A (58:37)
Although Jack Smith wiped the floor with Congress that day, despite all of these last minute monkey wrenches thrown his way by the Department of Justice, which is completely out of gas, you know, that morning they, they, they sent him the, the email about Mar a Lago. It's just, it's just mind boggling. But this was their worst nightmare, that it would be Jim Jordan and the, and his little Jordanettes versus Jack Smith about anything related to the law. I mean, Jim Jordan, I think went to law school but never took the bar. And he came in, although talk about projection. Accusing Jack Smith of having a predetermined outcome when he took the assignment of special counsel, that of prosecuting and indicting Donald Trump, where, where it's obvious that Jim Jordan had a pre, predetermined outcome. He wanted to prove, using the, the, the billing records, the phone billing records issue, that, you know, there was something nefarious or underhanded about the prosecution. That's all he had. And then he got schooled by Jack Smith on that. Look, Jack Smith's opening was quite clear. I had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt doubt, not just probable cause to bring an indictment, the lower level, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald Trump committed crimes in the D.C. election interference matter. And that is even knowing that about the immunity decision at the United States Supreme Court. He said, I was not rogue, I was tethered to the Department of Justice. I spoke frequently to senior leadership in the Department of Justice, which I assume goes up to Merrick Garland. I spoke to the Solicitor General at every turn and to the end to the criticism that he took about quote, unquote, the timing. He said it had to do with evidence, not politics. If we're going to make the decision to indict a outgoing president, former president running for president, we're going to make sure that the evidence is properly lined up and accumulated. And at that tipping point, or as Marco Rubio said today about Venezuela, that trigger, that trigger moment, that's when you indict, not before, not later. An indictment is ready when it's ready, or the ability to bring your evidence in to obtain your indictment. So he had nothing to do with that. If anybody wants to blame timing, it's on Merrick garland for wasting nine or 10 months and only focusing for most of it on the lower level, actual Jan6 insurrectionist, instead of at the top level. He did not want to go after the top level, but the evidence was overwhelming. And finally his prosecution team finally got Merrick Garland to see the light and to say that Jack Smith had a predetermined outcome. There's a reason why Jack Smith was chosen besides his, his unimpeachable credentials and body of work, including in the Public Integrity Unit. But he wasn't even in America during Donald Trump's presidency or John Six. He was at the Hague doing war crimes. There's a reason they chose him so, because he was not in the ecosystem of politics here. You know, he was busy chasing after war criminals. And so they brought him in to handle the case. And he said quite clearly, if, if this was a Republican or Democrat, it wouldn't matter. The evidence controlled not the politics. He also said, I'm here under great, great personal sacrifice also because the. This president who occupies the highest position in the land, has said he wants to see me sued for treason, whatever that means. And they soon arrested. So despite the parameters, the attempts to do a gotcha with Jack Smith in nine hours almost of testimony and you have it up, and I have it up on legal AF under lives in two separate video clips segments, Jack Smith, nobody could watch that and come away. If you're objective with any other thought than that this was a apolitical, professional, mature adult prosecutor who made hard decisions using prosecutorial discretion consistent with the Department of Justice manual and the principles of federal prosecution, to bring two cases through a grand jury against a person who's been, is, was and is now a president under, under great, great attacks led by Donald Trump and MAGA on everybody in his world at the time. You and I used to, when we did our daily Jack Smith videos, we said he was just the subway guy. I don't mean the guy that went to jail. I mean he was just the guy that just put the subway sandwich under his arm, his thermos, black, dark suit, walking to court every day, taking no questions, just chopping wood every day making his case, making his case. You can't fault him. He got his indictments up 10 months or so after the cases were handed to him. And they were complicated cases. Some of them were complicated cases. But, you know, the, the attempt to dump this, as you said, on New Year's Eve. You caught it? I caught it. I did a video within moments. So did you put the video up? Everybody sees it, history sees it. And you know, Donald Trump I think the reason it got released is because the Jamie Raskins of the world and the House Democrats were going to be like, if you don't release this, we will. There's a gap between him giving the testimony and the videos. It takes a while for the videographer to get the video done and then match it with the transcript. And then the transcript. It