Epstein – Bondi Jack Smith Crocket
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Let me ask you something else. There’s been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of president Trump with half naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing? You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again, trying to slander president Trump left and right when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidence, I believe I could be wrong, correct me, Reid Hoffman, who was with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions and the Senator sitting right next to you tried to block the flight logs from being released.
Yet you’re grilling me on president Trump and some photograph with Epstein. Come on. The question.
Can I get an extra 33 seconds? You get your full five minutes. Well, okay, fine. Um, so it’s curious because you’ve sat here all day and thank you so much for showing up because this was something that you wanted to do.
The Republicans wanted to make sure that you were hid in a room with no cameras because I was there. They didn’t really want you out public because they were afraid of what you would say, which is that you could have proven your case because you are a career. Prosecutor.
Who knows how to prosecute criminals. Um, so just to be clear today, it seems like the Republicans have not really fought very much about whether or not Trump was guilty or not. In fact, their fight seems to be over whether or not you were authorized to prove their guilt.
Do you recall a number of Republican members asking about whether or not your appointment was okay, even though we know that you’ve testified about the more than a hundred year precedent that allowed for your appointment? I was asked questions about that today. And our position as we filed in our appeal is that there was a strong support for my appointment, including a Supreme court precedent directly on point. Thank you so much.
Additionally, you know, everybody’s been all gingerly here today, but I don’t know why we’re acting surprised that a man who had close to 90 allegations out of four different jurisdictions and ultimately ended up with 34 convictions after a jury was able to hear all the evidence. Would possibly be committing a criminal act on January 6th. In fact, considering the fact that we are now under the impression that he is violating people’s due process rights, he is ignoring court orders.
He’s starting wars without congressional authority in contradiction to the constitution. He’s enriching himself to the tune of over $1.4 billion. He’s shaking down elected to draw maps that will help him stay in power because the Republicans don’t understand that they swore an oath to the constitution and that we are supposed to do checks and balances.
He’s also shaking down TV stations to get money. So why are we trying to pretend as if it is out of the realm for this particular man to commit the crime that he committed on January 6th? And frankly, the only reason he ran for president was to make sure that he would not be prosecuted because I fully believe that you would have put him under the jail based on our long form conversation that we had. But according to your special counsel report on page 137, it states the department’s view that the constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crime’s charge.
The strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution and that quote, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. In other words, Donald Trump ran for president, like I said, so he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life in prison. The chairman and other members of this committee have spent all day attacking you and trying to rewrite the history of January 6th when Mr. Jim Jordan, the chairman, failed to mention how he was running around the Capitol, terrified by the possibility that all those insurrectionists would harm him.
In fact, on page 97 of the deposition transcript, you mentioned how Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff, quote unquote, never saw Jim Jordan so scared. The chairman also failed to mention that he was in direct contact with the White House in the days leading up to and on January 6th, which is why his toll records were subpoenaed by your office. Let me be clear, because they’re trying to act like this is Democrats on Republicans.
And I guess you are a covert Democrat that knew that he was going to try to steal an election before he tried to steal that election. And so therefore you were somehow put into place. I mean, the conspiracy theories make your head spin.
But nevertheless, were you going to subpoena the toll records of every single Republican simply because they were a Republican? No, we subpoenaed the toll records in the course of this investigation because they were relevant to our investigation. Relevant. Oh, OK.
All right. So that means something about facts. So let’s talk about facts.
Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden, yes or no? That’s correct. OK. In fact, 60 federal and state courts have found that there was no evidence of election fraud.
Trump’s own attorney general and vice president knew that he lost the election. But he still tried to steal the election by pressuring state officials, designing fake elector plans, nearly having Mike Pence hanged and ultimately demanding that his supporters quote, fight like hell. Correct? Correct.
We all saw it happen once they reached. We all saw what happened once they reached the U.S. Capitol. As your report outlines, President Trump knew that he would incite violence at the Capitol that day.
