Jack Smith Speaks Out In First Interview

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0:43Build programming and AI skills while creating a portfolio that stands out to employers. Take the next step toward a data-driven career. Learn more at geeseonline.illinois.edu backslash analytics. Welcome to The Beat. We are going to continue coverage of what is a bombshell interview. It happened on Nicole's show on MSNOW, but I can tell you as someone in the news, if it were a front page New York Times interview or a big 60 Minutes interview, as it might have been in a different decade, we'd be all over the clips, excerpts as well, because we have now, for the first time, the first prosecutor to ever indict a president, Jack Smith, who ultimately did it twice because he said the evidence supported it, speaking out in his first journalistic interview, included about those controversial January 6th parties.

1:34What do you say about the facts that you developed that you see, I know you don't watch a ton of news, but you see enough to know that the basic principle of recidivism likely applies to the election case. The things that you charged are a lot of the same kinds of stories we cover. What is the cost of someone not being held accountable for their crimes? Yeah, I mean, if you talk about the pardons of these people convicted for the violence on January 6th, right? There's all sorts of costs. There's the obvious cost of just recidivism. These are people who committed their crimes in the name and in the interest of Donald Trump, and he's returned their favor, right, by pardoning them.

2:15That sends one message to them. a message I'm equally concerned about is the message that it sends to law enforcement. Supporting law enforcement should not be a political issue. Jack Smith speaking forth rightly there on two points. The second, as you heard, is that Donald Trump sided with violent criminals over police, that he is an anti-police president. The pardon is a power that the president constitutionally has. No one is saying that it was itself illegal. Smith is saying, however, that it is anti-police, anti-law enforcement. The first point he made was admittedly a little more legalistic.

2:52He referred to recidivism. What he's saying in plain English is if you let people get away with it, they'll do it again. And that maybe Donald Trump wants to do it again, to have another violent insurrection or other violent crime committed on his behalf. Recidivism is why you have strong penalties and deterrence under the law, something that prosecutors like Smith basically devote their lives to. And he's saying for the first time in the modern era, it's the president undercutting that on behalf of criminals. He also spoke about the midterms. I'm very concerned of what's going to happen in the next election.

3:26Absolutely. Do you see, again, in things that are covered and things that are public facing, conduct ahead of the midterms that you investigated in the January 6th case? Well, I've been thinking about it more in terms of what needs to be done based on what we saw happen last time. And, you know, it's a different situation now based on, you know, the people who perpetrated January 6th. They probably learned from how they did that. My personal view is I think the state attorney generals have a tremendous role to play here. They can make sure the rule of law functions in their state. And I would also say that I think a thing that all of us can do is support election workers and election officials.

4:09The last time around, we saw that those people stood firm and they were, in many cases, the difference. It's clear to me, anyways, that what I've seen publicly, that those people are going to be put under great pressure. And my experience, not only just as special counsel, but, you know, I was the chief of the public integrity section at the Department of Justice for five years. had a number of cases with election officials. These are people also, they're not tooting their own horn. They're not self-promoters. They just care about our democracy. We need to show them that we have their back. Smith, speaking out clearly there in this new MSNOW exclusive interview, when he mentions the public integrity section, which has been, of course, completely decimated under Donald Trump, that's the part of the DOJ that deals with the important but sensitive cases of anti-corruption and potentially indicting or prosecuting lawmakers, politically connected individuals, important politicians.

5:07To run that section, you have to have kind of the gold standard of being evidence-based, nonpartisan, and having integrity. It's kind of the fulcrum of pressure inside the DOJ. And when he was there, for example, he pursued famously a case against Democrat John Edwards because he said the evidence supported it. And ultimately, as we know, concluded that there was enough evidence to go after Donald Trump. I mentioned a case of a Democrat and Republican. So when Smith then now draws on that credibility and his entire career to assess the so-called enemies list or some of the cases that the Trump DOJ has brought on his personal demand, it comes with great credibility.

5:47Most people may only know Smith from prosecuting Trump, and that might even overweight how you look at him. But he is kind of like I'm telling you, the legal gold standard for these cases. So when he says, as we just learned he did, I'm going to play you the excerpt, that so many of them lack any merit, that is kind of the ultimate slam dunk against some of the Trump DOJ's revenge cases. Take a look. I, from my perspective, I've seen a number of cases. James Comey, Letitia James, Jerome Powell. I mean, right. There's not criminality here. I mean, seashells. I mean, so the only reasonable explanation is the president has it out for these people and he has people who are his former personal lawyers who are going to do what he says, regardless of the facts or law.

