Senator Josh Hawley confronted former special counsel Jack Smith during a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, accusing Smith of giving false testimony and calling for him to be disbarred. Hawley alleged that Smith’s office obtained National Archives records containing text messages from 44 members of Congress in 2023, despite Smith later denying that his team obtained such messages. Smith rejected Hawley’s allegations and defended the conduct of his investigations, saying his team followed the law and Department of Justice policies. The clash has intensified scrutiny over the Trump investigations, congressional records and the political dispute surrounding Smith’s former special counsel work.
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00:00Is that why you lied to the House under oath about getting member text messages?
00:05I answered every question I was asked truthfully.
00:09I'm proud of our investigation.
00:11Well, you shouldn't be. You should be totally ashamed.
00:13Let me just ask you this.
00:15On December 17, 2025, you told the House that you had never gotten text messages from members of Congress.
00:23Let's have a look.
00:24Here's what you said to the House.
00:27Yes. Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages of members?
00:33You say, from members?
00:35Yes.
00:36You say, I don't recall.
00:38I don't recall that.
00:40It was just toll records?
00:41You say, correct.
00:43Now, do you recall this exchange with the House on December 17, 2025?
00:47I see it there, yes.
00:49Okay, good.
00:49But on June the 2nd, 2023, two full years earlier, you demanded from the National Archives records that included text
00:59messages from 44 United States senators and members of Congress.
01:05And, indeed, you got all of those records.
01:08Isn't that correct?
01:10Yes, and I'm happy to explain that if you'll give me the opportunity.
01:12Oh, no, I understand that you got them.
01:14We all understand, and we know it, not because you told us, but because the Department of Justice disclosed it.
01:20So two full years before this deposition, you were in possession of text messages from 44 members of Congress that
01:28you went and subpoenaed.
01:30You read them within 30 minutes, the Department of Justice told this committee.
01:35They said that within an hour of receiving those text messages, your team was reading them.
01:40And yet, not only did you not notify any member of Congress whose text messages you obtained pursuant to your
01:47process, you told the House, two full years later, having read all 44 members' messages, you told them you'd never
01:54gotten messages.
01:55You'd never requested messages from any member of Congress.
02:00That was a lie, Mr. Smith.
02:03And you may try your lawyer your way out of it.
02:05Well, it wasn't from the member.
02:07It was from the archives.
02:08You knew exactly what you were being asked, and you deliberately misled them.
02:13You're a smart guy.
02:14I think that's pretty clear.
02:15But you use your ability and the powers of your office to lie to the court, to lie to Congress,
02:23to lie to the American people, to lie to the House.
02:27It's the worst abuse of prosecutorial power in the history of the United States.
02:31And all I have to say is, I'm glad you failed.
02:33I don't know what our democracy would be like if you had succeeded in your effort.
02:38To interfere in the workings of a presidential election.
02:42If it were up to me, I'd charge you with perjury.
02:45But you should certainly be disbarred.
02:48And I can only pray that nothing like this will ever happen again in the United States of America.
02:51Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
02:53Mr. Smith, I have to start by saying I think that maybe I underestimated you.
02:59I underestimated, in particular, your comedic talent.
03:02I've been watching this whole hearing.
03:04I've watched everything you said.
03:06I noticed that you began by saying, I have no partisan loyalty.
03:09And you repeated over and over and over, there's nothing in your investigation about politics.
03:14That's hilarious.
03:16In fact, your investigation was all about politics from day one.
03:20Your investigation, so-called, your prosecution, so-called, was nothing other than an attempt to interfere politically in a presidential
03:29election in the United States of America.
03:32You twice indicted a presidential candidate, the leading presidential candidate and a former president of the United States, during a
03:41presidential election against all Justice Department policy, against all Justice Department history, something never before seen or contemplated in 250
03:50years of this country's history.
03:51You did it anyway, all for the purpose of keeping Donald Trump off the ballot, all for the purpose of
03:59denying the voters an opportunity to vote on a former president of the United States and, at the time, the
04:05Republican nominee for president.
04:07We've never seen anything like it in our country's history before.
04:10If you'd had your way, our elections in this country would be like Russia's, the one they just held.
04:15Oh, they had an election, sure.
04:16And they had an opposition, sure.
04:18It's just that Putin chose the opposition, which is exactly what the Biden Justice Department wanted to do with Donald
04:25J.
