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Jack Smith Defends Investigations 09/30 06:16
Former special counsel Jack Smith forcefully defended his prosecutions of
President Donald Trump and his investigative tactics, pushing back against
repeated Republican criticism in a congressional hearing Tuesday that featured
a senator's bungled attempt to accuse him of lying about a basketball game.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former special counsel Jack Smith forcefully defended his
prosecutions of President Donald Trump and his investigative tactics, pushing
back against repeated Republican criticism in a congressional hearing Tuesday
that featured a senator's bungled attempt to accuse him of lying about a
basketball game.
The hearing offered a forum for Republicans to try to paint Smith as a
political operative and assail him anew for what they contend were politicized
prosecutions that unfolded during the 2024 presidential race. Democrats rallied
in his defense, eliciting testimony on the legal and factual basis for the
criminal cases against the then-candidate and decrying the Trump
administration's firing of prosecutors involved in the investigations.
Smith, for his part, defended his work in an hours-long Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing -- the latest congressional effort to revisit federal cases
that accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 race and
of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
"Anybody who has worked with me and knows me during the course of my career
knows that I would not let politics play a role. And I would just add that if
you knew the people I worked with, they would not either," Smith said. He
lamented what he called an unprecedented assault on the rule of law by the
Trump administration, along with terminations of his team that he said had
deprived the government of crucial expertise and made the country less safe.
"That has never happened in my career. I have never seen anything remotely
like it in any Republican or Democratic administration," he said.
An effort to accuse Smith of perjury backfires
The testimony did nothing to appease Smith's Republican critics, including
Sen. Eric Schmitt, who called Smith a "dirtbag" and a "villain" as he addressed
him.
The Missouri senator was also at the center of the hearing's most memorable
moment and gaffe, when he asked Smith whether he recalled attending a
professional basketball game in Atlanta in February 2024, around the time
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was facing scrutiny for her
romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special state prosecutor she hired
for the county's election-interference case against Trump.
Smith appeared perplexed by the question, which tried to make an
unsubstantiated link between federal and state prosecutions of Trump.
"I do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta," Smith said. "I
definitely did not go to a Hawks game. I'm sure of that."
At that point, staffers held up posterboard displaying text messages that,
according to Schmitt, purported to show communications about Smith's attendance
at an NBA game between the hometown Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors.
"I think you've already perjured yourself," Schmitt said.
The confusion appeared resolved minutes later when Smith volunteered that he
indeed had gone to a basketball game in February 2024 -- an Iowa Hawkeyes
women's matchup at the University of Maryland that had nothing to do with the
Atlanta Hawks.
"Could it then be that the University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes? Could that be
it?" Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said as she chided Schmitt.
"That might be the confusion over the names of the team. But perhaps you should
have looked at it more carefully."
The hearing focused heavily on subpoenas for lawmakers' phone records
Smith was pressed by Republican senators about his access to the phone
records of GOP lawmakers as he investigated Trump's efforts to reverse his loss
to Democrat Joe Biden.
Prosecutors issued subpoenas for toll records of numerous Republican members
of Congress who were contacted by Trump or his aides on Jan. 6, 2021, the day
supporters of the president rioted inside the U.S. Capitol. Smith has said such
subpoenas are common in investigations and were necessary in this instance to
understand the "scope of the conspiracy" between Trump and his Republican
allies.
The subpoenas, he said Tuesday, provided corroborating evidence that Trump
and his alleged co-conspirators sought to exploit the violence of the day by
invoking it to try to further delay the congressional certification of Biden's
win.
"They were taking the fact that law enforcement officers had been brutally
assaulted at this institution and using that to seek to delay the proceedings
further in violation of the law," Smith said.
Toll records reveal the date, time and duration of phone calls between two
parties but not the content of the communications.
There is no legal prohibition against obtaining the toll records of members
of Congress, and Democrats noted that the first Trump administration Justice
Department had sought records for representatives of their party during an
investigation.
Nonetheless, the revelation that Smith's team secretly obtained the records
has animated Republican lawmakers, who consider it proof of overreach by the
Biden administration Justice Department and the hard-charging prosecutor it
picked as special counsel. Smith pointed out that he had consulted with the
Justice Department's Public Integrity Section.
In July, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim
Jordan of Ohio, referred Smith to the Justice Department for potential
prosecution on allegations he lied at a previous hearing about the records
collection -- something Smith and his attorneys vigorously dispute.
"I stand by my testimony before the House of Representatives," Smith said
Tuesday. "I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from
the president or others."
Smith faced bitingly personal criticism from Republicans
Smith was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead
investigations into Trump's efforts to reverse his election loss and Trump's
retention of classified documents. Smith abandoned the prosecutions after
Trump's 2024 win, citing Justice Department opinions that sitting presidents
cannot be federally indicted.
Smith has remained a top target of retribution for Trump. Republicans on the
committee followed that lead, confronting him in a hearing that frequently
devolved into partisan sniping and name-calling. They sought to cast the
prosecutions as a political fishing expedition, accusing Smith of bending
procedures in pursuit of Trump.
"The Smith election case ultimately wasn't just about Trump," said
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the committee chairman. "It was about
partisan agents and prosecutors mapping out the Republican apparatus."
During one tense exchange, Republican Sen. John Kennedy grew exasperated as
he asked whether the Biden White House instructed the Justice Department to
prosecute Trump. Smith said he had "no idea about that," and that the decision
to prosecute Trump was his own.
In an effort to depict Smith as evasive, Kennedy asked him if he believed in
the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny. Smith said no.
"You make me want to throw up in my mouth," Kennedy said.
Democrats, by contrast, used the hearing to affirm the legitimacy of the
Trump investigations and produce testimony on the scope of criminal conduct
that Smith says he and his team found.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee's top Democrat, accused
Republicans of spreading "baseless conspiracy theories" about Smith's
investigations in an effort to "whitewash" the history of Trump's election loss
and the subsequent Capitol attack.
"The aspersions cast on Mr. Smith, nonstop, are petty, personal and
political. They are nothing but a smoke screen to distract from the president's
own clear, unlawful conduct," Durbin said.
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