Former special counsel Jack Smith recently testified before Congress about his past investigations and about key aspects of the hearings held by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee.
Donald Trump did take some hits from Smith during his remarks, but it was not all bad news.
The person who was considered a star witness for the controversial Jan. 6 panel just had her testimony blown out of the water by Smith.
Some of what Smith stated during his appearance was opinion, as he made the case that the Jan. 6 riot would not have happened without Trump's involvement.
I won’t rehash my thoughts on this, as I have made them plainly clear, but I don’t agree with Smith on this particular point.
He stated, "The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”
While I don’t think Trump ever should have been anywhere near the Capitol, I think that crowd was pretty wound up that day, regardless of whether or not he was present. With or without Trump, I believe that a riot was going to take place. Now, it is another conversation altogether if we remove Trump’s statements of support for the rally, and perhaps that is what Smith was leaning into here.
Smith also stated that he had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” in the cases he brought against Trump.
He insisted that his actions did not constitute political weaponization in any way, adding, “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.”
When Smith was questioned about the phone records he obtained for some members of Congress, he added, “Recent narratives about my team’s work are false and misleading” and the “records were lawfully subpoenaed and were relevant to complete a comprehensive investigation.”
He later added, “President Trump and his associates tried to call members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election. I did not choose those members, President Trump did.”
Now that we have the bad news out of the way, we can get to Smith's comments that more or less debunked the Jan. 6 panel testimony given by Cassidy Hutchinson, which I had stated at the time never should have been permitted because it was all hearsay (it would not have been admissible in a court of law).
Smith stated, "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.”
He continued, "We interviewed, I think, the people she talked to, and we also interviewed, if my recollection is correct, officers who were there, including the officer who was in the car. And that officer, if my recollection is correct, and I want to make sure I’m right about this, said that President Trump was very angry and wanted to go to the Capitol, but the version of events that he explained was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand."
I have always maintained that if these congressional hearings were ever going to be taken seriously, they should have followed the same rules as the courts; otherwise, they would be nothing more than political theater. And let’s not forget, there were also reports that Hutchinson was allegedly being coached by then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), which also would have been impermissible in a court of law. It was clearly not all good news for Trump from the Smith hearing, but this is still a pretty big win for the president.
