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Now, First Public Testimony by Jack Smith on Trump Indictments; Smith Says, I Am Not a Politician, and I Have No Partisan Loyalties; Smith Says, After 2020 Election, Trump Engaged in a Criminal Scheme to Overturn the Results and Prevent the Lawful Transfer of Power. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 22, 2026 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, blockbuster testimony. In moments, we expect to hear from Jack Smith, the man who once oversaw two federal cases against President Trump.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Both were eventually dropped, but today we could learn brand new details about what those investigations actually turned up, and Smith's legal team says he's not afraid.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

And we begin this hour with the breaking news. Just moments from now, the former special counsel, Jack Smith, will testify in an open hearing upon Capitol Hill. And we will carry those remarks live. This is Smith arriving just a few minutes ago. He has long drawn the fury and the insults of President Trump after securing not one but two criminal indictments against him while with the Biden Justice Department.

BROWN: They involve Trump's alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election and charges that he mishandled classified material. Smith had actually asked to testify publicly to challenge Republican accusations that the federal prosecutions were politically motivated.

This will be the first open testimony about Smith's work, and, again, you'll hear it here live.

BLITZER: That's coming up in just a few minutes. I want to go live right now to our Chief White Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju up on Capitol Hill. Manu, what are you expecting to learn specifically from today's very important hearing?

[10:00:02]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is going to be a fiery hearing, we expect, before this House Judiciary Committee, one of the most partisan committees on Capitol Hill and Republicans expected to come out and try to denigrate Jack Smith's work and undermine his credibility. Expect Democrats to amplify the allegations that were laid out in two criminal indictments of Donald Trump, neither of which went to trial, and neither we have heard Jack Smith speak publicly about.

And Smith himself is expected to offer a furious defense of his work, saying in the statements that we have obtained about his prior statement, his opening statement that he will deliver in just a matter of minutes about that case charging Donald Trump with trying to subvert the 2020 election, saying, I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold.

Now, that will be one aspect of his testimony. Then there's that separate case, the case that Donald Trump was charged with mishandling -- in mishandling classified documents, expecting to defend his work when related to the criminal charges detailed in that indictment, saying in the same opening statement, highly sensitive information was held in non-secure locations, including a bathroom, in a ballroom where events and gatherings took place. Tens of thousands of people came to the social club during the time period when those classified documents were stored there.

Now, Jack Smith testified behind closed doors, Wolf and Pamela, for eight hours back in December. That was a closed door deposition. The transcript has been released. But here in a matter of moments, he will speak publicly for the first time, something he demanded to do, to detail to the public everything that he did and push back against those Republican accusations that he was out to get Donald Trump.

BLITZER: And we just saw him walk into that hearing room. We'll, of course, have his opening statement. That's coming up very soon.

Our Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju up on Capitol Hill, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: And as we await those opening statements, we have an all-star panel of reporters and analysts here in The Situation Room to discuss. CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig, CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel and CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez. Lots of fancy titles here, guys. All right, thank you for being here with us.

So, you know, Jack Smith, Jamie, has had a low profile, right? But he's had a big impact and his name is well-known because of the charges.

All right, let's listen to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): We'll begin today's hearing with opening statements. The chair's now recognized for an opening statement.

It was always about politics. And to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything. January 7th, 2023. Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker of the House. 16 days later, Jack Smith issues a subpoena for his phone records, phone records from two years prior for a two-month timeframe, Election Day 2020 to January 7th, 2021. Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department get the phone records of the top Republican in government, the guy second in line to the president. They know who he called, who called him, when the call took place, and how long it lasted.

You can pattern an individual's life. They know who the speaker talked to before big votes, who he talked to after big votes, when he calls his colleagues, when he calls his family. And to add insult to injury, they go to the judge with a subpoena for a gag order on the carrier. AT&T, don't tell your customer the speaker of the House that you just gave his phone calls to Jack Smith and Joe Biden.

And here's the kicker, they say to the court, we need this gag order because he's a flight risk. Someone might tamper with witnesses or with evidence. Are you kidding me? The speaker of the House is going to run? They got my phone records for two and a half years. Even the Democrats said this was wrong. But, of course, we shouldn't be surprised. Democrats have been going after President Trump for ten years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did.

Over the next few hours, we're going to hear a lot of yelling and screaming, I assume, from the other side, but we should never forget what took place, what they did to the guy we, the people, elected president twice.

[10:05:12]

It all started in 2016 when they spied on his campaign. The Clinton campaign hired the law firm, Perkins Coie, who hired the public relations firm, Fusion GPS, who hired a foreigner, Christopher Steele, to put together the fake dossier, a bunch of garbage in that document. But that was used by Jim Comey's FBI. And we all know Jim Comey. He was the guy who just last year was strolling along the beach when the good Lord had the waves wash up on shore seashells in the formation of 86 47. That guy took that dossier to the FISA court, lied to the court, and then spied on the other party's campaign.

