Following House Republicans’ release of former special counsel Jack Smith’s testimony about his criminal probes of President Donald Trump, a number of pro-Trump commentators leapt to try to discredit any aspect of his testimony they could, as the revelations in the testimony were overwhelmingly damning for the president.
Some MAGA allies latched onto a moment when Smith brought up Supreme Court precedent that “fraud is not protected by the First Amendment,” to claim he had violated President Donald Trump’s supposed constitutional right to lie about the election and incite its overturning.
“HOLY CRAP. Special Counsel Jack Smith said during his Congressional testimony President Trump did NOT have a 1st Amendment Right to say the 2020 election was fraudulent,” wrote Eric Daugherty of Florida’s Voice. “THIS GUY IS A TYRANT! No free speech for Trump? Lock Jack Smith up.”
“BREAKING: Jack Smith misrepresented evidence ‘against Trump’ during testimony to House Committee,” wrote Margot Cleveland of The Federalist. “For the gazillionth time, Trump did not ask local officials to find 11,000 votes. Trump’s legal team had evidence of substantially MORE than 11,000 illegal votes.”
Cleveland linked to her previous column, falsely claiming that Trump had evidence of several specific categories of fraudulent votes, something that was roundly rejected in over 60 court cases.
Far-right reporter Julie Kelly, meanwhile, posted a lengthy thread of what she purported to be lies in Smith’s testimony, including “that the unarmed protest at the Capitol on Jan 6 was an ‘attack’ incited by the president and the still unsubstantiated allegation that 140 officers were injured by protesters.” (The officer injuries were not unsubstantiated, and the claim that the protesters were “unarmed” has been repeatedly debunked.)
Not every Trump ally was angry over the testimony, however. The official X account for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans immediately leaped on a remark from Smith that he would have excluded certain allegations against Trump by former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson if the case had gone to trial.
“The partisan January 6th Committee’s ENTIRE case was just destroyed by … Jack Smith. Star witness completely unreliable!” wrote the account — despite the fact that Smith’s testimony overwhelmingly implicated Trump in a criminal conspiracy.
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