After a fiery, five-hour-long hearing with former particular counsel Jack Smith on Thursday, Republicans and Democrats each emerged claiming victory.
But notably, just one social gathering appeared to wish to run the hearing again.
“I’m thrilled and frankly stunned House Republicans called Jack Smith to testify,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., informed MS NOW, “because Jack Smith is reminding the American people of the criminal that Donald Trump is.”
Play
That was a standard chorus from Democrats on Thursday.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., argued that Smith “handled himself very well.” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., praised the hearing for “reminding people that this could happen again.” And Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., informed reporters that Republicans “must be regretting their decision” to have Smith testify.
“He’s making his case,” Lofgren stated.
As Republicans tried to argue that former President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland improperly pressured Smith to convey expenses towards President Donald Trump — an accusation that Smith forcefully and repeatedly denied — Trump was making use of strain on his personal legal professional normal to convey expenses towards Smith.
During the hearing, the president wrote on Truth Social that “Hopefully” Attorney General Pam Bondi “is looking at what he’s done.” After the hearing wrapped, Trump stated there was “no question that Deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions.”
“At a minimum, he committed large scale perjury!” Trump wrote in a second put up.
Smith, for his half, was clear-eyed concerning the stakes of his testimony. Asked by Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., if he believes the Justice Department would discover some approach to indict him, Smith stated he thought Trump’s DOJ would “do everything in their power” to prosecute him.
“Because they’ve been ordered to by the president,” Smith stated.
After the hearing, Balint argued Trump’s Truth Social put up solely additional made her case. “It’s just astonishing that you have Republicans who continue to defend this man when, in real time, he is doing exactly the thing that we are saying he’s been doing,” Balint stated.
Still, Republicans advised they punctured holes in Smith’s report throughout Thursday’s hearing, portray him as a partisan operator who pursued — as Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., put it — “maximum litigation advantage at every turn.”
Kiley informed MS NOW he was “surprised” Smith stated there wasn’t something he would have executed otherwise or that he didn’t make any errors. “I mean, you know, in the course of a very long investigation, surely there’s something that you might have done differently,” Kiley stated.
Play
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, stated the American folks would now see Smith “for who really is.”
“Because I think we tore him apart today,” Nehls stated.
“We exposed a rat today,” he added.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, appeared to focus his questioning on two objects: Cassidy Hutchinson and a $20,000 fee to a confidential informant.
Hutchinson, the previous Trump White House staffer who turned a bombshell witness through the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, was a former congressional staffer Jordan knew properly. But he appeared to assume that, if he may undermine her second-hand testimony about Trump attempting to take management of a steering wheel and drive as much as Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, then he may undermine the complete case towards the president.
Smith made it clear that Hutchinson’s testimony performed little, if any, function in his determination to prosecute Trump — and won’t play any function in a trial.
And Jordan’s questioning concerning the $20,000 fee didn’t break a lot new floor. Smith testified that he accredited a fee from the FBI to a “confidential human source who was reviewing video and photographic evidence” from Jan. 6.
“But who’s the source?” Jordan requested.
“I do not know the identity of the source,” Smith stated.
After the hearing, Jordan stated the hearing went “very well.”
“I think everyone sees how political this whole thing was,” Jordan informed MS NOW.
Of course, regardless of each events seeming to assume they bought what they wanted out of the hearing, just one social gathering truly received within the zero-sum recreation of convincing voters. And it was arduous to disregard, based mostly on their questioning, what Republicans thought counted as a victory.
At one level, Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, used his 5 minutes to query when Smith had been sworn in as particular counsel, and whether or not the method was correct.
“It strikes me as odd that Attorney General Garland had you retake the oath of office on the 14th of September of the following year. Why did he make you do that?” Gooden requested.
“Uh, as I sit here right now, I do not recall,” Smith stated.
Play
Even although some GOP questions didn’t appear to go a lot of anyplace, the hearing wasn’t precisely the cable information occasion that Democrats had hoped for.
Recommended
Smith by no means bought to argue his case in court docket as a result of the instances have been squashed when Trump was re-elected. Democrats hoped Smith may litigate the case — at the very least, partially — throughout his testimony Thursday.
Instead, Smith was reserved and laconic, answering questions in a matter-of-fact method that didn’t do a lot to persuade the American public that Trump was responsible of crimes like conspiracy to defraud the United States or conspiracy to hinder an official continuing.
What he lacked in lawyerly sizzle, nevertheless, he made up for in prosecutorial seriousness. For many Democrats, it appeared irritating that he would no more immediately interact with their entreaties to make his case towards Trump.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., informed MS NOW “it would be helpful” if there had been extra revelations on the substance of the accusations towards Trump, however she famous the constraints of the hearing.
“It’s not a great format when you only have five minutes,” she stated, noting she had “about three times the material” that she was in a position to tackle throughout her time.
At one level, Swalwell assured Smith that he had “nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You did everything right, sir,” Swalwell stated.
But Smith’s nonpartisan tone solely underscored the gravity with which he argued he undertook on this investigation. And Smith was clear that his investigation concluded that Trump precipitated Jan. 6 greater than some other individual — that Trump “sought to exploit the violence,” in Smith’s phrases.
Play
Notably, Smith was restricted by what he may testify about through the hearing. A Trump-appointed federal choose, Aileen Cannon, has blocked the discharge of Smith’s remaining report on a significant a part of the case Smith tried to convey towards Trump — a restriction which may be lifted in a matter of weeks. (Trump’s workforce has requested for the choose to “permanently” block the discharge of a report on Smith’s case.)
Scanlon informed MS NOW the ultimate report on the paperwork case may very well be even “more damning” for Trump than Smith’s testimony.
“Maybe not to the overall country, but in terms of Donald Trump’s fingerprints being all over the effort to obstruct the U.S. government in reclaiming the top secret documents that he stole and took to Mar-a-Lago,” she stated.
While Thursday’s hearing unfolded greater than 5 years after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, reminders of the Capitol riot have been frequent.
Officers Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges — who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 — sat within the entrance row of the hearing room for the whole thing of Smith’s testimony. At one level, as Nehls was talking, Fanone coughed: “F*** yourself.”
Stewart Rhodes, the founding father of the Oath Keepers who was convicted of seditious conspiracy following the Capitol riot — and then pardoned by Trump — additionally dropped into the hearing room for a couple of minutes.
Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, who was within the House chamber through the riot, listened to a part of the hearing alongside the officers.
Of course, one of many clearest indicators that Democrats assume they bought extra out of the hearing than Republicans got here on the very finish. Raskin made it clear that Democrats intend to convey Smith again for one more open hearing if, as anticipated, the order from Judge Cannon that prohibits Smith from discussing the Mar-a-Lago paperwork case is lifted.
“You’re gonna call him back again?” Jordan requested Raskin, after the 2 went again and forth over the minority’s proper to name its personal witness.
“Yes,” Raskin responded.
“Wow. OK,” Jordan stated. “We’ll see, we’ll see.”
Jack Fitzpatrick and Syedah Asghar contributed to this report.
Kevin Frey
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC
