00:02Former Special Counsel Jack Smith says he stands by the decisions he made while investigating
00:07President Trump and would make them again.
00:10At a contentious Senate Judiciary hearing Tuesday, Smith defended his decision to prosecute
00:15Trump, saying his team developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed serious
00:21crimes.
00:21Smith also said he will not be silenced by threats of prosecution against him.
00:26But if asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I
00:33would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.
00:40The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence.
00:44Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged
00:51in the indictments they returned.
00:53Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal
01:00scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.
01:06After leaving office in January of 2021, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at
01:13his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued
01:20retention of those documents.
01:21Republicans pressed Smith over his team's efforts to obtain phone records from GOP lawmakers as
01:27part of the 2020 election investigation.
01:30Smith defended the move.
01:32Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?
01:36Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?
01:36I do not.
01:37How about the Easter Bunny?
01:41I no longer believe in the Easter Bunny.
01:43Do you think Jimmy Hoffa died of natural causes?
01:47I do not.
01:48I do not.
01:48Okay.
01:50Now, you sought the phone records of a bunch of U.S. Senators, right?
02:01We sought the toll records, non-content records.
02:04Any Democrats or just Republicans?
02:09If President Trump had reached out to Democrats to further-
02:18The toll records that we sought were relevant to the investigation and they were Republicans.
02:25Then came this exchange over a basketball game.
02:30Missouri's Republican Senator Eric Schmidt suggested Smith had been in Atlanta in 2024 and raised
02:35the possibility he was there in connection with Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis.
02:40What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were
02:44in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced
02:50their affair?
02:57I don't think you know that we have this stuff.
02:59So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself.
03:04But Schmidt appeared to have the wrong Hawks.
03:07Smith said he was at an Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball game that day against Maryland in
03:12Maryland, not an Atlanta Hawks game.
03:15Records confirm the Hawkeyes played at Maryland that day.
03:18Neither of Smith's cases against Trump ever went to trial.
03:22Both were dismissed after Trump won the 2024 election because of Justice Department policy
03:27against prosecuting a sitting president.
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