00:00What we've heard and what we haven't heard from my colleagues across the aisle,
00:03they have attacked you repeatedly, aggressively, inappropriately, scandalously,
00:10but none of them have contested what took place on this day.
00:17None of them had said there was no attack on January 6th.
00:21None of them have tried to deny the assault on the police officers.
00:26None of them have even suggested the president wasn't involved.
00:30None of them have contested any of these things.
00:33Now, they've attacked you because they don't want to address the facts.
00:37They don't want to talk about this.
00:39They would rather attack you.
00:41And just to level set here, for all of the outrage of my colleagues over your requesting toll records,
00:49because Rudy Giuliani and other co-conspirators were calling some of the members of this body,
00:55for all of the outrage over that, I should let you know, because you may not be aware of this,
01:00the Bar Justice Department sought toll records from members of Congress.
01:04Not a peep from my colleagues about that, but that involved toll records of Democrats.
01:09That apparently was okay.
01:12That apparently doesn't violate speech and debate.
01:15And just to level set a little further, I want to tell you what my colleagues here have had to
01:21say
01:24about an attempt to indict two of their Senate colleagues and four of their House colleagues
01:31for making a video that said that the military does not have to carry out an illegal order,
01:39a plain statement of fact, law, and Constitution.
01:43Not a peep about the fact that they were not just targeted, they were sought to be indicted.
01:50This Justice Department went before a grand jury and sought to indict them.
01:55And you're probably familiar with what happened in that grand jury.
01:58That is, not a single grand juror would agree to return the indictment.
02:03Has that ever happened to you, Mr. Smith?
02:05Have you ever gone before a grand jury and had not a single grand juror refuse to return an indictment?
02:11No.
02:12I was a prosecutor almost six years.
02:14I've never even heard of such a thing.
02:16But that they don't care about.
02:19That was Democrats who the department sought to indict.
02:24So they don't contest the facts on January 6th.
02:27They don't contest.
02:28And let me just go through a couple facts.
02:31January 2nd, 2021, days before the election results were certified in Georgia,
02:37Trump calls the Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger,
02:41and presses him to find 11,780 votes.
02:46It's just enough votes to overtake Joe Biden by a single vote.
02:50What do my Republican colleagues have to say about that?
02:53Do they say, oh, Trump never did that?
02:55Did you ever hear one of my colleagues make that claim today?
02:59No.
03:00None of them denied the president called and pressured the Georgia Secretary to find votes that don't exist?
03:05Did you hear any of them make that argument?
03:07No.
03:08And, of course, that's on tape.
03:10It would be very difficult to contest that.
03:13He also said, so what are we going to do here, folks?
03:17This is Trump on the phone.
03:18I only need 11,000 votes.
03:20Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.
03:22Give me a break.
03:24Did you hear any of my Republican colleagues say that that never took place?
03:28No.
03:29They don't contest those facts.
03:33How about this with respect to the Mar-a-Lago?
03:36Well, actually, with respect to January 6th, Trump calls top DOJ officials December 27th, 2020,
03:45Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue.
03:50And in that 90-minute phone call, Trump complains the election was stolen from him,
03:54even after DOJ officials repeatedly rebut his claims.
04:00And A.G. Rosen says, understand the DOJ can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome
04:07of the election.
04:08It doesn't work that way.
04:10The president, Donald Trump, replies, I don't expect you to do that.
04:15Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman.
04:23Did you hear any of my Republican colleagues contest those facts?
04:29No.
04:30Did you hear any of them say, oh, Donald Trump never tried to pressure the Justice Department
04:34to make stuff up about the 2020 election?
04:36Did you hear them make that argument?
04:39No.
04:40You heard them attack you a lot, right?
04:43I did, but I'm not really concerned about that.
04:46It's much more important that the public servants who I work with, that we stop vilifying public
04:51servants.
04:52Well, I agree with you completely.
04:55I mean, I've seen how they've been vilified.
04:57I heard Kash Patel sitting where you're saying, sitting where you're sitting, make the plainly
05:02false argument that none of the agents who work for you were fired for working on the
05:08investigation of Donald Trump.
05:09He actually made that claim.
05:12That is just patently absurd.
