House Republicans Buried the Jack Smith Transcript on New Year’s Eve. I Read It So You Don’t Have To.
12 takeaways from Smith's closed-door testimony
House Republicans released the 255-page transcript of Jack Smith’s closed-door deposition on New Year’s Eve. You know, the day when absolutely nobody is paying attention to the news. The day when political operatives dump things they don’t want people to see.
Funny how that works.
Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17th, spending an entire day answering questions about his investigations into Donald Trump. Republicans had been demanding this testimony for months, framing it as part of their “weaponization” investigation. They got what they asked for. And then they released it when America was busy watching the ball drop.
I spent the holiday reading through the whole thing. Here’s what they didn’t want you to see.
Smith says Trump is guilty
In Smith’s opening statement, he declared that his office had developed “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump committed crimes in both the January 6th case and the classified documents case.
“Our investigation developed 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. Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.” (p. 17)
When asked if he would prosecute a former president on the same facts today, Smith said he absolutely would:
“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 Republican or a Democrat.” (p. 18)
And when asked point-blank if he’d ever prosecuted someone he didn’t believe was guilty, Smith’s answer was simple:
“Never.” (p. 83)
Trump’s tweet “endangered the life of his own vice president”
Smith described what happened on January 6th in stark terms. When asked whether Trump was responsible for the violence at the Capitol, Smith testified:
“So our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.” (p. 33)
But it was his description of Trump’s conduct during the attack that really stood out:
“Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own Vice President. And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it. And then even afterwards he directed co-conspirators to make calls to Members of Congress, people who had were his political allies, to further delay the proceedings.” (p. 33)
Smith said Pence and the others who refused to go along with Trump’s scheme “may have changed the course of history”:
“Well, thankfully, we don’t know. But I would say that he — he and the other people who stood up and said, ‘I’m not going to do that,’ may have changed the course of history in terms of our country of having an election where someone took power in our country who didn’t actually win the election.” (p. 158)
The case was built on Republicans
One of the more interesting parts of Smith’s testimony was his explanation of who would have testified against Trump at trial. These weren’t Democrats or political opponents. They were Trump’s own allies.
“And, in fact, one of the strengths of our case and why we felt we had such strong proof is all witnesses were not going to be political enemies of the President. They were going to be political allies. We had numerous witnesses who would say, ‘I voted for President Trump. I campaigned for President Trump. I wanted him to win.’ The Speaker of the House in Arizona. The Speaker of the House in Michigan. We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former Congressman who was going to be an elector for President Trump who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal. Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.” (p. 28)
Trump rejected any information that threatened his power
Smith described a pattern in the evidence that showed Trump wasn’t simply misled by bad advisors. He actively rejected any information that didn’t support his staying in power.
“And there was a pattern in our case where any time any information came in that would mean he could no longer be President he would reject it. And any theory, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how not based in law, that would indicate that he could, he latched on to that. And we had — we were confident that we had very strong proof of that pattern.” (p. 28)
Smith had an interesting way of framing what Trump did. He compared it to an “affinity fraud,” the kind of financial scam where someone builds trust and then exploits it:
“And in a lot of ways this case was an affinity fraud. The President had people who he had built up — who had built up trust in him, including people in his own party, and he preyed on that. Some people wouldn’t do it. Others would. We’re lucky that enough wouldn’t that the election was upheld.” (p. 159)
Trump’s team said fake electors who pushed back “should be shot”
Smith revealed evidence of a text chain among people carrying out Trump’s fake elector scheme. When some Pennsylvania electors pushed back and demanded language protecting them legally, Trump’s allies weren’t happy:
“And there was a text chain with some of the people who were carrying out this scheme for President Trump basically ended with, ‘These people should be shot,’ because — ‘and that we can’t let this snowball like this; otherwise, we’re going to have to do this in all the other States.’” (p. 153)
Smith then corrected himself slightly, clarifying that the text said, “Whoever put this slate together should be shot.”
Smith wanted to testify publicly, but was denied
Smith actually wanted to testify in public. He requested a public hearing. Republicans said no.
When asked why he wanted a public hearing, Smith said:
“I’m proud of the work that we did at the Special Counsel’s Office. I’m particularly proud of the people I worked with, the career public servants I worked with who have been vilified by President Trump and people who work for him. And I think someone needs to speak up for them.” (p. 55)
The irony here is thick. Even Trump himself said he wanted Smith to testify publicly. Trump told reporters, “I’d rather see him testify publicly because there’s no way he can answer the questions.”
Well, Smith answered the questions. For an entire day. Republicans just made sure as few people as possible would hear about it.
Smith is “saddened and angered” over retaliation against his staff
Throughout the transcript, Smith repeatedly expressed concern not for himself, but for the career prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the case and have since been targeted.
