MUST WATCH: Trump’s ‘SECRET’ Phone Call Audio Sets Off A Firestorm At Jack Smith Hearing

Thank you, Chairman. And Mr. Smith, thank you for appearing today to speak publicly about the major issues that you handled as special counsel. Your work on election interference in my home state is especially important as Georgia still today remains ground zero for voting rights. My state has a long history of voter suppression, including violent tactics and legislation that has actively disfranchised our voters. In fact, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Georgia in 2023, challenging recently passed voter suppression legislation. That lawsuit was later withdrawn by Donald Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi. But this is not the first time that Donald Trump has encouraged voter suppression. In the 2020 presidential election, which many have accepted that he lost, he pressured his party members to overturn a legal election. Thankfully, several public servants upheld our constitutional process and respected the voice of the people. Your investigation revealed how far he is willing to go. In your final report, you wrote that, and I'm quoting, the through line of all Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit, knowingly false claims of fraud. Mr. Smith, what did your investigation reveal about President Trump's interactions with Georgia's officials regarding his fraud claims? As I sit here now, I can recall two specific officials. The first was the Secretary of State, who is a fellow Republican. My understanding, he voted for and supported Donald Trump in the election, but told Donald Trump in a conversation that was recorded in no uncertain terms the results of the election. and debunked many of the fraud claims that Donald Trump had to him in real time. In addition to that, I recall that Donald Trump also spoke firsthand with the Attorney General of your state, also a Republican, who informed Donald Trump that he had supported him and voted for him twice in the past. He also told Donald Trump he did not see outcome determined by fraud in that state. I have an audio from a phone call between Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State regarding the 2020 election. Could you please play the audio? The people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. Mr. Smith, you explained in your deposition that Georgia Secretary of State was one of the witnesses who disabused President Trump's false claims. How did Georgia Secretary of State push back against Trump's efforts? I think my recollection is in this same call, President Trump repeatedly raised fraud claims and the Secretary of State repeatedly explained not only that they weren't true, but I believe my recollection is in several instances explained why they weren't true. And I believe that call ended. My recollection is that it ended with President Trump, in essence, threatening the secretary of state that he might be a target for criminal prosecution if he didn't do what President Trump wanted him to do. So see, that raises a very critical point. President Trump didn't just spread lies about the election. In your words, and I'm quoting, he preyed on, end quote, Republican officials in Georgia and other states who believed would help him. Mr. Smith, Donald Trump thought these officials would break the law out of party loyalty. And when those officials, his own political allies, told him the truth, he dismissed them and continued to spread the lies anyway. Is that correct? That is correct. Mr. Smith, if your case had gone to trial, would the evidence from Georgia have helped prove that President Trump knowingly engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election? Yes. After an investigation following the facts and the law, we believed we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt to prove those charges. And in your deposition, you mentioned a fake elector witness in Georgia who you thought would have been a very powerful witness at trial. Can you tell us a little bit more about that in a very limited amount of time? Sure. It was a witness who had been made to understand that his electoral vote, his alternative electoral vote, would only be used if they won in court, if they won in litigation. That didn't happen, and President Trump and his co-conspirators tried to use those alternative fake elector certificates to get Mike Pence. Mr. Chairman, regular order. myself okay well mr smith thank you so much for your the work that you and your team of career prosecutors have put forth in uncovering this evidence the american people need to know what happened and they need to know how their president pressured georgia state officials to overturn the gentleman from uh alabama has unanimous consent request thank you mr speaker uh december 6 2020 atlanta news first fulton county admits to verifying 315 000 votes in the 2020 without poll workers' signatures. You bet. Without objection, the chair now recognizes for five minutes the gentleman from Arizona. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, isn't it true that for a federal criminal conspiracy charge, it requires more than one individual? In other words, you're making a contractual agreement of some kind with somebody other than yourself, right? That is correct. There has to be an agreement. And so when you made the determination to charge President Trump with conspiracy, you surely knew that you had somebody else that he had must have agreed upon somewhere to to engage in this act that generated the conspiracy right that's correct we alleged specific individuals in the indictment as co-conspirators and so when you so you knew who you were going to do when you who you were going to charge when you uh pursued the indictment you had the you know who the agreeing parties were but you chose to list them as co-conspirators but you didn't indict them how often have you done that in the past in the past i have had a number of cases where i have charged some members of the conspiracy no no one member of the conspiracy how many times have you done that charged some one member of the conspiracy and let everybody else off the hook i'm sure that's happened that is not and you don't remember doing that that is not an uncommon uh thing to do in an investigation in my so so okay i i i dispute that but we're going to leave that as as as it may but let's just get to this if a member of Congress moves to decertify states electors that would not be a crime would it when you say to decertify you make a motion to decertify on that January 6th that way every four years that's not a uh that's not a crime right correct and if another elected official urged someone to join them in that decertification that's not a crime either right As you stated, it's not. Several members of Congress get together over breakfast. They say this is the normal path. We watched it because we saw the Democrats do it for every Republican president. So we're not sure how to do it. We've never done it before. That's not a crime to sit down at breakfast to talk about that or any other time together to talk about decertification, is it? No, it's not a crime to talk about that over breakfast. In your deposition, you talked about, you made the argument that an elected official who's been deemed to have lost could not knowingly make false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government operation. Isn't that true? That's what you said in your deposition, page 27. I believe it's a lawful government function. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, lawful government function. That's what you said. Remember saying that? I said lawful government function. Could you read back what you said again? I'm sorry. Yeah. An elected official who has been deemed to have lost could not knowingly make false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. You said that would be illegal. Remember that, Pastor? Do you want me to actually read this back? Surely you remember that position. I'm not denying it, and I apologize. I'm just trying to listen to you closely. Okay. Let's just go right from this. You said, as we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election, right? That is correct. He was even free to say falsely, falsely that he won the election, correct? That's correct. What you said is he was not free to do was violate federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. That is correct. Yeah, and for you, that lawful government function is the certification process, I suppose, on January 6th. Well, it's slightly broader than that. It's the collecting, counting, and certifying of the votes. Our view of the evidence is that begins from the point of time that the electors are certified through the counting of the votes. So that would be... So the entire certification process from the state to the feds? My recollection as it's pled in the indictment, as I sit here, I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it's from December 14th. I think that was the day through the voting. Okay, so you can't recall, but for you it's from the certification moving forward to the actual ratification of the certification process on Inaugural Day. My recollection, that's what we pled in the indictment, yes. Okay, so you've managed to filibuster us right out of this thing. But your beef was, you said that President Trump engendered a level of distrust. You said he made false statements to state legislators, to his supporters of all sorts, and somehow you discerned that his supporters were angry and that that was somehow related to a criminal offense. I find that absolutely weak. I think it's misdirected. And time the gentleman's expired.