In fact, some of Trump’s senior advisers were pushing for violence. For example, page 81 of the report details how co-conspirators number two, John Eastman, tried to convince Mike Pence to break the law, stating that, quote, violence was necessary. So it isn’t just Trump who is responsible for the death of multiple law enforcement officers and the injuries of thousands of people.
A lot of Republican members of Congress are also responsible. One hundred and forty seven Republicans voted to overturn the 2020 election results, including multiple members currently serving on this committee. And I will yield.
Sticking with California, the gentle lady from California is now recognized. Mr. Smith, thank you for being here today. You know, earlier, the chairman spent a lot of time talking about Cassidy Hutchinson, who we know is just one of many witnesses.
It’s important to note that there was testimony that she was told something by Mr. Ornato, not that she had personal knowledge. And of course, Mr. Ornato was of very questionable veracity. We had a testimony from a Metropolitan Police Department official about an argument, a big argument that the president was having about going to the Capitol.
And in fact, the vehicle was delayed going back to the Capitol while that argument occurred. But having said that, I want to focus on something my colleagues across the aisle seem to want to ignore. The fact that your investigation into President Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election was built on testimony from members of the Republican Party.
In fact, last week, the New York Times published grand jury transcripts from Georgia that show the same pattern in Trump’s Georgia criminal case. Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Chris Carr testified that he told, quote, this is a quote, we’re just not seeing the things that you are seeing. And the late Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, also a Republican, testified that Trump’s fake elector scheme was, quote, the craziest thing I’ve heard.
And then there’s Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president’s closest allies. In his secret grand jury testimony, Senator Graham told the jurors, quote, I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short, unquote. And then he said this, quote, if you told him Martians came and stole votes, he’d be inclined to believe it.
Martians, that’s from Senator Graham speaking under oath. So here’s my question, Mr. Smith, in your deposition with this committee, you testified, and here’s a quote, our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party. Also, that the president’s closest allies are telling him that his claims of election fraud are wrong.
And so I’m just wondering, can you explain what you meant in your deposition that it was Republicans who were putting their allegiance to their country ahead of their party? Yes, there were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia, who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear and put him on notice that what he was saying was false. These were people who knew how the elections were conducted in these states. And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth, even if it’s going to impose a cost on them in their lives.
My experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that because they pay a cost for telling the truth. In terms of the grand jury testimony that’s now been released, the fact that Donald Trump, according to Senator Graham, would believe that Martian stole the election. What does that tell you about Trump’s state of mind? That that statement is consistent with what we found in our investigation, in that our investigation revealed that Donald Trump was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election.
He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him things that conflicted with him staying in power, he rejected them. Or he chose not even to contact people like that who would know if the election was done properly in the state.
On the other hand, when individuals would say things that would allow him to stay in power, no matter how fantastical, he would latch on to those. That pattern, over time, we felt was powerful evidence that he, in fact, knew that the fraud claims he was making were false. You know, who are some of the Republican witnesses who told you that President, who told President Trump that his claims of election fraud were false? Can you can you share that with us? There were a range of witnesses.
They ranged from people on his campaign team who had wanted him to win, were employed to help him win the election. They included state officials, state Republican officials who wanted him to win, voted for him, campaigned for him, asked him to provide, asked him and his co-conspirators to provide evidence to support their claims. And invariably, they never did.
It included officials, advisers, people he worked with in the White House who he relied upon for important decisions and who he trusted in other contexts. We felt we had strong evidence from a variety of sources. The gentlelady has expired.
Mr. Chairman, with my fellow Californian, you were allowing the witness to answer. That’s a good question. Isn’t that grounds to let him answer? I’ve given him 30 seconds extra, the gentlelady 30 seconds extra.
If the gentleman can be concise and finish up here quickly, we will allow him to finish. Yes, sir. And just conclude saying we felt that that constituted powerful evidence of the knowing falsity of his statements in furtherance of the fraud.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield back, noting the presence of officers who were severely attacked, protecting our lives on January 6th. The gentleman.
