In the waning hours of 2025, House Republicans released the powerful testimony of special counsel Jack Smith about his investigation into Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. The GOP’s effort to bury Smith’s testimony about Trump’s attempted coup will fail.
Jack Smith is a formidable and meticulous prosecutor who is dedicated to the pursuit of justice to a degree that is beyond the comprehension of the petty cowards who mounted a pathetic attempt to impeach Smith and his work. They failed, spectacularly.
The judgment of history will be that Trump committed the crimes included in the two indictments obtained by Smith and that a fair jury would have convicted Trump on all counts. Historians will adjudge Chief Justice John Roberts to be complicit in the perversion of justice that allowed Trump to avoid liability for his crimes.
The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee examined Smith under oath as part of Trump’s retribution campaign. They did so in a non-public proceeding, hoping to blunt the strength and clarity of Jack Smith’s testimony. They undoubtedly now regret their decision. They proceed further against Smith at their peril.
Smith emerged unbowed—not defiant, but neither afraid. When asked if he expected Trump to seek retribution, Smith replied in a professional, even tone:
I am eyes wide open that this president will seek retribution against me if he can. (See video clip here.)
The precision, clarity, and humble conviction of Smith’s testimony will be Exhibit A as future historians assess the credibility of competing narratives about what happened from November 3, 2020, through January 20, 2021.
While John Roberts’ “Presidential Get Out of Jail Free Card” frustrated justice, neither Trump nor Roberts will escape with their integrity or their reputations intact. Indeed, a case can be made that they are singly and jointly responsible for the most significant injury to our Constitution and republic in our nation’s history—save for the Civil War.
John Roberts will spend the rest of his days slowly realizing that he has secured his place as the worst Supreme Court justice in our nation’s history because he violated his oath to uphold the Constitution in the worst possible way at the worst conceivable time.
Trump, on the other hand, has no self-awareness and only a tenuous connection to reality. Jack Smith’s testimony and investigations are merely cognitive dissonances standing between him and his delusional self-image as a president who towers over Washington and Lincoln combined.
But history will know the truth because an honest man answered the call of his country in its hour of distress. Jack Smith’s immediate reward is that he is being targeted for political retribution by the corrupt president pardoned by John Roberts. In the end, Jack Smith will be okay—because he knows the facts and speaks the truth. Trump and his co-conspirators can’t handle the truth. The last thing they want is to give Jack Smith a bigger megaphone.
Jack Smith’s testimony
Because of the timing of the release of Jack Smith’s testimony by the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, there is relatively little original reporting on Smith’s statements. I have not had the opportunity to read the entire eight hours of testimony, but I have reviewed key portions highlighted by major outlets.
The full transcript of Jack Smith’s testimony is here: Smith-Depo-Transcript_Redacted-w-Errata.pdf
The video of Jack Smith’s testimony, released by the House Judiciary Committee, is here: Jack Smith Deposition.
Smith delivered an opening statement that summarized his work as special prosecutor. His brief statement deserves to be read in its entirety and is set forth below. If you would prefer to watch his opening statement, it can be viewed here: Jack Smith Opening Statement.
Smith said the following in his opening statement:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss my work as special counsel.
I was taught as a young prosecutor to follow the facts and the law, and to do so without fear or favor, to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.
For nearly three decades I have been a career prosecutor. I have served during both Republican and Democratic administrations and I’ve been guided by those principles in every role I’ve held. I continued to honor those principles when I was appointed to serve as special counsel in November of 2022.
The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts.
Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.
Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.
I remain grateful for the counsel, judgment, and advice of my team as I executed my responsibilities. I am both saddened and angered that President Trump has sought revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for doing their jobs and for having worked on those cases.
These dedicated public servants are the best of us, and they have been wrongly vilified and improperly dismissed from their jobs.
I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 Presidential election. We took our actions based on the facts and the law, the very lessons I learned early in my career as a prosecutor. We followed Justice Department policies and observed legal requirements. The timing and speed of our work reflects the strength of the evidence and our confidence that we would have secured convictions at trial.
If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that President was a Republican or a Democrat.
Recent narratives about my team’s work are false and misleading, including stories about our collection of toll records.
Toll records were sought for historical telephone routing information, collected after calls had taken place, identifying the incoming and outgoing call numbers, the time of the calls and their duration.
Toll records do not include the content of calls. Those records were lawfully subpoenaed and were relevant to complete a comprehensive investigation.
January 6th was an attack on the structure of our democracy in which over 140 heroic law enforcement officers were assaulted. Over 160 individuals later pleaded guilty to assaulting police that day.
Exploiting that violence, President Trump and his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election. I did not choose those Members, President Trump did.
I hope that my testimony today serves to correct these mischaracterizations about my work. And to that end, I welcome your questions.
The New York Times published a fair summary of Jack Smith’s testimony, eschewing the “Top Five Takeaways” approach of many publications, relying instead on analysis and commentary. See NYTimes, In Hearing Transcript, Jack Smith Defends Decision to Indict (Accessible to all.)
Per the NYTimes,
According to the transcript, Mr. Smith pushed back hardest when Republicans suggested Mr. Trump’s public statements after the 2020 election were protected under the First Amendment.
Per the Times, Smith said,
Fraud is not protected by the First Amendment.
There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case.
He was free to say that he thought he won the election — he was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function.
I urge you to watch the video of the above testimony of Jack Smith, which starts at the 27-minute mark in the video, here. Watch for 5 minutes, to the 32-minute mark.
