Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) gave an opening statement before the House Judiciary Committee hearing to question former special counsel Jack Smith where he brought all of the evidence uncovered by Smith's investigation.
Smith’s appearance marks a significant moment in ongoing congressional scrutiny of the Justice Department's handling of cases related to Trump.
Smith's tenure as special counsel was marked by high-profile investigations into Trump's theft of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago residence and Trump's ongoing refusal to return them.
The classified documents investigation resulted in charges against Trump, his aide, Walt Nauta, and the Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira. His office secured an indictment in the classified documents case in Florida, though the case faced legal challenges and was eventually dismissed.
However, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July 2023, ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional—a decision that shaped the trajectory of federal prosecution efforts against the former president.
The other probe dealt with events surrounding January 6, 2021.
Smith's January 6 investigation led to charges against numerous Capitol riot participants but faced complications regarding potential charges against Trump himself.
Following Trump's election victory in November 2024, Smith resigned from his position, leaving behind a two-part report.
The following is a rush transcript and may not be in its final form.
"I'm glad that the committee has finally granted you the same chance to report your findings to the American people that every other special counsel investigating an American president has had. The good chairman started by saying it's all about politics. Well, maybe for them, but for us, it's all about the rule of law.
"And who's going to stand by the rule of law and who's going to oppose it? Now, Mr. Smith, you're one of America's great prosecutors. For nearly three decades, you worked for justice under both Republicans and Democrats — in the Manhattan D.A. office, where you prosecuted sex crimes and domestic violence cases; in the Eastern District of New York, where you prosecuted murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals; and leading the public integrity section at the Department of Justice.
"You brought prosecutions against corrupt public officials across the political spectrum. When you went to The Hague as chief prosecutor in the Kosovo trial, you prosecuted war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against thousands of innocent victims. While others may have devoted their lives to corrupt self-enrichment, you have devoted your life to the rule of law and to public service.
"You've never been prosecuted for anything. You've never been convicted of anything. As far as I can tell, you've never even been the subject of a disciplinary proceeding over the course of your multi-decade career. But Donald Trump says you're a criminal and you belong in prison — not because you did anything wrong, mind you, but because you did everything right. You pursued the facts. You followed the law. You stuck with extreme caution to every rule of professional responsibility. You had the audacity to do your job.
"Everybody here knows what you did wrong in Donald Trump's eyes and why he says you belong in prison. You found, and I quote from your sworn testimony before the committee, 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.'
"When asked whether you believed the evidence was enough to obtain a criminal conviction against Donald Trump at trial, you had a one-word answer: yes. When asked if Donald Trump was responsible for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6th, you said your view of the evidence was that he caused it, that he exploited it, and that it was foreseeable to him.
"You found that Trump knew he had lost the election. How? Well, his own attorney general, William Barr, repeatedly told him so and described all of Trump's theories as 'BS.' Trump's top campaign advisers told him he lost the election. Vice President Pence told him he lost the election. More than 60 federal, state and court decisions, including eight rendered by judges he appointed to the bench, rejected every outlandish election fraud and corruption claim that he made. Trump himself even privately acknowledged it, gesturing to Joe Biden on TV and saying, 'Can you believe I lost to that effing guy?' He knew he lost, but he threw everything into his big lie — which some people, even in this room to this day, will stand by and swear by.
"Well, when the big lie wasn't enough to convince officials like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to commit election fraud and find Trump 11,780 votes; when it wasn't enough to convince Trump's DOJ to, quote, 'just call the election corrupt and leave the rest to me' in the House; when it wasn't enough to force Vice President Mike Pence to announce and then exercise lawless powers to reject electoral college votes and use counterfeit slates to anoint Trump the winner — that's when Trump incited massive violence on January 6th. While more than 140 officers were being brutally assaulted by Trump's mob, rioters beat them with flagpoles, sprayed them with chemical agents, and crushed them in doorways.
"And while they chanted 'Hang Mike Pence' and chased the vice president out of the Capitol, Trump and his team worked the phones — not calling the National Guard, which was under the direct unilateral control of Donald Trump, but calling members of Congress, urging them to delay certification and to nullify the election results. Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule, and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the public integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts — the opposite of Donald Trump, who now has purported to take over the Department of Justice.
"He's in charge of the whole thing under his unitary executive theory, and he acts openly, purely based on political vendetta and motives of personal revenge. And he doesn't deny it. His colleagues have complained about the special counsel's review of toll records, which are phone records like a phone bill showing only the timing and duration of calls and containing no content, no substance whatsoever from the calls. But those records were lawfully subpoenaed because Donald Trump made those members of Congress relevant to the investigation.
"It was Trump who chose to call them to advance his criminal scheme. As you testified, Mr. Smith, if Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for them, too. I trust our colleagues get the point, because America certainly gets the point. There is much Mr. Smith still can't talk about, though we know he badly wants to. His investigation developed what he calls powerful evidence that Trump stole documents containing our country's most sensitive secrets, hoarded them in the ballrooms and bathrooms of his well-trafficked Mar-a-Lago social club. He showed them off to visitors, and then he obstructed a federal investigation by instructing his attorney to pluck out anything really bad before turning materials over to the FBI and having his staff delete incriminating security footage. But today, we're not going to hear a lot about that because you are gagged by an absurd judicial order rendered by Trump's most servile and sycophantic appointee to the federal bench, Judge Aileen Cannon.
"This order not only blocks the release of volume two of your report, which is unprecedented, about the classified documents matter. It also gags you from discussing the report or its contents with us, with America, so we don't know what's in it. But it must be pretty devastating because Donald Trump is desperate to keep Mr. Smith or any other DOJ official, for all time, from ever releasing it to Congress and to the American people.
"Now, Mr. Smith, if any of our colleagues foolishly choose to attack you and vilify you today — and I know that's not going to happen from some serious prosecutors over there like Mr. Knott and Mr. Schmidt, who understand what federal prosecutors do and what the rule of law means — but if anybody decides to attack you personally, they will only be revealing their own ignorance of what prosecutors do and their own indifference to what the rule of law requires in America. They will only be stroking the wounded ego of a lawless, twice-impeached, convicted felon president who not only unleashed a mob against Congress and his own vice president, but is now pardoned and released into our communities.
"Hundreds of extremists, insurrectionists, and cop-beating felons who have proceeded to commit dozens more crimes against the American people since they were pardoned. Mr. Smith, I understand you are a long-distance marathon runner. I read that you are a triathlete who has done more than 100 triathlons and nine Ironman competitions. You are in the fight for justice and the rule of law for the long distance, for the long haul. And I thank you for that. And we should all try to follow your example. America looks forward to your testimony today. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman."
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