At 9:39 this morning, a true patriot and countryman stood before members of Congress while a barrage of flashes exploded in his face from the swarm of photographers sitting on the ground in the crowded room on Capitol Hill. Wearing a deep blue “American Flag” suit and his right hand raised high, he swore that his testimony would be “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God.” With his own legal team directly behind him, former Special Counsel Jack Smith sat down, turned his microphone on, and began his long-awaited testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee with a stunning opening statement. In it were words that have never been, and never should be, said about a president of the United States of America, but that are now being said about Donald J. Trump: “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation.”
What was said about Donald Trump today will leave a permanent stain on his place in the history books. Future generations will look back on this moment in time and be horrified to learn what the President did, and stunned that even after the insurrection, and everything he did as he tried to interfere in the 2020 election results, America gave him the keys to the most powerful office on Earth once again.
He left nothing for the imagination with his statement, “If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,” Smith said. “The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence.”
Integrity is hard to find in Washington, DC these days, but that is what we saw today. Jack Smith’s resolve never shifted based on any outside forces or threats. He has remained grounded in the law and facts from the very beginning.
He continued with, “Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.” Then he went right into how deep Trump’s corruption went: “After leaving office in January 2021, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
He added that, “Highly sensitive national security information was held in a bathroom and a ballroom where events and gatherings took place.” Donald Trump gave so little concern or care for the country he supposedly loved that he kept documents of that importance in a bathroom and a ballroom at a club where untold numbers of people could just walk in. That is where Donald Trump thought our country’s most highly protected secrets, ones that could endanger the lives of intelligence officers, military personnel, and our allies abroad, should be kept. And when the government tried to get them back, he got in their way at every opportunity.
Even after saying all of that, Jack Smith said the part that shows who he really is and what he stands for. “I will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution from the president or others.”
Jack Smith looked directly at the members of Congress sitting in their seats across from him, knowing that they have spent years enabling the man who has tried to destroy him over and over again. He recognized the faces of the people who have stood by as the president of the United States called him a thug and demanded that he be thrown in prison, and said this: “As I appear before you today, I believe that the rule of law faces challenges unlike any we have experienced in our lifetime. Individuals are threatened with criminal prosecution because they are perceived to have opposed the president. Predetermined outcomes increasingly seem to take precedence over the Justice Department’s long-standing core values and traditions.”
As he closed his opening statement, he did so with a warning about the danger we’re in. It will be remembered long after Donald Trump and every one of those MAGA sycophants are gone as some of the most enduring words spoken before Congress in our lifetime:
“History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It is often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort. I myself have been threatened with jail by the president of the United States, but I remain confident that the rule of law will endure because so many continue to uphold it faithfully each day.” That is what being on the right side of history looks like.
The contrast in the room couldn’t have been more stark between the man sitting at the witness table and the people sitting above him. Jack Smith came with facts and the truth. The Republicans on that committee came with something completely different. They brought theatrics, talking points, and a conspiracy theory so flimsy that it fell apart on live television, humiliating them in the process.
Lindsey Graham’s sister and the recipient of his Senate seat after his death, Darline Graham, confronted Smith about the subpoena of her brother’s phone records. During her questioning, she appeared to just be reading from papers someone else prepared that were placed in front of her, instead of forming her own thoughts and remarks.
She told him what he did made her sick and that he should be ashamed of himself. She was angry that Lindsey was part of Jack Smith’s investigation, and that his team had secretly subpoenaed her brother’s phone records. She tried to position what they did as something that had placed an enormous and unnecessary stress on her brother during the final years of his life.
When Smith tried to explain why he subpoenaed those records, she repeatedly cut him off, determined not to let the full story of her brother’s involvement be heard because it would have undermined the story she was trying to tell. What Smith was actually saying about Lindsey Graham was nothing like the picture she was painting. Smith told her that he regarded her brother as a patriotic public servant and that Lindsey Graham was not a target of the investigation. Smith explained that Graham had investigated Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud himself and found them to be false, and then said that he likely would have been called as a witness against Trump had the case gone to trial. The Republican senators each took turns trying to tear down Jack Smith, but instead they just kept making themselves look bad.
