Rachel Maddow Gloats Jack Smith Hearing Backfired on Trump: ‘I’m Guessing They Did Not Expect’ Flood Of Evidence

MS NOW host Rachel Maddow gloated that the hearing into former special counsel Jack Smith’s probes of President Donald Trump backfired because Republicans weren’t expecting the flood of evidence that Smith presented with the help of the Democrats.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Thursday entitled “Oversight of the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith,” which immediately became heated.

Republicans on the committee relentlessly assailed Smith at the hearing, while Democrats bashed Trump and the Republicans — and were largely supportive of Smith.

The Democrats were also relentless about getting Smith to describe evidence and submitting exhibits of their own into the record.

Maddow anchored the 2-hour primetime special MS NOW’s “The Trump Investigations: Jack Smith Testifies” on Thursday night, which she opened by presenting selected highlights:

MADDOW: You know, it was the Republicans who agreed to this hearing. They agreed that this should be in public and on television. And you know, it’s possible they’re only watching right-wing pro-Trump news, and so they haven’t heard much about what Jack Smith actually did in his investigation. They may not know much about who he actually is and how he speaks. I don’t know why Republicans agreed to do this today, but I’m guessing they did not expect that Jack Smith would just spell it out like this so clearly. Spell it out the evidence he found and the conclusions that he drew about the president’s criminal behavior.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Did your investigation find that Donald Trump attempted to manufacture fraudulent state slates of presidential electors in seven states that he lost?

SMITH: Yes.

JAYAPAL: Did he pressure state officials to ignore true vote counts in those states?

SMITH: Yes.

JAYAPAL: Did he spread lies and conspiracies to his followers to make them believe that the election had been illegally rigged against him?

SMITH: Yes.

JAYAPAL: Did he pressure DOJ officials to stop the certification of the of the election?

SMITH: He did.

JAYAPAL: Did he pressure his own vice president, Mike Pence, to stop the certification against the oath of office that he had sworn to the Constitution?

SMITH: He did.

JAYAPAL: And when all of this didn’t work, did he, Donald Trump, motivate and inspire an angry mob to the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification?

SMITH: Our proof showed that he caused what happened on January 6th, that it was foreseeable, and that he exploited that violence.

JAYAPAL: Did Donald Trump know that his allegations of election fraud were lies when he spread them?

SMITH: Our proof was that he did and we intended to prove that at trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Our evidence said he did. We intended to prove it at trial. There was plenty of explanation today about how they would have proved it at trial, included — including an unexpected invocation of Martians. Thanks to a remark from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham quoted here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): In terms of the grand jury testimony that’s now been released, the fact that Donald Trump, according to Senator Graham, would believe that Martians stole the election, what does that tell you about Trump’s state of mind?

SMITH: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: He intended to stay in power even though he knew that the claims he was making were false. And he was willing to obstruct justice and intimidate witnesses to do it.

Watch above via MS NOW’s “The Trump Investigations: Jack Smith Testifies.”

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