00:00Let me ask you this. Am I on this list? Did you target my records and subpoena my
00:06phone toll records? My understanding is your records were subpoenaed by prosecutors before
00:14I became special counsel. Well, staff put this up on the screen. I'm thankful for the great
00:20staff who discovered the email where I learned for the first time a few weeks ago that my phone
00:25records were indeed targeted. We called AT&T and we've learned that they were given to the
00:30Department of Justice, as this email indicates, because I've been in communication with Scott
00:37Perry, one of my colleagues here in Congress, who literally had his phone taken from him in front
00:43of his family. And of course, we've already talked about in this document, it talks about you could
00:48be in violation of the privilege by even obtaining and possessing this information if the member
00:52objected to the disclosure. This happened four years ago in May of 2022. And I couldn't object
00:57because I didn't know. I didn't know until about three weeks ago. My question here is, was there
01:03any limits to your investigation or the investigation that preceded you, Mr. Smith? Because as egregious
01:09as a violation of separation of powers, this is an egregious and abuse of power. It is. It's far
01:14more concerning. You are clearly targeting American citizens for merely being conservative or supporting
01:19the president. We've got memos that we've already been talking about in this hearing from April 2022
01:26that preceded you that established and opened the investigations, one of which has Attorney General
01:30Merrick Garland's signature on it. And the focus was the electors. Now, that was six months, six months
01:36before you were appointed. You testified earlier, you met and interviewed Merrick Garland and Deputy AG
01:40Lisa Monaco, and you briefed the AG and deputy multiple times. Did you brief them on the electors and the
01:46prosecution of their supposed crimes? Did I? I'm sorry, sir. Did you brief them on the electors
01:51and their supposed crimes? Uh, I don't recall specific, uh, conversations, but I'm sure that in
01:59the course of briefing them, I just wasn't that the purpose of the entire investigation as it was set
02:04out? Because putting aside that in 1960, it was already talked about my friend, Mr. Tiffany, that
02:09Hawaii put forward an alternate slate of electors. The investigation pivoted to President Trump
02:13and frankly, anybody who knew him. Do you know who Cleta Mitchell is?
02:19Yes, I do.
02:20She's an election lawyer that was involved in filing an election contest on behalf of President Trump
02:24in Georgia in December of 2020. A 64-page complaint with over 1,100 pages of exhibits,
02:30witness affidavits, and expert witness reports documenting thousands of votes cast in violation
02:34of Georgia law, but which were nevertheless included in the vote totals. Now, notwithstanding
02:39the disposition of the, uh, cases that was filed, is that a criminal act? Filing an election contest
02:47on behalf of a candidate for office, a client. Is that a criminal act? Yes or no? No. In fact,
02:54we see. So why did you deem it appropriate to monitor Cleta Mitchell's long distance phone records
02:58in 2023, two and a half years after the election context was filed and after the presidential electors
03:04were certified? What about Jen Ellis? What about Sidney Powell? What about Bill Seppian? What crime
03:10did you suspect had been committed by them that would warrant monitoring their phone records two
03:14and a half years after the 2020, the 2020 election was certified?
03:23Uh, with respect to Sidney Powell, uh, she is one of the co-conspirators alleged in the indictment.
03:29Uh, I, I don't know what you mean by monitoring, sir, if you're talking. Well, there were some 400 plus
03:34Republican conservative groups and leaders who were targeted by your investigation. Their financial
03:38records were obtained records of the RNC, the Trump campaign, Cleta Mitchell, the conservative
03:42partnership Institute, the America firstly, uh, policy Institute, NRCC, NRSC PACs, conservative groups,
03:49people all across the country, citizens, because we hear a lot about members of Congress and we should
03:54because of separation of powers and the egregious abuse of power. But what we're not talking about enough
03:59in my opinion are the American citizens that have been targeted because frankly, are there any limits
04:03to the power of a special prosecutor or special counsel so much so in your abuse of power that in
04:09the summer of 2024, the indictment involving classified documents was dismissed after determining
04:15your appointment violated the appointments clause of the constitution, but you continue to sign your
04:19name on court filings until the time you resigned from office in January of 2025. A federal judge has
04:26recently stated a prosecutor who continues to sign his name in court filings after a disqualification
04:30order should face disciplinary action or disbarment. I yield back.
Comments