▶ 0:17:37>> we will call this subcommittee to order. Today's hearing topic is arctic frost, conspiracy, coordination against president trump in the american rights. I will make an opening statement and then ranking member, senator welch. Senator grassley has some comments. And then ranking member durbin as well.
▶ 0:18:06Today we examine the broader campaign of law fair against president trump, his lawyers, republican organizations, is congress, and the american right. This is not about relitigating the 2020 election or saying anyone is above the law or asking for special treatment for any political figure. It's about something more dangerous, were the powers of the government uses as a weapon against the opposition?
▶ 0:18:35In this country law enforcement is to investigate crimes, not political movements, not mapping the opposition. It is not supposed you subpoenas, search warrants, nondisclosure orders, telecom records, bank records, in secrecy tools to build a profile of one side of american politics. That is what the evidence increasingly suggests happened here.
▶ 0:19:03They were not just investigating a crime, they were seeking to dismantle a political movement. The american people deserve to know what arctic frost really was. Arctic frost, and he effort to take on the american right, was broader, darker, and far more dangerous than anything we have seen in modern political history.
▶ 0:19:24The biden administration launched a whole of government effort to identify, intimidate, bankrupt, and jail the people and institutions that made up president trump's political world. It looks like a dragnet, a fishing expedition. It reached the president. It reached his lawyers.
▶ 0:19:43He reached former officials, republican organizations, conservative institutions, communications records, members of congress, people and groups whose real offense appears to have been associating with president trump and the american right. Today is a part of this hearing we are releasing new documents that make this even more clear.
▶ 0:20:05One set of documents shows that jack smith prosecutors discussing how to get around speech and debate protections as they considered how to obtain information involving republican members of congress. These are not abstract constitutional questions. The speech and debate clause exists to protect the independence of the legislative branch from executive intimidation. Yet here we have prosecutors looking at republican members and in effect asking how close they can get.
▶ 0:20:38In those messages, prosecutors discussed cloud data, phone records, and whether they could "get the cloud, not notify, and do the search without consulting the member." that should alarm him -- alarm every member of this part -- of this body.
▶ 0:20:56Another set of documents shows communications between the biden white house in the team in georgia showing that fulton county prosecutors reached out to the white house counsel office as they sought to interview former executive office of the president officials and white house facilitators on the executive privilege process.
▶ 0:21:17In one remarkable email, a biden white house official reacts to willis by saying "fani willis is an icon, I can't help but to stand." let me say that again, they were gushing over fani willis being an icon. That is the language of political fandom. I wonder if the biden officials found her embezzlement scheme iconic.
▶ 0:21:44I wonder if they stand her removal in disqualification from the georgia election case without criminal conviction. When we talk about coordination, we are not speaking in hypotheticals. We are talking about documents being released by the committee today. Talking about records. Talking about the machinery of government turning in one direction. Look at the timeline. The biden white house helped to facilitate access to president trump and vice president pence's government phones.
▶ 0:22:17Deputy counsel assisted the fbi in obtaining access as arctic frost was heating up. When the investigation expanded, it merged with the doj inspector general work in swift and lawyers, devices, icloud accounts, political organizations. It became the foundation for the jack smith case. At the same time, fani willis's office in georgia was pursuing its own prosecution.
▶ 0:22:43Her team coordinated with the biden white house on executive privilege issues. Her lover nathan wade to build fulton county for an interview with "interview with D.C. white house" on november 18 at 2022, the same day that jack smith was appointed special counsel.
▶ 0:23:06Within weeks of his appointment in the white house contact, matthew, angelo, the number three top official in the biden justice department went to the manhattan district attorney's office, where alvin bragg brought a case against president trump and it was revived. Federal investigators, special counsel, the biden white house, fani willis, alvin bragg, matthew calendula deployed.
▶ 0:23:38Jonathan sue helped to facilitate access to trump records. Prosecutors discussing how to work around speech and debate protections. Luckily, the american people were wise enough to see it for what it was, a coordinated campaign of law fair against donald trump and the american right. They tried to bankrupt president trump, try to deplatform in delegitimizing. Tried to imprison him and throw him off the ballot.
▶ 0:24:06After years of demonizing him there were two assassination attempts against him. The american people sat in the jury boxed and rendered their own verdict in november of 2024. It was an acquittal. But the effort to get him was not simply an investigation of conduct, it was an effort to map a movement. That is what makes arctic frost so dangerous. The democrats knew that they wouldn't get up conviction on turning point.
