'A HUMILIATING mistake': Nicolle reacts to GOP's mortifying SELF-OWN during Jack Smith hearing

[0:00] Monkey see, monkey do in mimicking Donald Trump's obsessive campaign of investigating [0:06] and attempting to prosecute investigators and anyone who attempted to hold Donald Trump [0:12] accountable. The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee brought shame amongst [0:18] themselves in bringing in former special counsel Jack Smith today for his one to third appearance [0:25] before Congress. It was an attempt by the GOP to divert attention, I suppose, from what people are [0:32] paying for gas, groceries and everything, and instead relitigate Jack Smith's two criminal [0:37] indictments against Donald Trump. We're guessing that's what they wanted to do. What they got [0:43] instead, though, was former special counsel Jack Smith's unwavering steeliness and his assertions [0:50] that he and his team did everything by the book and right. They also, for no extra cost, [0:58] got a string of humiliating moments for their own highlight reel in their questioning of him. [1:03] In the face of Donald Trump repeatedly threatening to prosecute Jack Smith for his work, here's [1:08] Smith defending it. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including my decision to bring [1:16] charges against President Trump. I made those decisions without regard to President Trump's [1:22] political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. [1:30] Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged [1:37] in serious crimes against our nation. If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based [1:46] on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. [1:53] The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence. Grand juries in two separate [2:00] districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned. [2:08] Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme [2:15] to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. [2:20] So almost six years after Donald Trump did all that, lost an election and then sought to overturn [2:28] his defeat and then sicked a mob on the U.S. Capitol. And in the very room where lawmakers from both [2:36] political parties hid from the insurrectionists, Republicans pressed Jack Smith on why some of their [2:42] phone records were subpoenaed, something they claimed was deliberate targeting. But here's how Jack Smith [2:47] explained the subpoenas, which are typically a standard investigative step. [2:52] Those records corroborated evidence that we had that the president, President Donald Trump and his [3:01] co-conspirators were seeking to exploit the violence on January 6th in furtherance of their criminal scheme. [3:08] They were taking the fact that law enforcement officers had been brutally assaulted at this institution [3:14] and using that to seek to delay the proceedings further in violation of the law. [3:20] It was an important part of our investigation. We had interviewed co-conspirators who talked about [3:27] the calls that were made to members of Congress. We had recordings of voicemails that showed that [3:36] these voicemails are public, where the co-conspirators were again providing false information [3:42] to try to delay the proceedings. It was an important part of our investigation and it was [3:48] centrally relevant to the issue of criminal intent. [3:54] We should let you know at this point that for all of the Republicans' complaints about Jack Smith's [4:03] investigation of January 6th, Republicans today did not once contest the facts of what happened on [4:10] that day. And in their failed attempt to try to undermine that person, Jack Smith, and his [4:16] credibility and integrity, Republicans were more successful undermining their own, showing that [4:22] even when going in for the attack line, they can't get their basic fact patterns right. Maybe a staffer will [4:28] even be fired today. In the moment from the hearing that will probably go down in political history most [4:35] securely. Here's Senator Eric Schmidt's attempt at embarrassing Jack Smith with a gotcha moment that [4:43] blows up in Senator Smith's face instead. [4:45] Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? [4:54] What city would that be in? [4:55] Atlanta. [4:57] No. [4:57] Is it your testimony that you were not in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2024? [5:01] Let me just give you a little context. The day before Fannie Willis came clean with her affair with [5:09] the prosecutor, you know, the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump the next day, [5:14] were you in Atlanta? [5:15] I do not believe so. [5:17] What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in [5:22] Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their [5:27] affair? I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So I'll give you a second