Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) destroyed former Special Counsel Jack Smith on Thursday over his weaponization of government against Republican lawmakers, forcing him to admit that he withheld the targets of his Arctic Frost investigation from a Judge when obtaining subpoenas for lawmakers’ phone records.
Smith came under fire from Republicans for targeting Trump with bogus investigations and election interference lawfare, as well as spying on Republican lawmakers and conservatives to dig up dirt on Trump and prevent him from becoming President again.
Joe Biden’s FBI and Jack Smith spied on ten Republican Senators, four Republican House Members, and other Trump allies during the ‘Arctic Frost’ investigation into January 6.
Rep. Issa displayed a list of the Republican members of Congress who were targeted by Jack Smith’s weaponization probe. He then asked Jack Smith whether Democrats are criminals because they “believe things that just aren’t true,” and went on to school Smith on President Trump and GOP lawmakers’ First Amendment right to believe the 2020 election was stolen.
Eventually, after repeatedly dodging questions about whether or not he withheld the identities of the targets of his subpoenas from the judge who granted them, Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD) lost his mind, interrupting Smith’s examination as Issa tried to pry the answers out of Smith.
Finally, Smith admitted, “We did not provide that information to the judge.”
Issa closed his examination of Smith, telling Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, “We have the evidence that an Article I representative, on behalf of the president, withheld from that Article III that information! With that, I yield back in disgust of this witness.”
WATCH:
Transcript:
Issa: Do you see people who are committing crimes because they continue to believe things that just aren’t true. That’s paraphrasing Ronald Reagan that liberals aren’t stupid. They just know things that don’t happen to be true. If the President believe that he was cheated in an election, that there was fraud or, in some other way, a number of items led to his defeat, when in fact, he should have won, according to the Constitution. Does that make him a criminal?
Smith: Sir, uh–
Issa: No, that’s a yes or no, please, Mr. Smith. These people here are continuing to grapple constantly in the things that are true like socialism works, or that, somehow, everything Republicans do is evil, and everything they do is right. They’ve never reached a conclusion in a typical partisan case, in which we’re not evil because we think something different and we’re not wrong. You understand the Constitution. Do you understand the Bill of Rights, that somebody has the absolute right to believe something, whether it’s true or not, and to advocate for something whether it’s true or not? Do you understand that in addition to your oath to the Constitution, that that’s one of the things the First Amendment allows for, isn’t it?
Smith: Yes, sir.
Issa: Okay? So, if you know that people have a right to opine, lobby for, assert, do everything they can legally to ask for people to make different decisions, then, why is it you saw criminal conduct on behalf of a President who believed he didn’t win. Chairman Jordan and myself have something in common wrong with a number of others here. We saw wrongdoing, and on January 6, we voted not to confirm two states because they had violated the US Constitution in how they selected who got ballots. And yet, you’re going to come here and say, “Well, I just followed the law.” When you went after these people, and you said, “Well, technically, I can do that,” you didn’t see any selective nature or any separation of powers under the Constitution to spying on the activities and the conversations of the Speaker of the House? To what end the conversations between the speaker of the US House, second in line to being president, and the president? In what basis would it be any of your business, other than you believe that there was a conspiracy, without conspiracy as a basic premise? You like the President’s Men, for Richard Nixon, went after your political enemies, maybe not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they? They were Harris’s political enemies. They were the enemies of the President, and you were their arm, weren’t you?
Smith: No.
Issa: No? Oh, great! so you spied on the Speaker the House and these other senators, and so on, and informed no one, and in fact, put in a gag order so they couldn’t discover it. If they were not subjects of conspiracy investigation, why did Congress, a separate branch that you, under the Constitution, have to respect? Why is it that no one should be informed, including the judges? As you went in to spy on these people, did you mention that you were spying on, seeking records, so you could find out about when conversations occurred between the US Speaker the House and the President? Did you inform the judge, or did you hold that back?
Smith: My office didn’t spy on anyone–
Issa: Wait a second, the question I asked you, Mr. Smith, was pretty straightforward. Did you withhold that information from an Article III Judge in the process of taking the records of the Speaker of the House?
Smith: We complied with department–
Issa: Did you hold back that information?
Raskin: Mr. Chairman, would you please instruct the gentleman to allow the witness to answer the question?
Issa: It’s not your time. I’d like my time back–
Raskin: Mr. Chairman, you’ve repeatedly done that in the past. The witness has the right to answer the question.
Issa: And there’ll be due time to answer the question. Would you please put my time back and let me finish this? Mr. Smith, I asked you a question. You were not responsive to it, and I want you to be responsive to it. Did you— whether you think it was legal or not, whether you think was right or not— did you withhold the name of Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, when you were seeking records on Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, or Jim Jordan, the chairman of this committee?
Smith: We did not provide that information to the judge when we requested a nondisclosure order, consistent with the law and consistent with department policy.
Issa: I will be brief in my address to the chairman, we have the evidence that an Article I representative, on behalf of the president, withheld from that Article III that information! With that, I yield back in disgust of this witness.
The post FIREWORKS! Rep. Darrell Issa LIGHTS UP Jack Smith for Targeting Political Enemies, Misleading Judge in Arctic Frost Investigation – Jamie Raskin LOSES IT (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.