Jack Smith calls Republicans' bluff with request to testify — on one condition
Former special counsel Jack Smith is calling Republicans' bluff, turning the tables Thursday by requesting to testify publicly in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Smith's attorneys made the request this week in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
"As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol," Smith’s lawyers wrote.
Grassley has accused Smith of improperly spying on Republican lawmakers during the Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump.
"I think it's important that he's speaking up in a way to kind of demystify what has been grossly misrepresented to the American people by the senators," former FBI Deputy Director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said Thursday on CNN's The Arena with anchor Kasie Hunt.
"In that testimony we saw a few weeks ago, as you mentioned, Kasie, toll records are a very rudimentary kind of first step investigative technique in many, many, many, almost all investigations," McCabe explained. "And it's typically done early in an investigation when you have an allegation and you're trying to determine you're trying to vet an allegation to even see if there's something worth investigating. So if someone comes to you, let's say a situation like this, if someone makes an allegation that they have information that the president contacted a particular senator in the process of trying to stall the Congress's work on certifying the election, one way to vet that information would be to get toll records, to see if there was actually telephonic contact between those people."
Smith's public testimony could shed light and clarify what happened in the investigation and the methods behind it, he said.
"And after you've proved that if there's no contact, then you know, not to go down that investigative avenue. If there is contact, then there are, of course, more techniques that you can use to get to the bottom of it," McCabe added. "I should also say that it takes a grand jury subpoena to acquire those records. This is not something that a prosecutor, an FBI agent, just dream up off the top of their heads and, you know, call up the phone company and say, 'Hey, send us everything you have.' This is a there is a process. These records are accessed lawfully under the purview of the grand jury. So it's as I said, I think it was grossly misrepresented in that hearing."