U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) attends a roundtable event on collegiate sports at the White House in Washington, D.C., March 6, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) accused Sen. Ted Cruz of holding a "sham" hearing on an investigation into President Donald Trump's 2020 election crimes because he blocked the testimony of the primary investigator, special counsel Jack Smith.
At a judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Durbin recalled Trump's plot to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election, followed by the former president taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago home.
"My Republican colleagues claim the Watergate-level scandal is the actual investigation into Trump's brazen transgressions, not his historically dangerous action," Durbin noted. "Now, if my Republican colleagues were serious about this issue, they would have called special counsel Jack Smith to testify under oath before this committee."
"The Democrats on this committee notified the chairman in October of last year, six months ago, that Smith was not only available to testify, he would do so under oath and answer the questions raised in this hearing," he continued. "Why is this committee afraid to bring Jack Smith before it under oath? For six months, they have avoided it. You want to know why? They can continue the sham hearings over issues that don't exist."
Durbin also pointed out that Republicans had refused to push for the release of volume two of Smith's report on Trump's retention of classified documents.
"Today, Senate Republicans waffle between indifference to outright celebration of President Trump's brazen misconduct, despite the real dangers it poses," the senator observed. "This hearing will not help a single person other than Donald Trump, and the Republican majority should do better for their constituents. A senator from Texas should know a dead horse when he sees one. This hearing is an attempt to throttle a dead horse to a gallop. There aren't enough giddy-ups in the world to accomplish that goal."
Cruz responded: "For a Chicago man, that was an awful lot of rodeo references."