House Judiciary Committee releases video and transcript of Jack Smith deposition

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Tierney Sneed, Casey Gannon, CNN

(CNN) — The House Judiciary Committee on New Year’s Eve released a transcript and video of its closed-door hearing with Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led the two failed prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

The deposition conducted earlier this month lasted more than eight hours, during which Smith was grilled by lawmakers over the twin criminal investigations into Trump – one probing the mishandling and retention of classified documents and a second inquiry into his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for nine of those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the 10 indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” Smith told the committee.

Republican lawmakers have lambasted the investigations as alleged “weaponization” of the justice system against the president and his allies, particularly criticizing Smith for subpoenaing the phone records of lawmakers who spoke with Trump about the election scheme.

Giving testimony was a significant risk for Smith as Trump has called for him to be prosecuted.

CNN has reached out to Smith for comment.

Here are the highlights of Smith’s testimony:

Toll records were ‘very important’

The GOP-led committee grilled Smith on his office’s move to obtain toll records from members of Congress, meaning phone records showing whom lawmakers had called and the time of the calls. Toll records do not provide the content of phone calls.

Smith said that evidence was “very important” for showing Trump’s alleged criminal intent in the election subversion case.

“Having a record that is a hard record about a time, and the timeline of that afternoon was particularly important because the violence had started. The president refused to stop it,” Smith said.

“He endangered the life of his vice president, and then he’s getting calls, and not just – not calls from Democrats, not calls from people he doesn’t know – calls from people he trusts, calls from people he relies on – and still refuses to come to the aid of the people at the Capitol,” he added.

Asked about calls from lawmakers for “accountability” because their phone records were obtained, Smith said Trump was ultimately responsible for their records being subpoenaed.

“These records are people, in the case of the senators, Donald Trump directed his co-conspirators to call these people to further delay the proceedings. He chose to do that.”

‘Grave risk of obstruction of justice’

Smith also faced sharp questions about whether his pursuit of lawmakers’ toll records violated the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which shields legislators from certain law enforcement actions related to their legislative duties.

Smith said his team consulted with Justice Department experts and that he was not aware of court precedents that would have prohibited those subpoenas. He also defended the move by his office to obtain orders from court that prevented phone companies from disclosing to the lawmakers that their records had been turned over to investigators.

“There was a grave risk of obstruction of justice, given the obstructive conduct of President Trump as is set forth, for example, in the indictment in Florida,” Smith said, referring to the classified documents case.

Smith also said he did not regret his decision to repeatedly seek gag orders against Trump, as he attempted to limit the president’s public statements that he argued would influence the cases and endanger people involved, including FBI agents.

The prosecutors’ requests for non-disclosure orders did not tell the judges that the records being sought were for lawmakers’ phones, which was in line with DOJ policy at the time, Smith said.

Since then, the department has changed its guidance, according to Smith’s testimony, and prosecutors must inform courts if the non-disclosure orders pertain to the phone records of members of Congress.

Smith defends against political bias claims

Smith testified that he never spoke to Joe Biden about the investigations, nor did he ever receive instructions from the former president about his work.

He also repeatedly said that he would have approached the cases the same if he had been asked to investigate a Democratic president – such as Biden or Barack Obama.

Asked if he lobbied or petitioned for the special counsel position, Smith said he did not and accepted the role only because he believed “I thought I was the right person for the job. I knew that this would be a challenging job.”

Weighing charges against co-conspirators

Smith testified that he was still weighing whether to bring charges against Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in the election subversion case when Trump’s reelection forced his investigation to come to an end.

But Smith said that he would have “welcomed” those alleged co-conspirators, such as Trump attorney John Eastman, to the stand if the case had gone to trial and if Trump’s defense team sought to call them.

Among the Trump associates who sat for interviews with Smith’s team were Boris Epshteyn and attorney Rudy Giuliani, Smith testified.

Asked why he did not follow a common prosecutorial approach of charging lower level accomplices before pursuing the higher levels of a conspiracy, Smith said that he did not need to follow that path to secure witnesses against Trump.

“This was not a case where we needed more witnesses,” Smith testified. “It was a case where we needed to be able to present the case in a streamlined way because there was so much evidence.

Unreleased section of report on Mar-a-Lago documents

Smith was careful to avoid divulging any information that was not already public about Trump’s handling of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, repeatedly stating that he was barred by a court order from testifying about the contents of the second volume of his report.

Before shutting its doors, Smith’s team compiled a 137-page final report on the probe before Trump was sworn into office for a second term. But the judge who presided over the classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, has prohibited releasing the section on the classified documents case.

The Justice Department told Smith’s legal team that it believed Cannon’s order applied to Smith, his attorney said, which “significantly” limited what he could say publicly.

Giuliani said that he did not believe his own claims about voter fraud

Smith told the committee that Guiliani, who was one of the uncharged co-conspirators in the election interference case, did not believe his own claims he spread about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“In fact, when we interviewed him, he disavowed a number of the claims,” Smith said. “He claimed they were mistakes or hyperbole, even the claim about Ruby Freeman, where he, you know, basically destroyed this poor woman’s life by claiming she was a vote scammer.”

Giuliani last year reached an agreement with two Georgia election workers – Freeman and Shaye Moss – that he defamed to settle the nearly $150 million judgment against him, in a deal that allowed him to keep his home and most valuable possessions.

Smith got emotional discussing fired FBI agents and prosecutors

Smith was emotional when he discussed prosecutors or FBI agents who have been fired by the Justice Department for their work on cases related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.

“I think what has happened to career prosecutors and career FBI agents is awful. It’s contrary to the rule of law,” Smith said. “It’s contrary to who I think we are as a country.”

Smith apologized for getting emotional when discussing one agent in particular who worked on his case. He was “fired for doing his job,” two weeks after the passing of his wife.

“These are not partisans,” Smith added. “They’re people who have decided they don’t want to make a lot of money. They’re not looking for fame. They just want to do good work, and I think when you lose that culture, you lose a lot.”

Seeking a public hearing

Smith also stressed that he was still willing to testify in a public setting – a request that was denied by the committee chairman in favor of the closed-door meeting. He told lawmakers that he was willing to appear voluntarily to defend his team’s work, arguing that many of them had been “vilified” for their work.

“They’re not people who like to go in front of cameras and defend themselves,” Smith said. “There have been mischaracterizations about my work.”

Asked if he was still willing to appear voluntarily for a public hearing, Smith replied: “Yes.”

This story has been updated with additional details from Smith’s testimony.

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