Jan 6: Insurrection

From Mary Geddry, at her SubStack:

… Smith is a triathlete, and it shows, not in swagger, but in bearing. The posture of someone who understands endurance matters more than speed. Someone who knows you don’t finish a long race by chest-thumping at mile two. You finish it by pacing yourself, trusting the work, and staying upright when others burn out.

That same discipline runs through the eight-hour deposition transcript now circulating widely, released despite, not because of, the House Republicans who insisted on keeping it closed-door. Smith had offered to testify publicly, but was refused. Transparency, it turns out, was only appealing until it involved the full record. Once the transcript escaped containment, however, the effect was immediate. Strip away the bad-faith questioning and cable-news caricatures, and what you’re left with is not a man on the defensive, but a prosecutor doing something deeply inconvenient to his critics: calmly telling the truth, under oath, without theatrics.

Over and over again, Jack Smith returns to the same foundational point, one that detonates years of talking points. He did not charge Donald Trump because Democrats wanted him to. He charged him because, in his professional judgment, the evidence met the highest standard in American criminal law. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In both cases, January 6 and classified documents alike….

Smith is equally blunt about responsibility. Trump, he explains, was not a bystander caught in a swirl of overzealous aides. He was the central actor, the most culpable, the most responsible. The crimes benefited him. The pressure campaign, the lies, the scheme to subvert lawful government functions all flowed outward from him. No fog of euphemisms, just causation.

On January 6, Smith’s language tightens further. The attack, he says, does not happen without Trump. Trump sent people to the Capitol, refused to act once violence erupted, and then used the chaos as leverage. The violence was foreseeable, and useful. Smith states it plainly: Trump’s actions “endangered the life of the Vice President.” The sitting vice-president of the United States, placed in mortal danger by the man who put him there.

And then Smith dismantles the last refuge of Trump’s defenders: the claim that he genuinely “believed” the election lies he told. Under oath, Smith explains that Trump was repeatedly informed by advisers, courts, and state officials that the fraud claims were false, and was briefed on why certain vote-counting patterns were entirely normal. None of it mattered. As Smith put it, the evidence showed a “pattern of knowingly false claims,” one marked by its “depth, length, and repetition.” Trump didn’t stop when the claims were debunked, instead he refined and focused them. The conduct, Smith concluded, was far too consistent and selective to be confusion. It was deliberate deceit…

The same precision applies in the classified documents case. Smith lays it out without embellishment: Donald Trump “willfully retained” highly classified national defense information after leaving office, stored it in unsecured locations “including a ballroom and a bathroom,” and then “repeatedly attempted to obstruct justice” to conceal his continued possession of it. Smith confirms that Trump showed sensitive materials to people who lacked clearance or any legitimate need to know, including at Bedminster. This was not carelessness or nostalgia. As Smith made clear under oath, the evidence pointed to intent, retention, concealment, and obstruction, in sequence.

Finally, Smith addresses the part that always gets waved away as “tone policing” until someone’s life is actually threatened: witness intimidation. Trump’s public statements, Smith explains, endangered witnesses, court staff, prosecutors, and their families. The threat didn’t need to be explicit to be effective. Courts agreed. Appeals courts agreed. Smith makes no apologies for acting to protect the process. None.

In that sense, this deposition reads less like a defense than a reckoning. History will likely remember it as the moment Jack Smith was finally allowed to litigate the case he was denied by circumstance. Not before a jury, not with a verdict at the end, but on the record, under oath, with the facts laid out cleanly and without adornment. The cases didn’t fail. They were interrupted. And this testimony preserves what interruption could not erase…

Jack Smith: “Trump was getting calls from people he trusts, people he relies on, and he still refused to come to the aid of the people at the Capitol. That’s very important evidence for criminal intent in our case.”#TrumpIsUnfitForOffice #TrumpisaNationalDisgrace #LockHimUp pic.twitter.com/zB8ZrjFZH8

— LA Blue Dot in GA 🌊🐸 (@namwella1961) January 3, 2026

Jack Smith is forbidden by corrupt Judge Cannon for now, to discuss the really big crimes Trump committed with the classified documents- espionage. This exchange from Smith's House testimony shows he's holding back something huge. Smith already said in an Oct 23 court filing that… pic.twitter.com/oeyQXva3KF

— Tom Joseph (@TomJChicago) January 1, 2026

Jack Smith: “President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol does not happen without him”#TrumpIsUnfitForOffice #TrumpIsANationalDisgrace pic.twitter.com/lkKVqhGs5P

— LA Blue Dot in GA 🌊🐸 (@namwella1961) January 1, 2026