The House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Republicans, has made public a transcript and video of a confidential interview featuring Smith, who discussed two investigations involving former President Trump.
Throughout the extensive deposition, Smith staunchly defended the grounds for the indictments against Trump, dismissing Republican allegations that his investigations were politically driven.
“The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that President Trump was the primary instigator and most accountable figure in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his advantage. The Capitol attack, central to this case, would not have occurred without his involvement. The other co-conspirators acted on his behalf,” Smith stated, responding sharply to inquiries about whether his work aimed to block Trump’s potential 2024 presidential bid.
Smith further clarified, “I completely reject any claims that our efforts were designed to interfere with his presidential campaign.”
Although Smith had requested a public testimony, the deposition on December 17 was held behind closed doors. The newly released transcript and video, marking Smith’s sole appearance before Congress since stepping down as special counsel in January, shed light on the rationale behind two of the Justice Department’s most significant investigations in recent memory.
Trump faced indictments for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, which favored Democrat Joe Biden, and for willfully retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Both cases were dropped following Trump’s success in the 2024 election, with Smith citing Justice Department policy that prohibits indicting a sitting president.
Smith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against Trump was strong enough to sustain a conviction. Part of the strength of the January 6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies and supporters who cooperated with the investigation.
“We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former congressman, who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal,” Smith said.
“Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”
Accounts from Republicans willing to stand up against the falsehood that the election had been stolen “even though it could mean trouble for them” created what Smith described as the “most powerful” evidence against Trump.
When it came to the Capitol riot itself, Smith said, the evidence showed that Trump “caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.”
Asked whether there was evidence that Trump had instructed supporters to riot at the Capitol, Smith said that Trump in the weeks leading to the insurrection got “people to believe fraud claims that weren’t true.”
“He made false statements to state legislatures, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts and was aware in the days leading up to January 6 that his supporters were angry when he invited them and then he directed them to the Capitol,” Smith said.
“Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own vice president,” he added.
“And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”
Some of the deposition focused on Republican anger at revelations that the Smith team had obtained, and analysed, phone records of GOP lawmakers who were in contact with Trump on January 6. Smith defended the maneuver as lawful and by-the-book, and suggested that outrage over the tactic should be directed at Trump and not his team of prosecutors.
“Well, I think who should be accountable for this is Donald Trump. 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,” Smith said.
“If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for Democratic senators.”
The communications between Trump and Republican supporters in Congress were an important component of the case, Smith said. He cited an interview his office did with Mark Meadows in which Trump’s former chief of staff referenced that Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and current chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had been in touch with the White House on the afternoon of the riot.
“And what I recall was Meadows stating that ‘I’ve never seen Jim Jordan scared of anything,’ and the fact that we were in this different situation now where people were scared really made it clear that what was going on at the Capitol could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was,” Smith said.
Smith was also asked whether his team evaluated former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive claim that Trump that grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol after a rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021.
Smith told lawmakers that investigators interviewed the officer who was in the car, “who said that President Trump was very angry and wanted to go to the Capitol,” but the officer’s version of events “was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand.”
