00:00Mr. Smith, over the past few years, Republicans have waged constant attacks on you.
00:05Donald Trump has said you are totally compromised, a political hitman, a left-wing radical,
00:10a criminal, a fully weaponized monster, and that you should be considered mentally deranged
00:16and thrown out of the country.
00:17Just this week, he called you a sick bastard.
00:20Unfortunately, the rules of decorum prevent me from saying what I think of Donald Trump.
00:24But he is not the only one to launch attacks against you.
00:27Chairman Jordan has accused you of abusive surveillance and accused you and your team
00:32of partisan and politically motivated prosecutions.
00:35Despite the mountain of evidence that you laid out in the special counsel's report and in
00:39your court filings, President Trump's supporters are convinced that the only reason your team
00:43tried to hold him accountable is because you have a vendetta against him.
00:47I want to address these allegations today.
00:50You have had a long and distinguished career with the Justice Department, including serving
00:54as the chief of DOJ's Public Integrity Section for five years.
00:58While leading the Public Integrity Section, you led investigations and prosecution of public
01:02figures and political leaders from both parties, Republicans and Democrats.
01:07Can you give us a couple of examples?
01:15Sorry about that.
01:17During my time as the chief of public integrity, I investigated cases involving both Republicans
01:24and Democrats.
01:25The standard in all of those cases was the same.
01:30Follow the facts and the law.
01:32Didn't matter what party you're in, it mattered the facts of the case.
01:36In doing that, there were cases I brought against Democrats and cases I brought against Republicans.
01:42There were also cases that I investigated and did not bring against Democrats and Republicans.
01:49Party affiliation played no role in my investigations.
01:53I can think of multiple cases of prominent members of Congress that we investigated who were
02:00Republicans who, upon reviewing the law and the facts, I decided not to go forward in those
02:07cases.
02:08And the same can be said with people on the Democratic side.
02:11I've always tried to follow the facts and the law in my career.
02:13When it comes to deciding whether to pursue a criminal prosecution of an individual, what
02:19factors do you consider?
02:23The primary factors are the facts and the law.
02:28As a federal prosecutor, in making a prosecutorial decision, you're guided by the federal principles
02:34of prosecution, which guide one not only to look at the facts and the law, but the federal
02:40interests.
02:40And that is exactly what we did in this case as set forth in my final report.
02:45Does partisan politics play a role in your decision whether or not to prosecute someone?
02:51None.
02:52To be clear, did partisan politics play a role in your decision to charge Donald Trump?
02:58It did not.
03:00What does it do to the justice system if political leaders place pressure on prosecutors to file
03:05charges against their political enemies?
03:07What are the implications if prosecution decisions are based on politics, not the law?
03:14I think it weakens the rule of law in our country because it weakens the mechanism for
03:19us to prosecute, among other things, corruption.
03:25When there is political prosecutions targeting people because they're enemies of the president,
03:32the department loses credibility and it can't do its job in all sorts of cases.
03:39According to your deposition before this committee, it sounds like your problem was not determining
03:44if you had enough evidence to charge Donald Trump, but rather that you might have had too
03:48much evidence and struggled to determine how to present the clear narrative to a jury.
03:52How would you characterize the evidence against Mr. Trump about inciting an insurrection against
03:59the laws of this country?
04:00Did you have too much?
04:05Well, with respect to presenting the case that we charged, one of the central challenges
04:11was trying to present that in a concise way because we did have so many witnesses.
04:17Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans
04:22who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him, and who wanted him to win the election.
04:30These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign, and advisors.
04:34I will say, however, with respect to the charge of insurrection, we did not charge that.
04:41As I set forth in my report, while I believe that there is, courts have found that that was
04:47an insurrection and that there's a reasonable interpretation, a reasonable prosecutor could interpret
04:53the evidence to support that charge.
04:55I chose not to do that, looking at the facts and the law.
04:59I thought the charges we brought were appropriate, given the evidence that we had.
05:04Thank you, Mr. Smith, for your decades-long public service and for working tirelessly to
05:08uphold the rule of law.
05:09Those who attack and smear you and your team in order to protect Donald Trump should be ashamed
05:14of themselves.
05:15I yield back.
05:23Most of all, I lift back you to be the one in India map.
05:26See you soon.
05:27Middle, против one India.
05:27The Play of good time for confirmation.
05:28Go through your customers.