6:38Going after people, regardless of the law, will get you a lot of trouble in court, might get your case tossed. And if some of those folks are doing it knowingly below the legal standard of what it takes to indict someone, they could be disbarred or worse. Jack Smith, again, the expert on that. So that's not nothing. And for those who say, well, when is it going to matter? Well, it could matter very soon if Congress changes hands, and it could matter a lot in just over two years if the White House and DOJ change his hands. He's sort of telling you how it is tonight. Now, I want to just remind everyone, we are here in an extraordinary place.

7:16A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that a prosecutor would be on television talking about not one but two federal cases against a former president. It had never happened before. So let's remember how we got here, because what started out with lawsuits turned ultimately into the insurrection in the 2020 plots. Some of them we've marked for you green or yellow because they were effectively legally allowed. But as Trump got more desperate and those things didn't work, when you get to the Congress overturning votes, the requests on Pence, the aborted plan to have a military plot or coup, and then ultimately the final arrow we all know, the illegal sabotage of January 6th.

7:57Those were the plots that accrued. And Smith ultimately was tapped as one of these special counsels with extra independence to pursue them. And as you know, I'll remind you, as we plotted this, he indicted many of them and won convictions against, we saw at the state level over the overlapping plots. The federal cases, of course, were truncated by the Supreme Court. Now, we have special guests tonight with Jack Smith breaking his silence in this newsworthy interview. Emily Bazelon, Rick Wilson are here. We're back together in 90 seconds.

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9:30PNC Bank brings you the call of the wild money moves. Shh, listen. Hey, guys. That's the sound of a multi-level marketing pitch. This is life-changing, you guys. Sounds like she wants you to buy lots of essential oils. They are so essential. And then have all your friends buy essential oils. Are you more of a geranium or lavender fan? Don't look her in the eyes. Guard against wild money moves with PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. We're back with New York Times' Emily Bazelon and longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson. On this Jack Smith interview, I want to play this key part where he, again, first time in a journalistic televised setting, responded to some of these Trump threats.

10:17Do you expect to be indicted? Listen, I, Donald Trump has made a bunch of statements. He said he would indict you, yes. I'll tell you, Nicole, I honestly do not spend a lot of time thinking about the things he says about me and his threats about me. I'm real focused on the people who I worked with, looking out for them. I'm real focused on how the Justice Department is going to be better going forward, things like that. In my situation, I did my job the right way. I had an all-star team. I mean, Nicole, the agents on my case, if I were to walk you through all the awards they've won throughout, you know, generations of administrations, we would be here all night.

10:57These were superstars. And I'm much more concerned that those people get to serve in the department, get to serve in the bureau again someday. Emily, your view on what Smith is saying tonight? Well, I'm glad for his mental health that Donald Trump is not taking up a lot of space in his head. And I've interviewed some of the FBI agents who worked with him. And, you know, they both live up to his description of their resumes and the work they did and the nonpartisan way that they approach their jobs. But also, some of them really have suffered, you know, both in terms of the loss of their jobs, but also the way that they have just been, you know, raked through the coals by the MAGA right on social media.

11:43So I think from their point of view, I'm sure they were watching and knowing that Jack Smith is thinking about them will mean something to them, I'm sure. Rick, your thoughts? You know, I think what you saw tonight, Ari, was a kind of public servant that is almost entirely lacking inside the Republican universe these days in the Trump administration. And it also reminded me that every accusation on the Trump side of weaponization is a projection. He's the kind of professional that Americans should have great confidence in. I wish he'd been able to speak out sooner in some part because the Republican effort to demonize him as some sort of political operative, which is completely untrue, was ongoing until almost this moment where you saw somebody who was a professional who went out to pursue justice and the law, not a political end as Blanche Patel and others in the DOJ of today do.

12:36Yeah. We all have had conversations about this era we're living through, what people do, journalists playing one role, people who are direct in politics playing another. And I thought it was interesting to hear someone like him who's faced these threats, who I'll just share briefly, when I was in the courtroom for the case on the Gen 6 issues in federal D.C., and he was on one side. I remember Todd Blanche was on the other with that team and I'm watching them. And it was the largest security retinue I'd ever seen for a non-attorney general, for any prosecutor. And it spoke to the fact that even in the sanctum of that highly fortified federal D.C.