The entire hearing was over four hours long, and I had to take breaks just to get through it. I was astonished by the level of composure Jack Smith was able to maintain while sitting across from people who seemed to have only one goal, to discredit him and protect Donald Trump. They were not there to find the truth or protect our country in any way. There was not a single Republican on that committee who seemed interested in actually getting to the bottom of anything. They just wanted to earn praise and carry out Donald Trump’s orders by repeating Donald Trump’s lies, propaganda, and disinformation.
It will forever stay with me that while a man who had actually done the work, followed the evidence, and built a case he said could meet the highest standard in our legal system sat there and answered their questions with integrity, while the members of the GOP completely humiliated themselves.
Watching the back-and-forth exchanges today made me wonder how we get through this dark period without having to rework the entire system our government was built on. How can we survive with a powerful political party, the GOP, that no longer brings a different philosophy to the table, but instead has become a group of people willing to break their moral compass and dishonor their country in order to protect one man? A man with 34 felony convictions, who was found liable for sexual abuse by a jury, and whose name is referenced over 38,000 times in the trafficking files. Someone who tried to overthrow the results of an American election and incited an attack on the Capitol of the United States. He has done so much evil and constantly tries to split us apart at every seam. A person whose corruption and ill intentions have gone far beyond our borders. How do we unite our country with a party that platformed and supported a man who has destabilized the entire world, bringing us closer to a worldwide conflict than we have been in modern history?
That same party also gave us Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt, who thought his own questioning today was going to be the highlight of his career and what some are saying was going to be his soft launch as JD Vance’s VP running mate in 2028. It did end up making him famous, just not the way he planned.
Schmitt built a lackluster conspiracy theory that blew up in his face. He tried to prove that Jack Smith had perjured himself about attending a basketball game over two years ago. He contrived this theory that Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks NBA game on February 3, 2024, the day after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis publicly acknowledged her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Schmitt believed this game was cover for a secret meeting between Smith and Willis, a behind-closed-doors and somehow illicit coordination between the two prosecutors who were separately pursuing criminal cases against Donald Trump. He presented what he believed was a massive smoking gun: text messages from members of Smith’s team referencing a basketball game on that date.
“So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024. Is that correct?” Schmitt asked. Smith said he had no recollection of being in Atlanta or at that game.
Schmitt thought that was the kill moment and said, “What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors-Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?” Schmitt was giddy, thinking this was his special moment. He even had a member of his team hold up a poster board that he claimed contained the damning text messages. They showed it for a split second, just long enough for the cameras to see that something was being held up, but not enough time to see what was being shown. When Smith asked to see the supposed evidence being used against him, Schmitt refused to show it to him and said, “I think you’ve already sufficiently answered,” before declaring, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”
He went on to call Jack Smith a “villain” and a “total dirtbag.” He thought that he had just ended Jack Smith’s career and delivered the final blow to his credibility.
But what he had actually uncovered was that Smith had gone to a basketball game, but it was not the Atlanta Hawks. It was the Iowa Hawkeyes, a women’s college basketball team. Smith had attended an Iowa Hawkeyes game at the University of Maryland, in Maryland, with a U.S. Marshals Service detail, because he wanted to watch Caitlin Clark play. He was never in Atlanta, and he did not meet with Fani Willis. The entire conspiracy theory was built on lousy “investigative” work that showed just how incompetent Schmitt and his GOP cohorts really are.
Senator Amy Klobuchar had figured out the trap before others in the room had. She responded with clarity and professionalism, something no longer expected from the GOP. She called for apologies to be made for calling Smith terrible names, and instead of admitting a mistake was made, Schmitt doubled down and attacked because that is the only tool most of these corrupt politicians still have left.
It’s hard not to think of another time in history when a senator threw proof into the air with a very similar performance. It didn’t end well then either. On February 9, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy stood before a crowd in Wheeling, West Virginia, and held up a piece of paper he claimed contained the names of 205 known communists working inside the State Department. He never showed anyone the list or verified the names. He just waved it around and let the accusations do the work. That single moment helped launch the United States into one of the darkest chapters in our political history, unleashing a reign of terror where lives were completely ruined, careers were destroyed, and accusations were treated as proof of guilt. It took years to undo the damage, and it only ended with the brave words of lawyer Joseph Welch: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Today, Jack Smith sat in the same position as McCarthy’s targets and brought the same bravery that Welch did all those years ago.
