Trump CRUMBLES Under Jack Smith’s BOMBSHELL Testimony at Senate Hearing!

[0:07] I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including my decision to bring charges against [0:12] President Trump. I made those decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, [0:20] activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. Our investigation [0:28] developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against [0:35] our nation. Republicans called this hearing to destroy Jack Smith. They wanted to humiliate him, [0:41] to put the special counsel himself on trial. Instead, for four relentless hours, Smith did what [0:46] no courtroom ever allowed him to do. He unloaded the full case, fake electors, the pressure campaign [0:53] on Mike Pence, the phone calls made while the Capitol was under violent attack, and top-secret [0:58] classified documents stored in a goddamn bathroom and ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. Then he looked the [1:03] senators in the eye and made one promise. He would not be silenced. For two years, this man had been [1:09] muzzled, limited to two short public statements totaling less than four minutes. When he raised [1:14] his right hand under oath, half the country expected him to fold. He did the opposite. Under oath, Jack [1:21] Smith declared that the evidence against Donald Trump is not suspicion, not probable cause, but [1:26] proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the President of the United States committed serious crimes against [1:31] the nation. This is the case they tried to bury. This is the truth they never wanted you to hear. [1:36] We are about to play every damning word. Since January of 2025, we have witnessed precisely such [1:43] an effort, including the vilification of the agents, prosecutors, and staff who worked on my team, [1:49] simply because of their unwavering dedication to the rule of law. I myself have been threatened with [1:58] jail by the President of the United States. Jack Smith just told the United States Senate something [2:03] that should freeze the blood of every American. Since January 2025, the agents, prosecutors, [2:10] and career officials who simply did their jobs have been publicly vilified and purged. And Smith himself [2:16] has been threatened with prison by the President of the United States. Let that sink in. The sitting [2:22] President of the United States has threatened to jail the special counsel who investigated him. [2:27] This is not a conspiracy theory. This is sworn testimony. What follows is even more explosive. [2:32] For the first time under oath, Smith is about to lay out the full scope of the crimes he says he can [2:37] prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election. The classified [2:43] documents deliberately stored in a bathroom and ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. The obstruction. The intent. [2:50] He is not speaking as a politician. He is speaking as the prosecutor who was prepared to prove [2:54] every single allegation in a court of law. Listen carefully to what comes next. [2:59] I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalty. My career has been dedicated to serving [3:07] our country by upholding the rule of law and the core principles upon which our country was founded. [3:15] I believe there is no role for politics in the proper administration of justice. [3:20] A prosecutor's decisions must be based on the facts and the law. The status, power, prominence, [3:27] or political affiliation of the subject of an investigation must play no role in the decision [3:35] to investigate, prosecute, or decline to prosecute. I approached my role as special counsel following [3:43] these principles. The special counsel's office followed Justice Department policy, observed legal [3:50] requirements, and took actions based on the facts and the law. I stand by my decisions as special [3:58] counsel, including my decision to bring charges against President Trump. I made those decisions [4:04] without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in [4:12] the 2024 presidential election. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President [4:21] Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation. If asked whether to prosecute a former president [4:28] president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a [4:35] Republican or a Democrat. The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence. [4:43] Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in [4:50] the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, [4:57] President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of [5:05] power. After leaving office in January of 2021, President Trump illegally kept classified documents [5:13] at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention [5:20] of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a bathroom and a ballroom. [5:28] Smith just placed two historic crimes on the record under oath. First, a coordinated criminal scheme [5:36] to overturn a free election and block the peaceful transfer of power. Second, the deliberate retention [5:42] of highly classified national security documents at Mar-a-Lago stored in a bathroom and a ballroom [5:47] where parties and gatherings routinely took place. These are not technical violations. They are acts that [5:53] strike at the core of national security and democratic legitimacy. And Smith was prepared to [5:59] prove both beyond a reasonable doubt. But the most chilling evidence is still ahead. [6:03] Those records corroborated evidence that we had that the president, President Donald Trump and his [6:10] co-conspirators were seeking to exploit the violence on January 6th in furtherance of their criminal [6:17] scheme. They were taking the fact that law enforcement officers had been brutally assaulted at this [6:23] institution and using that to seek to delay the proceedings further in violation of the law. [6:30] It was an important part of our investigation. We had interviewed co-conspirators