13:16courtroom, to say nothing of how he moved around the country, there was tremendous threat and protection for that threat. And so now he faces these other risks. And I give that context to listening to him tell Nicole this. anyone can put anything on you, but you have a choice about the attitude you take. For me, and I think a lot of the people that I've worked with, our view is I want to behave now in a way that my kids will be proud. I want to act in a way that when I'm retired, I look back on this time and say, I did things right. I think a lot of people relate to that. And I think it's understandable.

13:52And I think if we start aligning actions with our beliefs, it's a huge, huge step. I think one of the things I've seen, which is the sort of journey I've been on, is, you know, with me being targeted by the president, you get to find out who's who, right? You get to find out who runs towards the fire, who kind of backs away. It's difficult in the moment, but I think for the future, that's going to be really helpful to know. Are you afraid to be speaking out? No, not at all. I'm not I am not going to be intimidated. And there's no way in the world if the thought was to go after me so that I wouldn't speak up about the corruption that's happening or speak up to defend these agents and prosecutors.

14:39That is a grave miscalculation. There is no way I'm going to be intimidated. Rick? Americans are desperate to see that kind of integrity in their government again. That kind of modest humility about who he is, coupled with absolutely ironclad courage, it's something Americans, I think, are desperate to see. I think this is a really important interview for so many reasons, but that's probably the chief among them. Emily? You know, it's also important because it has still been relatively unusual for former prosecutors, former important Justice Department officials to speak up. And there's just an allergy, really, in the whole profession to being a media presence.

15:23You're just not supposed to do your work that way. What you say in court is supposed to speak for you. But I think Rick is right. These voices are really important right now. And having a television interview is the vehicle that allows a lot of people to see, you know, what you have to say in this moment. And so I wonder if Jack Smith, you know, presenting in this way will also open the door to more former Justice Department officials and FBI folks to come forward in the same way. Well, Emily, you know, you can't take a lawyer seriously if they want to be on TV. Present company accepted, Ari? Well, that's the joke.

16:04I think that you're exactly right about what I would call traditional legal culture, especially at Maine Justice, at DOJ. And a lot of those folks come out of that. And then Nicole and I discussed this earlier. He's also come around. I think you're right. I mean, I'm analyzing something that we're a part of because he chose to speak to our colleague because he respects her show. because I could tell the audience the interview requests have been in for Jack Smith from everyone, print, television, everyone. And this is where he came. But having said that, he clearly wants to reach people in this medium, which was anathema to him for most of his DOJ career.

16:41So he alluded to, he said directly things are changing and you got to reach people where they are. And he wants the facts to get out there. And we are a phone video world. We are not just a long DOJ report world, let alone, you know, reading print newspapers every day. The world's changing before our eyes and Trump has obviously mastered the propaganda side. So I think that's really interesting. He said so much I want to show before I lose both of you. The other thing he said about the DOJ's process itself breaking down under the basically impossible demands of Bondi and now acting A.G. Blanche.

17:17Take a look. One of the problems right today, besides the retribution prosecutions, is that the Justice Department can't do its job, right? If you go to court— Why not? Well, if you go to court and the judges don't trust you, you can't do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court. And we have seen judges across the country say they can't trust prosecutors anymore. And that has such a cascading effect on any sort of case. and, you know, I can't count how many opinions, but one opinion like that in my career would have been seismic. People could not, would not know what to do if a court said, you know, trust that's been built over generations has been lost in days, right?

18:02And that's happening every day. And so regardless of what you think politically, they're just not effective at doing their job anymore. Emily, what's he getting at there? Well, he's talking about, you know, something that's foundational to the rule of law that judges and lawyers sometimes call the presumption of regularity. And what that is, is like you go to the court, you represent the government. The judge is going to trust how you represent the facts. They're going to assume that you are telling the truth. You are dependable. And Jack Smith is right. There have been a lot of judges throwing up their hands in court and saying, wait a second, Justice Department lawyer, you just told me something that's not true.

18:41I can see you redacted a grand jury transcript. You're basically trying to mislead me. Now, what do I do? Because if I have to question everything the government presents in court, it's going to take a long time. It's going to change the whole way that we think about these cases and adjudicate them. It's a big gift to the defense in a lot of cases, but it really changes how court works for the government. Yeah, and it's a point that's completely nonpartisan, Rick. I'm running over on time, but it's about something that you and others have diagnosed. The first order Trump problems seem to be all about him.