to process it so [5:39] you don't, you know, perjure yourself. [5:41] You just took it down really quick. If I could look at that again. [5:48] Someone's going to need the whoopee tonight. [5:52] First of all, no one forgets watching Steph Curry play. If it was a Warriors game, I missed that [5:58] in my first view of that. So this senator, I think, was trying to humiliate or catch Jack Smith in his [6:08] first ever lie. But even in the thing he's trying to allege, it's clear he doesn't have his facts [6:16] right. It's clear he doesn't have the right team or the right game or the right city. It's clear he made [6:21] a humiliating mistake and a fool of himself. [6:23] I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing [6:31] right around that time. And the marshal service was there with me. You could check if that was [6:38] the exact date. It was Maryland playing Iowa. [6:41] We have confirmed that, in fact, you were right, Mr. Smith. Iowa, the Iowa Hawkeyes played Maryland on [6:49] February 3rd, 2024. The game was, in fact, in Maryland, Mr. Smith. And I would just say for a [6:56] U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, [7:03] which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were [7:09] somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a dirtbag, is something [7:16] that deserves an apology. [7:19] Even the dirtbags deserve an apology. Like, that's not fair to dirtbags. That's where we start today with [7:26] some of our favorite reporters and friends. Former special counsel in the Justice Department, [7:30] Brendan Ballew is here. He's the founder of the Public Integrity Project. Also joining us, [7:35] former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, national security and intelligence [7:39] analyst Michael Feinberg's here. And with me at the table for the hour, senior investigative [7:44] reporter Carol Lennox here. Michael Feinberg, let me just start with you. So I was a staffer. [7:51] I don't know that I ever made the Republicans these days have dumbed it all down to, like, [7:56] boards that Trump can take in, or maybe their graphics for Fox News. I'm not sure. I don't [8:02] think I ever made one of those. But for the staffer that made them, you came across some text messages [8:08] that you thought were something else. And even low-level staffers, and I have, like, a massive [8:15] well of sympathy and empathy for staffers of any level. I've been the lowest level staffers. I've been [8:21] an intern. Typically do some fact-checking. And certainly if it's something that a senator is [8:27] going to say, and even in the time of Trump, where facts are dead, integrity is something to be [8:31] embarrassed of, and the moments don't, you know, last very long, you want to arm your principal with [8:38] something that is an effective line of attack. Now, that's on a normal day. Jack Smith is no normal [8:44] opponent. Jack Smith is, like, the pinnacle of apolitical integrity strength. Like, the manosphere [8:51] melts wanting to be a fraction as smart and strong and manly and powerful as he is, just in his quiet [8:59] dignity. So this is a faceplant of epic proportions. What is the chatter around this disastrous attempt [9:07] at humiliating Jack Smith? [9:09] Going up against somebody smarter than you and trying to catch them in a gotcha moment is a very [9:18] dangerous ploy, as Eric Schmidt discovered to his peril this morning. You know, he hails from Missouri, [9:26] which calls itself the show-me state. And at least in the case of Eric Schmidt and his staffers, [9:33] they may need things shown to them because they don't know how to conduct basic research or read. [9:39] This was a completely unforced error. And let's also put this in the larger context of American [9:48] history. This is the chamber where Daniel Webster delivered his most stirring speeches. This is [9:55] where Henry Clay described the American system, where Everett Dirksen convinced his own Republican [10:03] Party to vote for the Civil Rights Act. And now we have a senator who not only can't get his basic facts [10:11] straight, but would probably struggle to read the lines written for a zombie in Night of the Living Dead. [10:18] This was the worst performance or attempted Perry Mason moment I've seen in my entire lifetime as an [10:32] American citizen. Eric Schmidt should be embarrassed and his constituents should be furious. But as we've [10:41] discussed, on that side of the aisle, embarrassment no longer exists. Fury is reserved for people who [10:49] don't wear MAGA hats. And as a result, this will probably not even get a mention on Fox News. [10:55] Hey, it's me, Rachel Maddow. If you like the story you just watched, you should know about a new way to see [11:01] even more from my show and from all of MS Now, live or on tape. It's the new MS Now membership. 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