who talked about the calls [6:38] that were made to members of Congress. We had recordings of voicemails that showed that these voicemails are public [6:47] where the co-conspirators were again providing false information to try to delay the proceedings. [6:54] It was an important part of our investigation, and it was centrally relevant to the issue of criminal intent. [7:03] To seek to further delay the proceedings in violation of the law, given what had happened that afternoon at January 6th, in my view, added to the powerful evidence we had of Donald Trump's guilt and the participation of his co-conspirators in his criminal scheme at his behest. [7:25] So we have the Capitol under siege. We have the vice president removed from presiding over the Senate by the Secret Service. [7:34] We have members of the Senate and House and both political parties who are told to leave the building because of the danger. [7:42] I want to ask, is it fair to surmise from what you have said that the president was in contact with some members of Congress during the this period of time? [7:53] Yes, that is correct. Both members of Congress, we gained evidence reaching out to the White House asking, please help us, please stop what's happening. [8:11] Please have your supporters stop attacking the Capitol. And then also, again, after the attack had occurred, telling his co-conspirators there's a message. [8:24] I believe it's between Mark Meadows and one of the co-conspirators while the Capitol was under siege, while officers were being brutally assaulted and members of Congress from both parties were running for their lives. [8:35] Donald Trump was still on the phone not to call off the violence, not to protect the vice president or the lawmakers. [8:41] He was directing his co-conspirators to keep contacting senators in a last ditch effort to delay the certification. [8:48] Members of Congress were desperately calling the White House begging for help, pleading for the president to stop his supporters from attacking the building. [8:55] The response from Trump's side was the opposite. Keep pushing. Use the chaos. Exploit the bloodshed. [9:01] This is not speculation. This is the evidence Smith presented under oath about criminal intent in real time. [9:07] And the reason that evidence had to be protected by secrecy orders is even darker. [9:11] Just very briefly, our nondisclosure orders were not predicated on the idea that members of Congress or members of this committee would commit acts of obstruction. [9:23] It was based on a real concern that Donald Trump and his associates would do that because they had done it and they did it again. [9:33] Donald Trump, in our case, in the elections case later, suggested that a witness, General Mark Milley, should be put to death. [9:42] He said, if you come after me, I'm coming after you. [9:47] Election workers in Georgia, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, faced vile, racist death threats because of the things that Donald Trump said and how he targeted her. [10:00] He had an absolute basis to seek protection of our investigation from that sort of obstruction. [10:06] Pretty chilling stuff. I think everybody watching should be chilled by what you've just recounted. [10:13] A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was publicly suggested as someone who should be put to death. [10:18] Election workers in Georgia, including a mother and daughter, were subjected to vile, racist death threats after being targeted by name. [10:26] The message was unmistakable. Challenge Trump and you or your family will pay. [10:32] This is the environment in which the investigation had to operate. [10:35] When a former and sitting president uses public platforms to threaten witnesses and investigators, the rule of law itself is under attack. [10:42] And still, Smith went further. Under oath, he confirmed the central conclusion of his entire January 6 investigation. [10:49] What he said next leaves no room for denial. [10:52] I want to read to you what you told the House committee. Our assessment of the evidence is that the person most responsible for what happened on January 6th, [11:04] that he is the person most responsible for what happened on January 6th. He caused what happened. [11:12] It was foreseeable to him. And then when it happened, he tried to exploit it in furtherance of the conspiracy. You stand by that statement? [11:24] I do. [11:25] And you conducted this investigation. It lasted months, correct? [11:31] That's correct. [11:32] Jack Smith did not hedge. Under oath, he stated that Donald Trump is the person most responsible for what happened on January 6th. He caused it. It was foreseeable to him. And when the violence erupted, he chose to exploit it. [11:47] This is not a pundit's opinion. This is the considered conclusion of a special counsel who spent months examining the evidence, interviewing witnesses, and building a case he believed could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. [11:59] Trump did not merely fail to act. According to Smith, he directed an angry mob toward the Capitol with the specific purpose of obstructing the certification of the election, then used the resulting chaos as a weapon to buy more time. [12:12] The implications are staggering. A president of the United States, in the final days of his term, treated a violent assault on the seat of government as a political opportunity. [12:22] And the most damning real-time evidence of that mindset is still to come. The phone call with the Republican leader of the House while the attack was underway. [12:30] And minutes later, while our Capitol was under attack, Republicans and Democrats running for his life, Donald Trump was attempting to reach senators as a part of that delay in certification. [12:43] That is part of a criminal investigation that understandably should be looked at. Think about that. The Capitol's under attack. Members are fleeing for their lives. The vice president's being rushed to safety. [12:56] And the president of the United