05:16And there will be a time when he will face consequences for making claims like that under oath.
05:22But let me ask you this.
05:24For all of the hyperventilation we heard today on the other side of the aisle, if this committee
05:34really wanted to know the facts, for example, about the storage of all the Mar-a-Lago classified
05:39documents, can we see an image of the Mar-a-Lago documents?
05:45Wouldn't they want to see volume two of your report?
05:48They wanted to know the facts.
05:50Wouldn't that report shed light on the facts of the president's sequestering all these documents
05:54in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago?
05:56I want to make sure I'm in compliance with Judge Cannon's order, so I'm not going to
06:01speak about anything that would even imply what's in that report.
06:04Let me ask you about this procedurally, then.
06:07The Justice Department, prior to Donald Trump becoming president, wanted volume two of your
06:11report released.
06:12Did they not?
06:14The Justice Department, I believe, released volume one.
06:17That's correct.
06:18I'm talking about volume two.
06:19They also wanted to release volume two.
06:21Did they not?
06:24You know, honestly, I submitted these reports under the special counsel regulations, and
06:29I left the Justice Department immediately thereafter.
06:32That was the position of the Department of Justice prior to the new crowd coming in under
06:37Donald Trump.
06:39The new crowd under Donald Trump, former criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump, changed their
06:45position.
06:45They would no longer advocate for the release of your report.
06:49I would think if our chairman and our Republican colleagues really wanted to get to the facts,
06:55they'd want to see that report.
06:57The chairman and ranking member together have the power to subpoena that report.
07:02I'm going to make a motion at our next business meeting that calls for a subpoena to subpoena
07:08your report.
07:09We should see it.
07:10The country should see it.
07:11Those cases have been dismissed.
07:13There's no prejudice to any ongoing prosecution.
07:16They want to see the facts.
07:18Let's show them the facts.
07:18But they don't want to see the facts.
07:21They could have asked for your report.
07:23They don't want to see your report.
07:24They don't want the country to see your report.
07:25No, they want to come in here today and call you a dirtbag.
07:29Because that means they don't have to confront any of the evidence you produced.
07:35And you made a point earlier that I want to underscore because I sat on the January 6th
07:40Committee, what made those hearings powerful, what made your investigation powerful, the
07:45reason grand jurors, among others, indicted the president, is because the witnesses were
07:52almost all Republicans.
07:54It wasn't a partisan thing.
07:57The witnesses spoke about the crimes the president committed.
08:03And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have the country believe that, well,
08:08because Donald Trump was indicted in two separate cases, something unprecedented in
08:13history, then you must believe that the prosecutions were improper.
08:20Well, that's one explanation.
08:22It's the wrong explanation.
08:25It could also be this is the first president in history who has repeatedly broken the law.
08:31And the first president ever to incite an insurrection in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of
08:39power.
08:40It is the first president who has tried to obstruct an investigation into the withholding of
08:48boxes and boxes of classified materials.
08:52So I want to thank you again for your service to the country.
08:57I want to thank you for the service of every member of your team.
09:02On behalf of one representative of the federal government, I want to apologize for the deplorable
09:10treatment that your team has received from this Congress and from this government, for all the
09:16death threats they've received, for their improper firing, for the burdens placed on their families.
09:23And these, my colleagues talked about the stress on members of having their toll records requested as witnesses, not even
09:30targets.
09:33Well, what about the death threats that your team is receiving, that you've received?
09:38And so I thank you for taking on this challenge.
09:41I thank you for your willingness to testify, your eagerness to testify.
09:45I hope that we can let the country see your work product and see the release of the second volume
09:52of your report.
09:53You can't testify about that today because Judge Cannon doesn't want you to.
09:59Her decisions have just bent over backwards to do service for the president.
10:04And because this committee doesn't want you to, and this Justice Department won't give you guidance about what you can
10:11even say today because they don't want you to.
10:14They want you to have to fear they will come after you if you testify about the volumes of evidence
10:21that you have acquired.
10:23So thank you for your service to the country, and I'm sorry you have been treated with such shabby, ad
10:31hominem attacks.
10:33You deserve better, and so do the American people.
10:35I yield back.