19:17The second order are the decay of systems and institutions. It doesn't mean they're going right or left. It means they're actually just not working. Yeah. And I think what Smith said a couple of times during the interview was that there has to be a path to reform DOJ in a post-Trump era. And that's going to be a big challenge. And it will be, I think, getting back to that assumption of regularity, getting back to the assumption that the rule of law obtains universally inside the government, is something that is going to take an awful lot of work, which Smith, I think, correctly identified in that interview.

19:51Yeah. Rick and Emily rolling with us on this big news night. Thanks to both of you. We have even more parts of it if you want to dig in or see some new things. We didn't air in this hour that's coming up later. But we're also turning to the heat, even from the right, on Donald Trump's enrichment and corruption issues. That's next. Exterior Remodels, Inner Monologues, brought to you by Power. The house looks good, like really good. That siding, stunning. The roof, elevated. Windows, I mean, wow. The process, smooth. The neighbors, jealous. Choose Power Home Remodeling and remodel how you think about remodeling.

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21:45We're following several stories tonight, including the one that was truly exclusive breaking news on our colleague Nicole Wallace's show just a few hours back. At 5 p.m., Jack Smith speaking out in his first television interview about a whole range of topics, including something we haven't aired in this hour yet, the First Amendment, and how, yes, you have free speech, but that doesn't mean that the words you use to actually incite a riot, which is a classic example, or commit other crimes, doesn't mean that is always okay. Speech in furtherance of crimes is not protected. I mean, how much do you think people should just be monitoring and tracking the things people are saying out loud in terms of stealing the midterms?

22:28Yeah, I mean, and that's maybe a good point for your viewers is there is rock solid Supreme Court precedent that you cannot just use speech to commit a crime, fraud particularly. There's a specific case on it. And so obviously people have a First Amendment right. And I think we made clear in our indictment that we respect First Amendment rights. It's certainly important to me that we not charge a case that would, in essence, be violating someone's rights. But that doesn't mean that you can't commit crimes through words. It happens all the time. When a Ponzi scheme person is bilking someone out of their life savings, they're doing it with words.

23:05That's how that's done. All sorts of financial crimes, all sorts of corruption crimes. A bribe is usually communicated in words. That happens all the time. And in a lot of ways, this case was no different. Smith, of course, addressing a lot of the different criticism he's got and he's gotten. And really, as we've discussed in this hour and as I just discussed with Nicole, using his voice even against the extraordinary threats that he's faced to try to reason with the American public to share his track record and facts and defend the rule of law, which he says is under attack like never before.

23:42That's a little bit more of his newsworthy remarks. As I promised, though, we have a lot more in this hour, including the mounting scrutiny on Trump and his family over the billions that he's reaping that's too much, even for some, on the right.

24:01There are all kinds of ways to try to look at Donald Trump's business, the way he's claimed he's got all this money, but also how poor he's been at making money, because one of the weird parts of this corruption scandal he's in with the$2 billion he took in in his first year as president is that it's so much more money than he usually makes, which shows that whatever people think about his business acumen, the delta, the gap between what he was making and what he makes now is kind of the price of the grift, the graft, the corruption, whatever you want to call it. Remember, he's not supposed to be working full-time at any of that stuff.

24:38He's supposed to be doing the presidency full-time. The self-enrichment, the profits continue to rock the White House this week. MSNOW reports that the two eldest sons are linked to investments in defense firms that have drawn over$3 billion in federal funds just since Trump took office. The brothers say that they don't play a role in managing those contracts. Of course, that's not the accusation. The accusation is that Trump and the people around him know to funnel money towards his sons even if they don't ask for it. The normally conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board says it's hard to believe the Trump boys would be able to do the same deals if dad wasn't in the Oval Office.

25:14And the financial disclosures show the over$2 billion in one year alone. There's also new reporting today that in April, Trump made over 300 stock trades the day before he paused the tariffs. And he knew he was going to pause the tariffs. In other circles, this would be illegal insider trading. People do go to jail for this kind of thing. The next day, those stocks posted one of the biggest single-day gains since World War II. The question is whether Donald Trump is profiting off the presidency and whether he's making moves to profit himself and his family over the good of the American public.

25:58I cannot repeat enough that these things are illegal and people go to jail for them if you do them in the corporate context and in some other local government context. Trump voters, a lot of them don't like it. Some defend him, some sounding off. somebody's making money on the side it's not me I don't think one person should have that kind of power to to make that kind of money especially when he's in public office did he come to me and my expectations? absolutely not where did he fall short of your expectations? he definitely made lots of promises and he made them seem like they were going to come a lot quicker faster than they actually were to ever come or ever will come The crypto ventures have been profitable for just about Trump and nobody else.