States is still working the phones in an effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power. You all know what happened with Kevin McCarthy. [13:06] The Republican leader of the House calls the president, begs him, call off the mob. Please call off the mob. And according to the evidence that you uncovered, Donald Trump's response, well, Kevin, I guess the people are more upset about the election than you are. [13:21] Hours more still pass. And even after all that, Rudy Giuliani is still calling senators asking them to slow down the certification. [13:36] Mr. Mr. Smith, I'm sorry. I want to be clear about this. What you are investigating is not something trivial. It's not a smash and grab crime. [13:45] It is the biggest assault on our democratic traditions in over a century. The danger that it unleashed. People call it election interference or obstruction. [14:05] They use legal terminology. But people were in danger. Lives were lost. The vice president barely escaped for his life. Members of Congress almost were physically assaulted. [14:16] And your report concluded that the violence was foreseeable because of Donald Trump and what he was doing, that it benefited from his interference with the certification. [14:26] He incited the violence. He made a conscious decision not to stop and instead sought to leverage it for further delay. [14:32] That's an accurate description of what your investigation found, correct? [14:36] We found that he caused that violence, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit it. [14:44] While police were bleeding and lawmakers fled for their lives, Donald Trump received a desperate call from the Republican Speaker of the House begging him to call off the mob. [14:53] His response was cold, dismissive and revealing. [14:56] He treated the violence not as a national emergency, but as proof that the country was angrier than its elected leaders. [15:02] That single exchange captures the mindset Smith spent years documenting. [15:06] A president willing to watch the Capitol burn if it served his effort to cling to power. [15:11] And yet the strongest witnesses against him were not Democrats. [15:14] They were Republicans who refused to break the law for him. [15:17] That fact destroys the partisan witch hunt narrative. [15:20] And it is the next piece of the record. [15:22] Mr. Smith, you've been accused of targeting Republicans throughout your investigation. [15:27] My understanding is you worked extensively with Republicans during your investigation. [15:32] Can you say more about that? [15:34] And why was it important for you to speak with and work with Republicans during your investigation into the incidents of January 6th and the transfer of power after the 2020 election? [15:45] The criminal scheme we investigated was predicated upon Donald Trump preying on party loyalty. [15:56] He preyed on party loyalty and fear, fear that he could force people to do things. [16:03] The reality is, one of the reasons our democracy held up, one of the reasons he was not able to take power, even though he was seeking to do these things, is because Republicans stood up. [16:18] Our witnesses, the strongest witnesses, would have been Republican members of Congress. [16:24] I personally find it very hard to understand how our investigation can be viewed as partisan when the strongest witnesses, the people who were the difference between the rule of law standing and not, in our case, were Republicans. [16:39] People like Rusty Bowers in Arizona, people like Rusty Bowers in Arizona, people like Mike Pence, who did the right thing and put the interests of the country over the personal interests of Donald Trump. [16:51] I just don't understand how an investigation predicated on witnesses like that can be partisan. [16:58] This single point collapses the entire partisan witch hunt attack. [17:02] The investigation did not rely on Democratic activists or political operatives. [17:08] Its strongest witnesses were lifelong Republicans, the vice president who refused to betray his oath, and state officials who chose the Constitution over personal loyalty to Donald Trump. [17:18] Trump's scheme depended on party loyalty and fear. [17:21] It failed because enough Republicans refused to be bullied. [17:24] That reality makes the accusation of political bias almost absurd on its face. [17:28] Yet the people who built that case, career prosecutors and agents who simply followed the evidence, paid a heavy personal price. [17:35] What happened to Smith's own team is the final and most chilling chapter. [17:39] My team was composed of career prosecutors, people who had spent their lives in service of this country. [17:47] The prosecutors and agents on my team, many of them veterans, are people who had devoted themselves to public service. [17:55] Many of them had expertise in investigating complex criminal matters. [18:03] Those people, as I think we all know, have been fired illegally for doing their jobs. [18:09] And their firing is something that, in my view, makes unfair to them, but it makes our country less safe. [18:19] These are people who stood sentry for us, experts in national security, experts in corruption investigations, who were simply fired because they worked on the wrong case. [18:31] That has never happened in my career. [18:35] I have never seen anything remotely like it in any Republican or Democratic administration. [18:41] Jack Smith's team consisted of career prosecutors and federal agents, many of them veterans with years of experience investigating national security threats and public corruption. [18:50] Their professional offense was simple. [18:52] They followed evidence that implicated Donald Trump. [18:55] For that, they were removed from their positions. [18:58] Smith testified that he had never seen anything comparable in any prior administration or either party. [19:03] That single development carries profound legal and institutional weight. [19:07] The American justice system rests on the premise that prosecutors and investigators