That wasn’t the end of Schmitt’s scam. When NBC News asked him afterward whether he still believed Smith had perjured himself, Schmitt said, “We’ll find out.” Schmitt has still not apologized.
Regardless of the cover-up or the pressure and threats being placed on Jack Smith, the truth always finds a way to break through. Try as this administration might, it cannot keep it buried forever. Earlier today at an event focused on AI, Donald Trump announced a new website, America. Gov. It was created as the go-to place for Americans to get answers to their questions about the federal government using AI technology and tools. People quickly started asking it questions, like, “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” The answer was surprisingly truthful because, try as they might to inject propaganda and disinformation everywhere, this administration is also extremely incompetent. The answer it gave was, “Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Donald J. Trump lost,” and it cited the National Archives and provided the official Electoral College results: Biden 306, Trump 232. The White House quickly stopped answering those questions once they realized what was happening.
Every single night I sit here and write these posts based on the facts of the day. It’s certainly not glamorous or how I thought I would be spending my days, but the truth still matters, even when it is hard to talk about. I know there are others like me, Americans who never imagined they would be taking on the federal government or the president of the United States, but who couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t. I couldn’t look my children in the eye, and maybe my future grandchildren someday, and know that I could have spoken out and chose not to. It’s a frightening time to be doing so, always looking over your shoulder to see if someone who sent you a threatening email has come to follow through on it, or if the president’s people are here to intimidate you into silence, but there is no other option. We have to keep speaking.
Watching the hearing today reminded me that we are here in this moment because our country was taken over by lies. Medical disinformation, election denialism, created crises like the threat of nuclear weapons that simply did not exist, but worst of all, the lie that we are each other’s enemy and that Donald Trump is somehow the only person on the planet who can save us from all of the terrible crises he has fabricated. We are up against a machine with endless money and resources that manufactures evidence and creates alternate realities when the real reality doesn’t cooperate. But what Jack Smith reminded us of today is that the truth doesn’t need any of that. It doesn’t need tricks or stunts. It just needs people who are willing to show up and keep speaking the truth. And as long as there are people willing to do that, people like Jack Smith, journalists, writers, lawyers, judges and citizens who care, the truth will always see us through.
Smith closed his opening remarks with words that squeezed my heart in both good and bad ways: “Fear may be contagious; courage is as well.” He is right, and what we saw today was courage spreading far beyond the room where he spoke those words and into our own homes as we watched him refuse to be broken by the most powerful forces in the country. That courage has been shared with all of us, and it will carry us through to the other side of this. That’s why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: I’ve been thinking a lot about what history will say about this time, and what we learned about people we thought we knew. The ones whose true colors saddened us, but also the ones who surprised us and took a stand when we never expected them to. For some of us, what is happening is painfully clear. Others still have the luxury of figuring it out because the destruction hasn’t reached them yet. And then my daughters showed me this license plate today. I don’t know this person’s story, but at some point they were thrust into a hell few of us can even imagine, where freedom was no longer something they could take for granted. I couldn’t help but wonder what someone who has already sacrificed so much for this country thinks as they watch the rest of us decide what we are willing to sacrifice to protect it.
Links to sources used in writing this article:
PBS NewsHour Jack Smith testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee as GOP targets past Trump probes: YouTube Video
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/29/politics/live-news/jack-smith-testifies-senate
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/29/politics/jack-smith-testimony-basketball-takeaways
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/jack-smith-trump-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing/
https://newrepublic.com/post/206023/how-often-donald-trump-mentioned-epstein-files
Thank you, Heather for doing the awful and disgusting work of listening to this corruption and conspiracy theories and summarizing it for us…
I used the “no decency” quote on January 7th 2021
It is even more apropos today.
I watched Sen Schmidt call Jack Smith a dirtbag today because he wouldn’t “admit” to the Atlanta basketball conspiracy theory that was such a stupid lie. I was so proud of Sen Klobuchar for very firmly setting the record straight and asking for an apology from Sen Schmidt to Jack Smith…I know they think they are cool and it is cute to call those who don’t align with the president’s agenda filthy and disrespectful names…But in my book that is conduct unbecoming, and he should be sanctioned if he does not apologize PUBLICLY to Jack Smith…thank you for reading and watching so I don’t have to
Jack Smith for President !!!