by the balls and did jack shit wiht it because every single thing he's guilty of, the Dems were too.
>shit wiht it because every single thing he's guilty of, the Dems weren'tftfy>wihtYou need to fix your brain
>>1466802Probable cause means evidence a crime exists. The "crime" was that a historian requsted all presidential documents be sent to him for archiving. Which is not a crime.The maralargo storage room was approved for storage of classified documents and then still president trump ordered the documents declassified. Also it is entirely normal for politicians, government officials and generals to (illegally) keep classified documents after they retire for their biographer to read and incorporate into their book. The said book is proofread by a government agency to clear or remove classified or sensitive content before publishing. I'm not justifying it, but literally everyone in Washington DC does it.
>>1466935Holy damage control batman
>>1466935>I'm not justifying it, but [attempts to justify it]
>>1466935Trump tried to declassify the documents after he was no longer president.
>>1466688They won't do shit. I hate Trump, but everyone against him in power may as well drop trou' and let Trump fuck them up the ass with his evil little dick because they WON'T DO SHIT.
>>1466806Haven't you learned? No one saying that will do something will ever do something.
>>1466950*that theyYou know what? I think ALL Democrats in power secretly love Trump. The proof is in the pudding. He does EVERYTHING he wants and no one stops him. Funny how during the same situation George W. Bush never got his way all the time.Obama didn't either. Or Biden.oh but Trump is special! He can do ANYTHING and they eat this shit directly from his ass and demand seconds and they feign outrage.
>>1466698Rich paydoughs don't have to follow any laws. Neither do Freemasons or Jews, you know, ALL the types that compose the manpower of politicians.I'm serious, they are above the law. They could murder a child in the street with CNN recording and it'd be okay.
>>1466935>The "crime" was that a historian requsted all presidential documents be sent to him for archiving. Which is not a crime.Mishandling classified information is a criminal offense. This wasn't presidential papers and notes and correspondence, some of the information related to contingency plans for an attack on Iran that was just laying on his desk in Mar-a-lago. Mar-a-lago has a SCIF so there's no reason those documents should have been found where they were.>literally everyone in Washington DC does itThey don't.
>>1466955>They don't.Nta, but they do.Do you even know that the Clintons are STILL good, good friends with Trump? I bet you refuse to believe that and think *I'm* the slow one here.
>>1466956Where do you people get this shit from?
>>1466981We know how to read and use search engines.
>>1466986post sources or gtfo. I have a feeling you got it from bitchute or rumble, in which case I'm going to laugh even harder.
>>1466950You realize that had he not won the election, Trump would be in jail by now for the laws he broke, what Jack Smith could prove, right?