In the video excerpt linked in the preceding paragraph, Smith demolishes the Republican talking point that Trump was simply exercising his free speech rights or naively relying on Rudy Giuliana, Sydney Powell, and others. I promise you that if you watch this segment, you will be convinced to a moral certainty that Jack Smith would have convicted Trump of every crime charged in the indictments.
Speaking of Rudy Giuliana and others who were feeding Trump the lies that he republished to the American people, Jack Smith said that he was considering indicting co-conspirators. See Newsweek, Six Key Takeaways From Jack Smith’s Deposition Transcript.
Newsweek highlighted the fact that Trump summoned the violence on January 6:
When asked about whether Smith and his team believed Trump’s words on January 6, 2021, influenced the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Smith said the president caused it and refused to stop the violence.
“[Trump] instead issued a tweet that, without question in my mind, endangered the life of his own vice president,” Smith said, referring to Mike Pence. “And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”
There is much more to discuss in Jack Smith’s testimony, but the above summary provides a sense of the strength of the evidence against Trump and Smith’s willingness to take Trump to trial.
Again, I urge you to devote five minutes to watching this video clip and you will understand why I am so convinced that Trump would have been convicted of dozens of felonies, but for John Roberts. Watch this link, here
Administration cancels deployment of National Guard in Illinois, California, and Oregon.
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a brief order ruling that Trump failed to show he was entitled to deploy the National Guard to Illinois. That Supreme Court order is here: Trump v Illinois.
Although the order was issued from the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, the reasoning in the order made clear that the Trump administration would likely lose every case challenging the deployment of the National Guard. Shortly after the Supreme Court order, Trump withdrew (and “de-federalized”) National Guard troops in California, Oregon, and Illinois. See NBC News, Trump says he’s removing National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.
It was a long, hard-fought battle to stop Trump’s illegal deployment of National Guard troops. There were as many legal victories as setbacks—until last week. With one order, the Supreme Court reined in Trump.
We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the governors who stood up against Trump and to the law firms and legal advocacy groups that stayed with this issue until victory.
Do not give up! That is the lesson that we should take away from the tireless efforts of the lawyers and litigants in the cases challenging Trump. The withdrawal of the National Guard is a significant victory and an excellent way to start the new year.
A note about the Reader Party in Los Angeles on February 1, 2026
I did not send the confirming email with details on December 31, 2025, as promised. My wife noted that we were being deluged with year-end emails and texts from candidates on Wednesday, so we decided to hold off until Monday, January 5, 2026, to circulate the email with details on the party. Look for it then. Everyone who signed up so far is guaranteed a spot! February 1, 2026, at 2:00 pm, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. See you there!
Concluding Thoughts
I would have written a longer newsletter, but I spent half an hour playing “Duck, duck, goose!” with three of my granddaughters. While that may not seem like much of an excuse, I urge you to try it (when you are 70) and give me a report on how you feel! (My granddaughters were a little unclear on the concept, and a single episode of being tagged “goose” could result in three minutes of chasing three-, four-, and five-year-olds around the entire backyard.)
I have written dozens of times over the last two months that we have “seized the momentum.” That is an amorphous concept that is useful in the present circumstance because it covers a lot of ground. The large-margin Democratic victories in November and December are an example. So is the DOJ’s “amateur hour” approach to producing the Epstein files. The DOJ has managed to make itself look both guilty and inept.
On January 1, the Wall Street Journal published a feature article based on a Trump interview. The article highlighted Trump’s “aging,” a narrative that reinforces the perception that Trump is an old, tired, lame-duck president. (And you thought my “Duck, duck, goose” story didn’t have a point!)
See WSJ, Exclusive | As Signs of Aging Emerge, Trump Responds With Defiance. (Accessible to all.)
Although the WSJ is one of Trump’s biggest boosters, the picture of Trump that emerges is unflattering, to say the least. He dozes during meetings, he cannot hear his Cabinet members during meetings (who end up shouting to be heard), he takes excessive doses of aspirin because his doctors tell him to take two baby aspirin a day, he bruises and bleeds easily, and he eats a prodigious amount of McDonald’s fast food in a single sitting.
I am not trying to build a case that Trump is sick. The point is that he is perceived to be ill by the media and some Americans, a fact that loosens his grip over some members of his party. In an era of 4-vote margins in the House, that perception matters.
But . . . we cannot wait for Republicans to defeat themselves. Rather, we must exploit their weaknesses and spread the word that Trump is not unstoppable, no matter how many illegal and unconstitutional actions he takes. Sooner or later, the law or the judgment of history will catch up to him—as it did with Jack Smith’s testimony released on the last day of 2025.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
Below is an image of the Soul Nebula, which I captured on January 1, 2026, from my backyard in Los Angeles.
I previously published mono-color, orangish-red photos of the Soul Nebula. But on Thursday, the Soul Nebula was directly overhead (which meant less atmospheric interference with light collection), resulting in an image that included deep greens and smoky purples.
I took a two-hour exposure and was surprised by the colors that popped out of the photo during the “developing” process. At first, I was skeptical, thinking that I had messed up the photo somehow. But I checked reference photos, and the colors I captured appear in other images of the Soul Nebula.
So, the extra exposure time, the position of the nebula (high overhead), and the clear skies in Los Angeles after a week of rain allowed me to capture a view of the Soul Nebula that had eluded me for two years.
Enjoy!
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