04:26Trump.
04:26And that's exactly what you were doing.
04:29Twice indicted the president during the election, tried to get his first trial set for during the primaries.
04:35In fact, I think the first trial date you requested was like three days before the Iowa caucuses.
04:39When all of that failed, you then filed a superseding indictment, a whole nother indictment, on October the 2nd, I
04:46believe, 2024, five weeks before Election Day.
04:50This despite the fact that the Public Integrity Division of Justice, and they must have gotten quite a workout while
04:55you were around, the Public Integrity Division told you, don't do it.
05:00We're against it.
05:02It will be seen as partisan.
05:04It will be seen as interfering.
05:07And you did it anyway, didn't you?
05:11That's incorrect.
05:12You filed the indictment.
05:14And indeed, the Public Integrity Division told you not to do it.
05:17I've got it right here.
05:18I've got your notes from the meeting.
05:20Let's have a look.
05:22They said to you, these are your notes, your team's notes, call with the Public Integrity Division, August 17, 2024.
05:28They said a large segment of the population would see this as motivated by partisan purposes and would not understand
05:35why the department could not wait to supersede.
05:38They said Public Integrity has no precedent it could cite to seek to support a superseding indictment under these circumstances.
05:45They said it's their advice you wait to file this superseding indictment if you do it at all.
05:50But you did it anyway because you were desperate to stop Donald J. Trump.
05:56And then your top deputy went out and ran for Congress as a Democrat, boasting about it.
06:01What was his name?
06:02J.P. Cooney?
06:03Do you remember him?
06:04Your deputy, right?
06:05He was your deputy, J.P. Cooney?
06:07Yes, he was.
06:08Right.
06:08Let's just take a look at his campaign poster, running for Congress as a Democrat, boasting about the fact that
06:14he went after Donald Trump during an election.
06:17Here he is, J.P. Cooney, candidate for Congress as a Democrat.
06:21In fact, Mr. Smith, you have quite a history of every time the law or the Constitution got in your
06:27way, you twist the facts, you torture the facts, you bend the law.
06:31You wanted to accuse Donald Trump, for example, of carrying on a vast right-wing conspiracy with members of Congress
06:40during the electoral count.
06:41And so you went to try to get senators' phones and their phone records and their text messages.
06:47The only problem was the Constitution protects members of Congress' work product and their phone records.
06:55And you knew that was the case, didn't you?
06:58I understand there are constitutional protections.
07:01We followed the Constitution.
07:03Oh, you didn't.
07:03You didn't even attempt to.
07:04In fact, you told the attorney general.
07:06You briefed the attorney general.
07:07We've got the memo right here.
07:09You told the attorney general that, indeed, members likely have a valid speech or debate privilege immunizing them from compelled
07:17testimony.
07:17Mr. Chairman, I'd ask consent this to be entered into the record.
07:19Objection so ordered.
07:21You knew that, but you went ahead anyway.
07:23In fact, you were also told that federal case law, that is the courts, said that it doesn't matter how
07:32you try and get the material,
07:34whether you go to the senators directly or whether you go to phone companies, the speech and debate clause still
07:40applies.
07:41You were told that either way, the senators were likely to need to be notified to be able to assert
07:46their privileges, weren't you?
07:48I don't believe that's accurate.
07:50Really?
07:50Because here's a memo to you from your own office, John Pelletieri, January 8, 2023.
07:57I've got it right here.
07:59I'd ask now, Mr. Chairman, this be entered into the record.
08:02It's entitled Speech or Debate Litigation Summary, in which you are told, it's addressed to you, to Jack Smith, special
08:09counsel,
08:10from John M. Pelletieri, assistant special counsel, in which you are told the Rayburn decision requires the government to give
08:17a member of Congress
08:19the opportunity to assert privilege, and it was your office's own assessment, it didn't matter whether you went to the
08:25member
08:26or whether you went to a phone company, you still had to do it.
08:29But you decided to ignore that, blow right through it.
08:35You went to the phone companies, and you hid the fact from the court that you were seeking the records
08:44of members of Congress, didn't you?
08:46You didn't tell the court you were seeking subpoenas from the phone companies for members of Congress, did you?
08:51You hid that from the court.
08:52Isn't that correct?
08:54We did not say who the subpoenas were for when we sought a nondisclosure order.
