Special Counsel Jack Smith appeared on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, and the breathtaking scope of his lawless Arctic Frost investigation was matched only by the sheer hubris of this former prosecutor. Instead of offering humility for orchestrating two baseless witch hunts against a former President of the United States, clearly intended to interfere in the 2024 election and weaponize the Justice Department to subvert the will of the people, Smith launched into a tirade. He brazenly declared he would prosecute the president again, even after his politically motivated legal cases wound up as spectacular dead ends.
In a moment of staggering irony, Jack Smith ludicrously argued that politics should play no role in prosecutions. He then immediately contradicted himself by asserting he would prosecute President Trump again if given the chance.
Throughout my public service, my approach has always been the same: Follow the facts and the law without fear or favor. Experienced prosecutors know that specific case outcomes are beyond our control. Our responsibility is to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons. These principles have guided me through my career, including as special counsel. I'm proud of the work my team did, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to correct false and misleading narratives about our work.
During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies. We observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law. I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold.
Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January of '21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom.
As I testify before the committee today, I want to be clear. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. 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 Democrat or a Republican. No one should be above the law in this country and the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.
Smith proclaimed, "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity." This is a reckless, shameless, and partisan lie. Let's be perfectly clear: President Donald Trump lawfully exercised his constitutional right to legally object to the 2020 election results and to voice his opinions about how that election was run. Full stop.
Trump did not incite or encourage an "insurrection," where rioters supposedly "overtook the Capitol" and posed a threat to the "peaceful transfer of power." Indeed, none of the rioters even used firearms, and they provably killed no one in that incident. In fact, Trump explicitly and repeatedly called for peace to support constitutionally protected election objections, only to be mass deplatformed in a brazen coordinated effort to silence a sitting president.
Jack Smith nonetheless charged Trump with four felonies: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. This fabricated case ultimately ended without going to trial. The January 6 case was nothing more than a continuation of the failed impeachment hoax and the sham partisan J6 committee's conclusion that the former president should be prosecuted over the riot.
Adding insult to Smith's injury, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the trumped-up classified documents case on the grounds that Smith was improperly appointed as Special Counsel. And there it is.
Ultimately, Jack Smith was the lead figure in a Democrat-hatched plot to interfere in the 2024 presidential election. Fortunately for America, it failed, but not before inflicting a serious blow to public trust in our institutions.
As previously reported at RedState, Jack Smith's operation engaged in egregious violations of investigative practices, and apparently, the Constitution itself, with its jaw-dropping spy dragnet.
The biggest revelation may be just how far investigators reached beyond Trump himself.
Grassley said investigators subpoenaed 87 phones belonging to Trump White House officials and obtained records containing communications with journalists at major news organizations, including CBS News, CNN, Fox News, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Federalist. CBS News reported the disclosure live from Tuesday's hearing.
That comes on top of the previously disclosed collection of phone records belonging to Republican members of Congress.
The American people should not be surprised that a partisan operative with no respect for our elections also had no respect for our freedom of the press. The sheer audacity of Smith's continued defense of these failed and unconstitutional endeavors reveals a deep-seated contempt for due process and American values. Why Jack Smith isn't facing prosecution himself for these abuses of power may be the biggest mystery in the aftermath of the 2024 election, underscoring a two-tiered justice system that America First patriots are determined to dismantle.