“I am both saddened and angered that President Trump has sought revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for doing their jobs and for having worked on those cases. These dedicated public servants are the best of us, and they have been wrongly vilified and improperly dismissed from their jobs.” (p. 17)
Asked about the firing of Special Counsel staff, Smith called it “a travesty” and warned about its long-term effects:
“When you fire people who are career public servants serving both parties over many decades, you lose the expertise about how to do the job properly. And that has an effect on the Department today, and it will have an effect on the Department for some time, if those people aren’t there to be leaders and to teach young lawyers how to be public servants.” (p. 247)
When discussing witness intimidation more broadly, Smith called it “probably the most corrosive thing that can happen to the rule of law” and noted he had worked on murder cases where “witnesses were murdered” and overseas cases involving “very serious witness intimidation.” (p. 69)
Smith also revealed that he proactively removed an FBI agent from the investigation after discovering a private email where the agent was “having a dispute with family members where it was about January 6th”:
“Once I saw that or heard about that, I decided he could no longer work on this investigation. And I think that was consistent with how I ran the office. And I’ll just — I want to also be clear. I never saw that agent do anything that I considered partisan. But just to make 100 percent clear to my staff... I wanted to make it very clear that anything like that was not going to be part of our investigation." (p. 173-174)
Trump’s threats led to gag orders
Smith testified about why his office sought restrictions on Trump’s public statements during the case.
“We sought an order in the D.C. case under a rule — I think it’s 57.2 — and we did that because Donald Trump was making statements that were endangering witnesses, intimidating witnesses, endangering members of my staff, endangering court staff. As you might remember, in the — right around when the indictment was released, he issued a tweet saying: ‘If you come after me, I’ll come after you.’ He called — in a tweet he called General Mark Milley a traitor and mentioned that what he’d done in olden times people would be put to death. As a result of the things he was saying, the judge in this case was put — received vile death threats.” (p. 33-34)
Both the district court and the court of appeals found that Trump’s actions were “causing witnesses to be intimidated and endangering people.” (p. 34)
Smith expects Trump to indict him
Perhaps the most chilling exchange in the entire transcript came when Smith was asked directly about his future:
Q: “Would you be surprised if President Trump directs the DOJ to indict you?”
A: “No.” (p. 247)
Smith confirmed that Trump’s Truth Social posts calling him a “deranged lunatic,” “psycho,” and “criminal” were directions for DOJ to retaliate:
Q: “Do you think those were a direction, potential direction, to Department of Justice to retaliate against you because of your role as special counsel in the investigation of him?”
A: “Yes.” (p. 243-244)
On the executive order targeting his law firm, Covington & Burling, Smith said:
“To seek retribution against me... I think it’s to chill people from having an association with me.” (p. 245)
His lawyer, Peter Koski, added for the record: “We’re still here, proud to represent Jack Smith.”
Smith warns DOJ may lose ability to prosecute public corruption
Asked about the dismantling of the public integrity section at DOJ since Trump took office, Smith expressed alarm:
“Well, I’m concerned that the Department is going to cease to have an ability to prosecute public corruption, that there is going to be the expertise necessary to do that or the direction to do that. And so, again, I think there are short-term costs and long-term costs.” (p. 196)
He would have investigated Obama or Biden the same way
When Democrats asked Smith whether he would have taken the case if a Democratic president had done the same things, his answer was unequivocal:
Q: “Take the same facts but insert a President who was a Democrat. Would you have still accepted the role as special counsel?”
A: “One hundred percent.”
Q: “Considering the same facts, so the same fact pattern, the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, the same facts of unlawfully taking classified documents after leaving the White House, would you still have accepted the role as special counsel to investigate former President Barrack Obama?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “Again, considering the same facts, would you have accepted the role as special counsel to investigate former President Joe Biden?”
A: “Yes.” (p. 78)
For those who would like to financially support The Present Age on a non-Substack platform, please be aware that I also publish these pieces to my Patreon.
He didn’t have a preconceived outcome
Republicans tried to paint Smith as someone who was out to get Trump from the start. Smith rejected that framing entirely:
“When I took this case, I did not know enough about the facts or the law to have a judgment about whether we should proceed in either case, both cases or neither case. I used my time when I was appointed to get up to speed on the facts and the law. But if the facts and the law did not justify going forward in this case, I would have been perfectly comfortable in doing that as I have throughout my career in cases involving political figures when I was in public integrity and throughout my career. So I did not have a preconceived outcome in mind when I took this job.” (p. 24)
The bottom line
House Republicans spent months demanding Jack Smith’s testimony. They got it. And then they released it when nobody was watching.
Smith’s testimony paints a picture of a prosecutor who believed he had overwhelming evidence against Trump, who built his case on Republican witnesses, who wanted to testify publicly, and who is deeply concerned about the ongoing targeting of career law enforcement officials who were just doing their jobs.
You can understand why they’d want to bury that.
thanks Parker, for doing the reading for us. hot stuff! I admire Smith so much.
I noticed the New Year’s Eve release as well. Cowards.