Jack Smith is finally allowed to go public, sort of.

Jack Smith finally testified before a congressional comittee. As I was reading the full transcript I highlighted a portion I feel every voting age American should read. BTW, this section was under questioning by GOP Congressmen and their names are redacted from the transcript. The Democrat names are not redacted. Curious fact. Excerpt from Jack Smith's interview by congress. From page 32 through 34…. Question: Okay. Now, people with different views than you can say the Special Counsel's Office is only interested in prosecuting President Trump because an election is up and he is -- he's going to be the Republican nominee. And the special counsel works for a Democratic President, the special counsel works for a Democratic Attorney General. And so the special counsel's laser focus on President Trump is simply to prevent him from, you know, either being the party's nominee or being a successful party's nominee -- or, at the very least, keeping him off the campaign trail. How do you respond to that? Answer: All of that is false, and I'll say a few things. The first is the evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the Presidential election. I would never take orders from a political leader to hamper another person in an election. That's not who I am. And I think people who know me and my experience over 30 years would find that laughable. Question: So did you develop evidence that President Trump, you know, was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on January 6th? Answer: So our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him. Question: But you don't have any evidence that he instructed people to crash the Capitol, do you? Answer: As I said, our evidence is that he in the weeks leading up to January 6th created a level of distrust. He used that level of distrust to get people to believe fraud claims that weren't true. He made false statements to State legislatures, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts and was aware in the days leading up to January 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them and then he directed them to the Capitol. Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own Vice President. And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it. And then even afterwards he directed co-conspirators to make calls to Members of Congress, people who had were his political allies, to further delay the proceedings. Question: Did you- -- you sought gag orders in both the Florida case and the D.C. case. Is that correct? Answer: We sought an order in the D.C. case under a rule -- I think it's 57.2 -- and we did that because Donald Trump was making statements that were endangering witnesses, intimidating witnesses, endangering members of my staff, endangering court staff. As you might remember, in the -- right around when the indictment was released, he issued a tweet saying: "If you come after me, I'll come after you." He called -- in a tweet he called General Mark Milley a traitor and mentioned that what he'd done in olden times people would be put to death. As a result of the things he was saying, the judge in this case was put -- received vile death threats. And with respect to D.C., both the district court and the court of appeals, a panel of judges, found that his actions were, in fact, causing what we said they caused. They were causing witnesses to be intimidated and endangering people. And I believe it was the court of appeals also found that in addition to intimidating or chilling witnesses who existed, it would chill witnesses who had not yet come forward because they were afraid that they would be next. So, yes, we did file that and I make no apologies for that. Question: Which witnesses do you think he would have intimidated? I mean, are there any specific witnesses that you could identify for the court? Answer: We did a filing. I don't recall the specifics in that filing right now. But as I said, one of the issues from my perspective was not only the witnesses who he had specifically called out and caused threats to be issued, this phenomena that was found by both courts, it was the result of that is that a rational witness who maybe had not come forward would be completely afraid to because they would see that they would be next. And I think the courts -- both courts agreed with that.