must be free to pursue facts without fear of political retaliation. [19:15] Wasn't that, in essence, what the Supreme Court said? [19:19] The Supreme Court did take those factors into consideration. [19:25] Consider the formal legal framework that was supposed to protect the integrity of these cases. [19:30] The special counsel regulations were designed precisely to create independence and politically charged investigations by grand juries in two different judicial districts examined evidence and returned indictments. [19:41] That when we create exceptions for powerful people, it can be very dangerous for the rule of law. [19:48] Well, I've been a lawyer for a long time, and you have, too. [19:50] He stated that the same facts would have led him to charge a president of either political party. [19:53] But the speech and debate clause doesn't mean any way privileged member of Congress, House, or Senate to commit a crime. [19:58] Correct. [19:59] When you are looking at this effort, the decision was not made by you to appoint a special prosecutor. [20:15] Correct? [20:16] That's correct. [20:17] You were appointed special prosecutor. [20:18] Yes. [20:19] In the two areas where you proceeded was on documents that, in fact, were taken from Mar-a-Largo that were classified documents and under the law classified documents cannot be ruled [20:37] issued by a former president of the United States, is that correct? [20:41] I can't speak to aspects of the Florida case unless there were an indictment or a filing. [20:46] I think the indictments and filings speak for themselves. [20:49] All right. [20:50] And then, we all know January 6th happened. [20:53] We all were here. [20:55] Most of us were here. [20:56] And then declare victory on the merits. [20:59] The actual evidence is never tested before a jury. [21:02] Accountability becomes a function of political timing rather than legal substance. [21:06] Compounding the problem is the documented atmosphere of intimidation that surrounds an investigation. [21:11] When witnesses and investigators face public threats, including suggestions of violence and targeted harassment of private citizens, [21:18] the justice system is forced to operate under conditions it was never designed to withstand. [21:23] I'm happy to explain why we issued these issues. [21:26] Do you know if you had donor fundraising data? [21:28] I would have to look at this. [21:29] You don't know? [21:31] Are you testifying right now? [21:33] Now you don't know a strong reason to believe that Donald Trump would destroy evidence. [21:38] That was not directed at Donald Trump. [21:40] It was stated disclosing it to members of the Senate. [21:43] It was stated disclosing it to anyone. [21:46] And we do not have to wait for someone to be injured for an investigation to be obstructed. [21:52] It would not have been built on the refusal of the Vice President and multiple state officials who chose constitutional duty over personal allegiance. [21:59] That reality forces a more uncomfortable conclusion. [22:02] The resistance to the alleged scheme came from within the same political party, not from its opponents. [22:07] Given the threats that were later made to witnesses in the election case, I, as a prosecutor... [22:12] Mr. Smith, are you aware of the statute to USC, section 6628? [22:18] Yes, I am. [22:20] ...that specifically protects Senate communication records and makes this nondisclosure agreement that you gave Judge Boasberg and that he signed that makes a leak. [22:30] Instead, the detailed findings remain hidden while the professionals who compiled them have been removed from government service. [22:35] I do not recall discussing that. [22:37] Once treated as a default value in matters of national security has been subordinated to political convenience. [22:43] The cumulative effect is a slow erosion of norms that once constrained executive power. [22:48] The rule of law does not usually collapse in a single dramatic episode. [22:52] It weakens through repeated exceptions. [22:55] Through the normalization of threats against investigators. [22:58] Through the replacement of independent professionals with political loyalists. [23:02] And through the gradual acceptance that certain individuals are simply too powerful to be subjected to ordinary legal processes. [23:08] Kind of left out there an allegation that I'm not sure was completely proven. [23:12] Each precedent lowers the threshold for the next. [23:14] Future administrations of either party will inherit these weakened norms. [23:18] Yes. [23:19] The next investigation that reaches upward will face the same pressures, the same risks of professional retaliation, [23:25] and the same temptation to treat the Justice Department as an instrument of personal protection rather than public accountability. [23:31] The damage is therefore not confined to one set of cases or one political figure. [23:35] It is structural. [23:37] The central question is not partisan preference. [23:40] It is whether evidence of coordinated efforts to subvert an election and to mishandle classified national security information [23:46] should be examined under the ordinary processes of criminal law or whether political power can permanently shield such evidence from scrutiny. [23:53] It is whether career public servants should expect protection when their work displeases the powerful or whether they should expect punishment. [24:00] And it is whether the next generation of prosecutors and agents will still believe that the system is capable of following facts wherever they are. [24:07] Those questions remain open. [24:09] They were placed on the public record under oath. [24:12] Procedural dismissals and political changes of administration do not answer that. [24:16] Only a sustained commitment to institutional independence and evidentiary transparency can. [24:22] The alternative is a justice system that operates at the sufferance of the very power it is supposed to constrain. [24:28] History suggests that such a system does not remain stable for long.