BREAKING: Fmr. Special Counsel Jack Smith deposition transcript released

Breaking news the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have just released transcripts from their deposition a former special counsel Jack Smith Smith himself requested the full deposition be released Let's bring in MS now Capitol Hill reporter Kevin Frye MS now legal affairs reporter Fallon Gallagher and former US attorney and MS now legal analyst Joyce Vance Kevin I'll begin with you. What are the top lines? I know you're just beginning to dive into this.

What have you seen? Yeah, I mean, and credit to our team who is going through this bit by bit. But generally we see Jack Smith, this deposition took place about two weeks ago, very much defensive of his investigation and of the findings of his investigation, among other things pushing back on the assertion in one of the questions that we have here on about page 32 of this

document, where he's asked if essentially because he was appointed under a Democratic administration, was his goal basically to try to undermine Trump's efforts at re-election, and he says all of that is false, and goes on to say this the evidence here made clear that President Trump was by and large, by a large measure, the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy.

These crimes were committed for his benefit. And he goes on to say the attack on the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without Trump. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. He goes on from there. He also says that I would never take orders from a political leader to hamper another

person in an election. That's not who I am. He's also later in the deposition, it turns from the political to the personal, he's asked about his own safety and whether or not he fears President Trump would pursue any sort of retribution against him. This on page 247, saying, would you be surprised if President Trump directs the DOJ to indict you?

Smith says, no. Are you concerned about the safety of people who associate with you, like your former colleagues and your attorneys here today? I would prefer, he says, if it's all right, not to talk about my safety because I think doing so could, could in fact endanger my safety and those of people around me.

So a defiant Jack Smith, we expected that going in. And this was his attempt to try to push back on the narrative that Republicans have made about these investigations. And it's worth noting that this is the transcribed document. We also have a full video of this that was released of the deposition, a single shot camera on Jack Smith.

It lasts more than eight hours, so we have a chance to actually have this on camera as well. so we have a chance to actually have this on camera as well. We'll pour through that as we have a chance to.