BREAKING: Former special counsel Jack Smith admits key Jan 6 witness lacked firsthand knowledge, more…

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Wednesday afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee released a video, along with a full written 255-page transcript of former special counsel Jack Smith’s closed-door testimony before the committee, which took place earlier this month.

CLICK HERE to read the full transcript.

Smith claimed in his opening statement that his team found “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump engaged in a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Below are just some of the revelations being reported on the hearing.

1 – Jack Smith admitted that President Trump never ordered the Capitol riot

However, Smith claimed Trump “caused,” “exploited,” and “foreseeably incited” the riot and then failed to stop it.

2 – Jack Smith says key Jan 6 witness relied on hearsay, lacked firsthand evidence
From Fox News: Former special counsel Jack Smith undercut claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide and Jan. 6 Committee witness, while testifying in a recent deposition to Congress.

Smith told the House Judiciary Committee this month that he evaluated Hutchinson’s explosive claims as part of his investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump related to the 2020 election, according to a transcript published Wednesday.

Smith said they had deficiencies because Hutchinson did not offer firsthand information.

Asked during the deposition how he would have approached cross-examining Hutchinson, Smith said he would have moved to prohibit a portion of her testimony from being used.

Smith admitted during the hearing, “If I were a defense attorney and Ms. Hutchinson were a witness, the first thing I would do was seek to preclude some of her testimony because it was hearsay, and I don’t have the full range of her testimony in front of me right now, but I do remember that that was a decent part of it.”

Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the final months of Trump’s first term in office, had made multiple unsubstantiated claims, including that President Trump was aware that some of his supporters would be armed at his rally and that Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of his driver out of anger.

Smith admitted that “a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay, were things that she had heard from other people and, as a result, that testimony may or may not be admissible, and it certainly wouldn’t be as powerful as firsthand testimony.”

3 – Jack Smith withheld names of GOP lawmakers from judges who granted access to phone records
From the New York Post: Jack Smith admitted that judges weren’t made aware his team was seizing Republicans’ phone records when asked to sign off on non-disclosure orders for associated subpoenas, according to a transcript of the ex-special counsel’s deposition released Wednesday.

Smith claimed to members of the House Judiciary Committee in the Dec. 17 sitdown that keeping the subpoenas — which were part of the FBI’s sprawling Arctic Frost probe into 2020 election interference — hidden was necessary to avoid a “grave risk of obstruction of justice.”

Asked by an unidentified Judiciary Committee questioner whether judges who approved the subpoenas knew they were demanding that phone carriers AT&T and Verizon hand over lawmakers’ call logs, Smith said: “I don’t think we identified that, because I don’t think that was Department policy at the time.”

Judiciary members pushed back that Smith’s team risked infringing on constitutional “speech or debate protections” for lawmakers, around a dozen of whom — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the panel’s chairman, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — had their cellphone metadata taken.

READ MORE from the New York Post.

Journalist Julie Kelly provided the following summary:

🧵on his misrepresentations, falsehoods, and straight up lies told by the special counsel to House Judiciary Committee on Dec 17.

Smith had no evidence that any of the so-called “classified documents” he claimed to have found were in boxes temporarily stored in MAL ballroom or bathroom after the president left the White House.

Lie #2: Smith was extremely aware of the 2024 election calendar–which is why he took what he himself described as the “extraordinary” step in asking the Supreme Court to bypass the DC appellate court–the next normal step– in considering Judge Chutkan’s Dec. 2023 order denying all forms of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution and take up the immunity question immediately. (SCOTUS denied his request, Chutkan’s order was upheld by 3-judge panel in Feb. 2024, which was then considered by SCOTUS in April. On July 1, 2024, SCOTUS issued its decision providing for a broad swath of immunity for acts in office, resulting in a major gutting of Smith’s J6 indictment.)

Lie #3: That the unarmed protest at the Capitol on Jan 6 was an “attack” incited by the president and the still unsubstantiated allegation that 140 officers were injured by protesters.

Keep in mind: Smith’s J6 indictment was four counts: two related to 1512(c)(2)–a corporate fraud statute unlawfully used in J6 cases according to SCOTUS in the Fischer decision–and two other VERY vague conspiracy counts, conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy against “rights.”

Lie #4: That Trump’s tweet at 2:24pm saying “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country” somehow “endangered” Pence’s life.

Trump did not have to be “pushed” by staff to denounce the escalating chaos–this is a lie pushed by Liz Cheney and others here repeated by Jack Smith–that the president delayed saying anything to stop his supporters from doing anything bad.

The first breach into the Capitol happened at 2:12pm. About 25 minutes later, Trump posted his first of several tweets/videos asking people to “stay peaceful” and respect police:

Lie #5: Twitter (which had been recently purchased by Elon Musk) did not “refuse to comply” with Judge Beryl Howell’s egregious nondisclosure order in Smith’s pursuit of the president’s Twitter data.

She set an unreasonable deadline to produce the file and as Twitter sought relief from DC appellate court–Howell, the Trump-hating Obama appointee, was upheld by 1 Obama and 2 Biden appointees–then fined Twitter $350,000 for an alleged 55 hour “delay” in producing the data to Smith. She also suggested Musk was trying to “get in good” with Trump by fighting the NDO.

And Howell did not just find “obstruction” in her justification for issuing the NDO. (What obstruction Smith is referring to in the J6 case is anyone’s guess.)

Smith at first claimed Trump was a flight risk–one of 5 factors necessary under the Stored Communications Act in authorizing an NDO for a subpoena issued to a communications provider–in seeking the NDO. In a hearing on the matter, Howell openly mused that Trump owned his own plane and could flee the country if he found out about the subpoena.

Both later claimed it was done in “error.” The NDO, however, argued Trump would destroy evidence or tamper with witnesses if Twitter disclosed the subpoena to him. It was in effect for one year.

Although the all-Dem appellate panel upheld Howell, four conservative appellate court judges later blasted Howell and their colleagues for ignoring executive privilege protections in the case.

Lie #6: No, a former president is not just any “normal person” when it comes to certain records and documents. In fact, a NARA official testified that every president has kept classified records.

Smith’s prosecutors had to admit to Judge Cannon in the docs case that this was the first time a high ranking elected official had been charged with espionage for having (alleged) classified papers. There was nothing “normal” about the documents investigation/prosecution.

Further–the SCIF in Miami was not “convenient” for the president or his team of lawyers. Also if I recall correctly, Smith’s team insisted on being near or inside the SCIF when the president and/or his team viewed sensitive evidence.

What Smith is suggesting here–and what his team also tried to do with no success–was force the president and his lawyers to travel to DC (where the documents case inappropriately was investigated before Smith’s switched venue at the last minute) but (again if memory serves) Judge Cannon directed Smith to make classified discovery available in Florida.

BELOW IS THE VIDEO OF THE 8-HOUR HEARING:

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