08:59That part is correct.
09:01Yeah, exactly right.
09:02I mean, here's your deposition before the House when you were asked, when you sought these orders,
09:07the judge didn't know it was a member of Congress.
09:10Is that correct?
09:11And you said, I don't think we identified that.
09:14So instead, what you decided to do was you didn't tell the members of Congress.
09:18My phone was one of them that you got.
09:19You didn't tell the court.
09:21You went to the phone companies.
09:23You didn't alert the court so that members would have a chance to assert their privileges.
09:26You just ran rough-rod shot over the whole thing.
09:29And then you also knew there was a federal law, in addition to the Constitution,
09:32there was a federal law that requires the phone companies to notify members of Congress,
09:38to be able to notify members of Congress when their records are requested.
09:43But you prevented the companies, effectively, from doing that by seeking a gag order against them, didn't you?
09:50I don't think that's accurate.
09:52Oh, indeed it is.
09:53And we have the gag order right here.
09:55I mean, let's just look at what you said to the court.
09:59This is number one.
10:00You had the court sign a gag order, a nondisclosure order, finding, and you testified earlier today that you wrote
10:08it,
10:08that the court has reasonable grounds to believe that disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence,
10:15intimidation of witnesses, and serious jeopardy of the investigation.
10:18So you didn't, of course, when you had the court sign this, you didn't tell the court you were seeking
10:22the records of members of Congress.
10:26So the Constitution requires you to notify members you didn't do that.
10:29It requires you, if you're going to go to phone companies, to give the members a chance to assert privilege.
10:33You didn't do that.
10:34It requires you to tell the court when you're going to go after members' phone records.
10:37You didn't do that.
10:38It requires you to allow the phone companies to notify members you got the court under false pretenses to prevent
10:45the companies from doing so.
10:47Any time the law stood in your way, any time the Constitution stood in your way, you just ignored it.
10:55Is that why you lied to the House under oath about getting member text messages?
11:01I answered every question I was asked truthfully.
11:04I am proud of our investigation.
11:06No, well, you shouldn't be.
11:07You should be totally ashamed.
11:09Let me just ask you this.
11:10On December 17, 2025, you told the House that you had never gotten text messages from members of Congress.
11:18Let's have a look.
11:19Here's what you said to the House.
11:23Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages of members?
11:28You say, from members?
11:31Yes.
11:31You say, I don't recall.
11:33I don't recall that.
11:35It was just toll records?
11:36Records, you say, correct.
11:38Now, do you recall this exchange with the House on December 17, 2025?
11:43I see it there, yes.
11:44Okay, good.
11:45But on June the 2nd, 2023, two full years earlier, you demanded from the National Archives records that included text
11:54messages from 44 United States senators and members of Congress.
12:01And, indeed, you got all of those records.
12:04Isn't that correct?
12:05Yes, and I'm happy to explain that if you'll give me the opportunity.
12:07Oh, no, I understand that you got them.
12:09We all understand, and we know it, not because you told us, but because the Department of Justice disclosed it.
12:15So two full years before this deposition, you were in possession of text messages from 44 members of Congress that
12:24you went and subpoenaed.
12:25You read them within 30 minutes, the Department of Justice told this committee.
12:30They said that within an hour of receiving those text messages, your team was reading them, and yet not only
12:37did you not notify any member of Congress whose text messages you obtained, pursuant to your process, you told the
12:44House two full years later, having read all 44 members' messages, you told them you'd never gotten messages.
12:50You'd never requested messages from any member of Congress.
12:55That was a lie, Mr. Smith.
12:58And you may try your lawyer your way out of it.
13:00Well, it wasn't from the member.
13:02It was from the archives.
13:04You knew exactly what you were being asked, and you deliberately misled them.
13:08You're a smart guy.
13:09I think that's pretty clear.
13:10But you use your ability and the powers of your office to lie to the court, to lie to Congress,
13:18to lie to the American people, to lie to the House.
13:22It's the worst abuse of prosecutorial power in the history of the United States.
13:26And all I have to say is, I'm glad you failed.
13:29I don't know what our democracy would be like if you had succeeded in your effort to interfere in the
13:35workings of a presidential election.
13:38If it were up to me, I'd charge you with perjury.
13:40But you should certainly be disbarred.
13:43And I can only pray that nothing like this will ever happen again in the United States of America.