takes a minute. You and I, they weren't. They didn't. They didn't order it, Rush, the way you and I would do in a trial. Like, Jim Jordan didn't say, need it tomorrow night or tomorrow afternoon. It took a while and they got it delivered. And they were like, somebody's going to release this. Who's it going to be? Like, we're going to release it. So. And I know that Alison Gill's doing a nice video up on. On Midas, on her curated Best of Jack Smith. And it is the Best of Jack Smith, because even when they tried to get him for the. The phone records issue and try to turn it into something that it's not to confuse the American people. Jack Smith did not wiretap members of Congress or the Senate. He got through a court process overseen by a federal judge, Search warrants that were limited in time and scope to January 5 to January 7 of a handful of elected officials who they had other evidence that suggested was working with Donald Trump to delay the certification of the election to buy Donald Trump more time to cling to power and do something else criminal. And that's fair game. That's not speech and debate, privileged activity by members of Congress or the Senate. That is fair game. Now, they didn't wiretap them, meaning they didn't sit in a van with headphones listening to the conversation. They got effectively their phone records, their phone bill. Last time you looked at your phone bill electronically or in paper, it says, phone number called, duration of call. That's it. You don't know what was discussed. It just says, you called grandma, doesn't say you talked about her brownies. That's the difference between wiretapping and pen register and this type of toll data that they pulled. But that gave, you know, the clutching of the pearls moment for Jim Jordan. Oh, my. My phone record. I was under investigation and I didn't know it. Yeah, you're under investigation and you didn't know it. And there was no Department of Justice protocol that would have notified you that were pulling your phone records because you could have been a target of the criminal investigation. This is evidence. This is not. You know, if they didn't like it, then they shouldn't have participated in the phone calls or, or, or the rest. So it, nine hours of Jack Smith is just a breath of fresh air force for the rule of law. And I, I don't think we've heard the last of him. You know, we're going to see what happens with the Mar A Lago file release. Judge Cannon, you know, Donald Trump's judge of choice who apparently is currently sitting over the investigations of other political critics of Donald Trump like John Brennan, the CIA director in the grand jury proceedings up there. I just had Mark Zaid on the national security lawyer, whistleblower, lawyer extraordinaire for an interview and he's working on a number of the matters down in Miami. You notice that Donald Trump during his press conference said, well, you know, it's going to be a case that's going to be prosecuted in the Southern District of New York or maybe Miami. See, They've got a MAGA guy that's running the Southern District of Florida U.S. attorney's office and Jason Reading Quinones, who's a buddy of Pam Bondi's who is a maga. MAGA works closely or had worked closely with people like Mike Davis, the right wing influencer who runs the Article 3 project, whatever that's supposed to be. And the, they use Miami to go after their political critics like this. So we'll have to see what happens. So I think Jack Smith gets prosecuted by this Department of Justice. I mean, I think he's prepared if they try to, if they try to do it the way they did James Comey, I mean, to hear Pam Bondi, maybe one of the reasons they didn't bring her to Washington is even the inner circle and sanctum of Donald Trump thinks she's a moron and she's a fool. I mean she even in her own press conference about Venezuela said the, this, these are, these are concepts that are not supposed to go together. You know, she said she's going to bring the full wrath of the Justice Department against Maduro. Now listen, I like to see the guy convicted for a long, long time too and not pardoned. But that doesn't mean that he's not presumed innocent until he is convicted. And I don't think you talk about justice and wrath in the same sentence unless you're a moron like Pam Bondi who wants to like, you know, act like the big boys who's doing the war effort and act like, you know, she's got something, something up her sleeve there. So at the End of the day, it was important for history that, that Jack Smith speak to us. He's the only. He's the only special counsel that never got the opportunity to present his findings to the American people. Watergate did. John Durham did. Robert Mueller did, you know, the guy that investigated Joe Biden, Bob her did everybody, except they gagged Jack Smith because of the way this thing timed out towards the end of the election and then into the new administration. So we haven't heard the last of Jack Smith. And I'd like to find out what Jack Smith's gonna do. He's not done. He's not retired. You know, he's gonna join a public interest group or a law firm. And I think we're gonna be pleased with what Jack Smith does in his future, and we'll certainly are supportive of it. Here on Legal AF and Midas Touch.