This, of course, led to the Mueller investigation, two and a half years, 19 lawyers, 40 agents, $30 million, to find nothing. No conspiracy, no coordination, whatsoever. Then it was impeachment one, anonymous whistleblower. We couldn't even know who was bringing the charge against the guy they were trying to take it, the guy we elected who were there trying to kick out of office. We couldn't know, secret hearings in the bunker, in the basement of the Capitol, again, nothing.

Then it was impeachment two, no secret hearings here, because they didn't have any hearings. It was the SNAP impeachment, and the Senate trial actually took place after President Trump wasn't in office.

Then, of course, it was Alvin Bragg, who said before he got elected district attorney, that there was no case here. Then he gets elected and changes his mind when the left starts pressuring him to go after President Trump. He hires Michael Colangelo, former Democrat National Committee consultant and the number three guy at the Department of Justice.

And then, of course, it's Fani and Nathan, Fani Willis, and Nathan Wade in Fulton County, Georgia. We actually deposed Mr. Wade, one of the most interesting depositions I've sat through. We said to him, you know, you bill taxpayers in Georgia, thousands of dollars for meetings in D.C. with the January 6th committee and with the Biden administration, and we asked him some questions. Who'd you talk to, Mr. Wade? You couldn't remember. We said, where'd you meet? You meet at the Capitol? Did you meet the White House? Where'd you meet? I couldn't remember that either. We said, were these meetings in person, on the phone, or did you have a Zoom meeting? He couldn't remember, he couldn't remember, he couldn't remember. We finally just asked him, did you really come to D.C. and meet people? He said, oh, yes. I came and I bill the taxpayers. I know I came. Just no idea who he talked to or what he did.

And then there was the raid on President Trump's home, you know, where they searched Barron's room in the first lady's closet. In our deposition with Steven D'Antuono, head of the FBI Washington Field Office, he told us, none of the normal process, none of the normal protocol was followed in the investigation. He said, first of all, the case was run out of D.C. Normally, you run it out of the Miami Field office. No, no, no, we're going to run out of D.C.

He said he recommended and the people in the FBI at the time in the Washington Field office recommended they give the president notice before they do the search, or at least when they got there, before they start the search, call the president's lawyers, ask them to come there and meet them and conduct a search together. Again, the answer from main justice was no, which brings us back to Mr. Smith.

On November 18th, 2022, three days after President Trump announces he's running for president, Attorney General Garland names Jack Smith special counsel. One of the first things Mr. Smith does is put on his team, the very people responsible for the raid on President Trump's home, the very people. And then Jack Smith also puts on his team the people responsible for getting the phone records of dozens of members of Congress, people like Thomas Windham, who when we deposed him, took the Fifth 71 times. We've actually referred him to the Justice Department for obstructing our investigation.

Jack Smith then gets a gag order in his investigation on President Trump from Judge Chutkain without filing a single affidavit with the court from a witness or a potential witness that they felt threatened by statements from the president. Stop and think about it. Jack Smith restricts the speech of the former president while he's a candidate for president.

[10:10:05]

Thank goodness, Mr. Smith was slapped down on appeal and the order was changed. In fact, just two weeks ago, The Washington Post Editorial Page, Jack Smith would've blown a hole in the First Amendment. I just want to read two sentences from this. Mr. Smith seemed unconcerned about interfering in the democratic process by seeking to muzzle a candidate for a high office. Three appellate judges all nominated by Democrat presidents ruled that Mr. Smith's gag -- proposed gag order infringed on President Trump's First Amendment rights, and, of course, they did.

And this wasn't the only time Mr. Smith lost in court. In the classified documents case in Miami, Judge Cannon held that Mr. Smith was not permitted to be special counsel. Jack Smith was never properly appointed. In fact, he couldn't be properly appointed because he was never confirmed by the Senate for any position in the executive branch, as the law requires.

Here's what Judge Cannon stated, quote, the special counsel's position effectively usurps that important legislative authority transferring it to a head of department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers.

And, of course, on July 1st, 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that President Trump had immunity for actions taken in his official capacity as the president. One month later, after this decision by the Supreme Court, Jack Smith files a superseding indictment on August 27th, 2024.

But Mr. Smith doesn't stop there. He does something unprecedented. On October 2nd, he files a motion with the court before President Trump's defense counsel has even responded to the indictment. Everyone knows the normal process is the government indicts, the defense responds with some motions, and then the government responds to the defense. But Mr. Smith skips the second step and the brief that he files is 165 pages, almost four times the court limit. Even Liberal Judge Chutkan, who's given Jack Smith everything he's asked for in the course of this investigation, even she called it atypical and irregular.