▶ 0:24:38But convictions were not the point. Process was the punishment. The subpoena was the punishment. The search warrant was the punishment. The nondisclosure order was the punishment. The legal bill was the punishment. The professional threat was the punishment. The years of uncertainty where the punishment. The ideological capture went after the ability to practice in the legal profession was the punishment. The government does not have to convict you to ruin you.
▶ 0:25:08It can drag you through years of legal process, force you to hire lawyers, threaten your livelihood, expose associations and threaten everyone around you . Represent the wrong client, work on the wrong case, donate to the wrong organization, serve the wrong president, and you are next. This is not equal justice under the law. That is political discipline by the sss.
▶ 0:25:34To be clear, the hearing is not about saying anyone is above the law, but law enforcement is supposed to investigate crimes. It is not supposed to investigate political identities or treat opposition lawyers, donors, staff, advocates, elected officials and institutions as a target set. A campaign can do opposition research. A party can build a political file.
▶ 0:25:59When the fbi and the department of justice do it with subpoenas, gag orders, device searches, telecom records, and secrecy tools, that isn't politics, that's state power. When state power is aimed at one political movement, it becomes political surveillance by legal process. A public -- republic cannot survive political attrition by the opposition.
▶ 0:26:27It's not the rule of law, it's regime protection. Today the committee will ask basic questions. Who authorized this? How far did it go? Why were these records sought? Why were secrecy orders used? Why were prosecutors discussing ways around speech and debate protections? Why was the biden white house communicating with the fani willis team? What was nathan wade doing at the white house the same day jack smith was appointed?
▶ 0:26:57Why did senior biden doj officials helped lead the manhattan case? In what must congress do to ensure this never happens again? That argument is not only wrong, it's dangerous. There is a fundamental difference between weaponizing the government and holding the weaponize or's accountable.
▶ 0:27:19Weaponizing government means using subpoenas, search warrants, secrecy orders, prosecutions and federal power to punish your political opponents. Holding the weaponize or's accountable means exposing the abuse, demanding answers, and restoring the rule of law. Weaponizing government means turning law-enforcement into a political weapon. Oversight means congress doing its constitutional duty to make sure the weapon is never aimed at the american people again.
▶ 0:27:48That is why this hearing matters. If the government can secretly map, burton, and punish the political opposition, then political opposition in america is tolerated only until it becomes effective. If congress cannot investigate that, then oversight is dead, accountability is dead, and the weaponize or's win. And we won't let that happen. Senator welch?
▶ 0:28:14Sen. Welch: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman. This will never happen again if we never have a president who after he loses the electoral college in the popular vote call for people to come to congress, come to the capital in an effort to use violence to overthrow the election by the american people. The question here that you laid out recites normal investigatory steps that are taken.
▶ 0:28:46Sen. Welch: The effort by the president, since january 6, is to rewrite history. I was in the house chamber that day. I was about 20 feet from where the shot was fired. I was there when the mob was breaking the glass on the doors in an effort to invade the house of representatives and "hang nancy pelosi." at the time, I couldn't believe it was happening. That it could happen in america. In america we have always enjoyed the benefit of the peaceful transfer of power.
▶ 0:29:15Sen. Welch: The truth here is that this insurrection occurred as a result of president trump, who incited it. Even though he had privately acknowledged that he lost the election, painful as it was for him to say. Roughly a week after the election he said -- can you believe I lost to this thing die?
▶ 0:29:42Sen. Welch: But a week later, to the people that he invited to come to washington, trump told the audience "we must stop the steel." we will walk down pennsylvania. We will go to the capital." he knew he had lost, but he wanted to and incited an insurrection anyway. That's what happened. Following that speech, more than 2000 people illegally breached the capital after the attack.
▶ 0:30:10Sen. Welch: At least 140 officers were physically injured defending the capital from a violent mob. Five officers died in the aftermath. It is the view of my colleagues that the officers who defended the capital and of the prosecutors who sought accountability for those actions and for the folks who incited those actions, that they are the ones who should be prosecuted, not the mobsters who attacked it.
▶ 0:30:39Sen. Welch: Some of my colleagues still refused to accept that arctic frost was the legitimate investigation following the illegal insurrection that occurred when the mob attacked the capital on january 6. This very committee has heard that testimony of countless trump nominees who still cannot admit that president biden won the 2020 election.
▶ 0:31:08Sen. Welch: "he was certified to." they want to acknowledge what the american people decided. It's a continuing effort by president trump to rewrite the history of january 6. Today the majority has called Mr. clark is. My republican colleagues want to discuss the weaponization of the justice department, and so do I. I cannot think of a more apt witness than Mr. clark.
▶ 0:31:31Sen. Welch: He pushed to the doj to falsely, falsely tell states that the department had significant concerns about voter fraud in the 2020 elections. That was an absolute lie. President trump's own attorney general, bill barr, had already publicly stated with those at the department knew.
▶ 0:31:56Sen. Welch: There was no evidence of voter fraud that would have changed the results of the 2020 election . Republican political appointees at the department threatened to resign en masse if Mr. clark's false allegations were acted upon. Mr.
▶ 0:32:15Sen. Welch: Clark did this in an attempt to influence state level election certification to advocate for fraudulent electors to be brought in to declare that president trump was the winner of the 2020 election. This was a corrupt effort to overturn the election and it is why he was indicted in georgia on two felony charges and why the D.C. bar concluded he should be disbarred.
▶ 0:32:43Sen. Welch: Let me say this clearly, let me say it slowly, let me say it directly. President trump has since january 6 pursued in all out effort to continue his dispute that he lost that election. Just last week the department of justice requested a federal appeals court dismissed the seditious conspiracy charges against members of the proud boys and oath keepers.
▶ 0:33:12Sen. Welch: These people are far-right extremist groups were convicted by a jury of their peers of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power. A federal judge described the founder of the oath keepers, steward rhodes, who received an 18 year sentence, as an ongoing threat and peril to this country and democracy. The founder of the proud boys had a terrorism enhancement apply to his sentence by a conservative federal judge appointed by president trump.
▶ 0:33:43Sen. Welch: Mr. chairman, at the heart of today's hearing is the question of whether a prosecutor can seek information from people, including members of congress, who have information that is in fact relevant to the commission of a crime. This is not an investigation of members of congress. Members of congress who have information about a crime can be called to provide to the prosecutors the information they have.
▶ 0:34:10Sen. Welch: My republican, leads, many of them have claimed that they were illegally wiretapped as a part of the smith investigation. This is not true. There were subpoenas for toll records. That's not wiretapping. It's phone metadata that includes the time, duration, and phone numbers of an outgoing call. Collecting this information is all in the normal course of a criminal investigation.
▶ 0:34:37Sen. Welch: When a case involves evidence from members of congress, concerns about the separation of powers in the speech and debate clause are important, but it isn't a violation of constitutional protections to seek information to prosecute a case. Especially when there was a mob attack on the nation's capital.
▶ 0:34:58Sen. Welch: The legislators involved in this investigation argued that the decision to target them was rooted in animosity to the president. That is absolutely not true. A federal grand jury made up of our fellow citizens indicted the president because crimes were committed. Not because prosecutors or judges were out to get them. Mr. chairman, let's have a public hearing with jack smith testifying.
▶ 0:35:27Sen. Welch: He can come in and answer our questions and explain what he did and be challenged. It happened in the house. Anything other than that, in my view, is an effort to obscure what is at stake for the american people, the insurrection on january 6 was an effort to take away their right to decide who their leaders are and have it be decided by violence. I yelled back.
▶ 0:35:50Chair Schmitt: Thank you, ranking member. I look forward to jack smith being before this committee. Senator grassley had some prepare remarks and, as you know, had planned to attend today, but is taking care of a medical issue and will be back to the senate asap. He's asked that I introduce his opening statement to the record and without objection that will be done. I would like to read a few excerpts from his opening to highlight for the committee.
▶ 0:36:21Chair Schmitt: It says that he will be making public new records today that he received in large part from whistleblowers. The records, "detail operation rampart 12, a preliminary investigation opened by the fbi washington field office into at least representatives of lauren boebert, paul gosar, amy, and bo brooks.
▶ 0:36:49Chair Schmitt: 12 appears to be a predecessor case to arctic frost it was opened on january 22 of 2021. The investigation was based on allegations that boebert and gosar led reconnaissance tours in advance of january 6. What you will find in the available records is that the evidence supporting the investigation did not exist. Even so, j.p.
▶ 0:37:13Chair Schmitt: Cooney personally conferred on opening the investigation, even though his text messages told a different tale. The chairman's statement notes that he has obtained -- obtained through whistleblowers a may 2021 documented -- document that shows that the fbi did not have evidence to advance the case, yet rampart 12 was not closed until january of 22.