Now, why would Jack Smith do that? Why would he abandon proper procedure? Why would he ignore court rules? Why would he do that? Because he's running out of time. There's an election around the corner. It's coming in 33 days and he's got to get President Trump. He's got to stop President Trump from running, tie him up in court. He's got to get to trial, or, at a minimum, insert in an 165-page political document into the presidential campaign. It was always about politics.

The good news is the American people saw through it. They saw through it. For so long, the left has controlled so much in this country. The left controlled big media, the left controlled big tech, the left controlled academia, Hollywood, certainly the Democrat Party, and I think all too much the federal bureaucracy. But the left doesn't control we, the people. And in spite of the left and the weaponization efforts of Jim Comey, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith, we, the people, saw through it all. We elected President Trump twice.

Before turning to the ranking member for his opening statement, I would just ask a unanimous consent to enter into the record. The Washington Post editorial, Jack Smith would have blown a hole in the First Amendment. With that, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by recognizing the presence of four American heroes here today, four of the hundreds of officers who defended us on January 6th, 2021, Michael Fanone, Aquilino Gonell, Daniel Hodges and Harry Dunn. And I thank them for being here today.

Mr. Smith, thank you for appearing before the American people. 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 the 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. And, Mr. Smith, you're one of America's great prosecutors. For nearly three decades, you worked for justice under both Republicans and Democrats, the Manhattan D.A. Office, where you prosecuted sex crimes and domestic violence cases, the Eastern District of New York, where you prosecuted murderers, rapists, gang bangers, and other violent criminals, leading the public integrity section at the Department of Justice.

[10:15:10]

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 are a criminal and you belong in prison. He says, 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, you found 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 believe 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 our view of the evidence was that he caused it and 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 B.S. 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 the bench, rejected every outlandish election fraud and corruption claim that he made. Trump himself even privately acknowledged it gesturing to Joe Biden on T.V. and saying, quote, can you believe I lost to that F-ing 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 just fine 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 and the house Republicans, 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 mass violence on January 6th.

While more than 140 officers were being brutally assaulted by Trump's mob, while rioters beat them with flagpoles and 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, calling not 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.

Our 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.

[10:20:19]

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've 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 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 the 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 tape footage.

But today, we're not going to hear a lot about that because you are gagged by an absurd judicial order rendered faithfully by Trump's most servile and sycophant appointee to the federal bench, Judge Aileen Cannon. This order not only blocks release of volume two of your report, which is unprecedented, about the classified documents scam, it also gags you from discussing the report or its contents with us, with America. And 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 has 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're a triathlete who's done more than a hundred triathlons and nine ironman competitions. You are in the fight for justice in 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.

JORDAN: Gentleman yields back without objection. All of their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness.

Mr. Jack Smith was appointed as special counsel in November -- on November 18th, 2022. We served until January 7th, 2025. We welcome our witness today. We'll begin by swearing you in.

Would you please rise and raise your right hand?

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?

JACK SMITH, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: I do. JORDAN: Let the record reflect that the witness has answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You can be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony.

Mr. Smith, you may begin.

SMITH: Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss my work in special counsel. I love my country and believe deeply in the core principles upon which it was founded. For nearly three decades, I've served as a career prosecutor in both Republican and Democratic administrations. I've handled cases ranging from domestic assault and gang violence to public corruption and election crimes across the United States. And I prosecuted war crimes overseas. I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalties. My career has been dedicated to serving our country by upholding the rule of law.

Throughout my public service, my approach has always been the same, follow the facts and the law without fear or favor.

[10:25:00]

Experienced prosecutors know that specific case outcomes are beyond our control. Our responsibility is to do the right thing the right way for the right reasons. These principles have guided me through my career, including as special counsel.

I'm proud of the work my team did, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to correct false and misleading narratives about our work.

During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies. We observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law. I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 election. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.

Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January of '21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom.

As I testify before the committee today, I want to be clear. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican.

No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing. I remain grateful for the council judgment and advice of my team.

President Trump has sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff simply for having worked on these cases. To vilify and seek retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the best of us, and it has been a privilege to serve with them.

After nearly 30 years of public service, including in international settings, I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.

The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country. Thank you.

JORDAN: Gentlemen, we will now proceed under the five-minute rule. We have votes coming in any minute now, but I think I think we got -- we'll have time for three or four members to get their five minute question in before the committee will take a recess to go vote. They are not going to close the vote until we get there. I know that much.

So, we will start with the gentleman from California. You're recognized for five minutes.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): Good morning, Mr. Smith. When Attorney General Garland appointed you, he cited the particularly sensitive matters at issue in extraordinary circumstances, is the reason for appointing a special counsel. What did you take that to mean?

SMITH: What I understood that to mean is I was to conduct an independent investigation and come to my own conclusions about whether the facts and the law supported a prosecution.

ISSA: But, clearly, he was alluding to the fact that we had an investigation into a leading candidate for president that was part of the extraordinary circumstances. Would you agree?

[10:30:00]

SMITH: I will rely on his public statements about that.