▶ 0:37:42Chair Schmitt: His statement also says "the committee's investigative work is necessary because during the entire biden administration my democratic colleagues did not do a -- lift a finger to investigate the political rot and just imagine holding a jack smith hearing without the records we have since obtained, like my democratic colleagues have wanted to do all along and may try to feebly argue today." chairman grassley couldn't agree more.
▶ 0:38:11Senator Durbin: I called chairman grassley, yesterday. He sounds good, he's anxious to return, we had a good conversation and I wish him the best. Earlier this month donald trump fired attorney general bondi for failing to prosecute his political enemies in heat -- he has been replaced by todd blanche who in his first weeks as acting attorney general is bending over backwards to please his former client.
▶ 0:38:41Senator Durbin: One example that the senator noted, last week the justice department moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy fictions of the proud boys and oath keepers, and she missed groups, for their role in planning the january 6 insurrection. Last friday, the atlantic magazine published a bombshell article with devastating new details confirming what this committee, most of us, already know.
▶ 0:39:09Senator Durbin: Fbi director is dangerously unqualified to lead the world's preeminent law enforcement agency, making us all less safe. Yet the republican majority in the committee is conducting no oversight on the issues we just mentioned. Instead, we are here today yet again for another hearing on jack smith's investigation. Wouldn't it be great if we could get him before this committee, put him under oath and ask him these questions?
▶ 0:39:37Senator Durbin: I ask that of the chairman months ago, smith is prepared to testify under oath and answer the questions. For some reason, the majority on this committee doesn't want that opportunity. These hearings have been a waste of committee resources from the beginning. Today is a new low. Instead of hearing from Mr. smith, who investigated president trump osvaldo efforts to overturn the election, we will hear from jeffrey clark, who played a key role in the efforts. Mr.
▶ 0:40:07Senator Durbin: Clark, an environmental lawyer who was the acting assistant attorney general for the doj civil division at the end of 2020, became donald trump's biggest ally within the department of justice, seeking to advance the baseless claims of election fraud. Despite having no role in enforcing election or criminal laws were any legal background on any other topic. Mr.
▶ 0:40:34Senator Durbin: Clark is bubbling over with conspiracies. He has the idea, a theory, that the chinese were hacking smart thermostats in the united states . Another theory that he has? That the cia was working with italian contractors to use military satellites to change votes in america. Another?
▶ 0:40:59Senator Durbin: He wanted to help trump declare a national emergency under the international emergency economic powers. He also sought to coerce the acting attorney general into sending a letter to every swing state falsely claiming that the department of justice had taken notice of irregularities and recommended that state legislatures should convene a special session to reconsider their already certified election
▶ 0:41:29Senator Durbin: Results. We were extremely fortunate in america that Mr. clark's conspiracy theories and efforts failed and it was due in no small part to the more senior trump appointees in office taking their oaths of office seriously. The acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general provided Mr.
▶ 0:41:50Senator Durbin: Clark with detailed information at the time, including a classified briefing to demonstrate that his conspiracy theories were baseless. Nonetheless, he continued to claim that the 2020 election had been stolen and he privately met with the president to advocate for an unlawful plan to pressure swing state legislatures to reconvene and overturn the already certified election results.
▶ 0:42:18Senator Durbin: When the acting attorney general made it clear that the department of justice would not engage in election subversion tactics, Mr. clark revealed that he had convinced president trump to name him personally as attorney general of rosen would not relent, culminating in an oval office showdown where president trump only black -- and down from his plan to name clark when he was informed that his entire appointed leadership at the department of justice would resign in protest if he did it.
▶ 0:42:50Senator Durbin: His plan was so far beyond the pale, that the then white house counsel pat cipollone called it "a murder suicide pact." richard donoghue called it "excuse me, thatshit crazy." after an eight month investigation by my staff we released a report on this sordid episode entitled subverting justice. Mr.
▶ 0:43:17Senator Durbin: Clark's actions were not just a stain on the department of justice, but on the legal profession as a whole and as a result I submitted a complaint against Mr. clark along with a report and supporting materials to the D.C. bar disciplinary counsel and I ask for unanimous consent to include the complaint in the record. Last year the D.C. board of professional responsibility recommended Mr. clark be disbarred, a decision he has appealed.
▶ 0:43:44Senator Durbin: His lies in coercive efforts to induce unlawful conduct among other things were egregious and it is insulting to the committee that we have been brought here as a witness not to answer for great misconduct but to continue to push trump's a big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It is bad enough to watch the pathetic conduct of the parade of trump nominees for lifetime appointments to the federal bench come before the committee and embarrass themselves in their testimony under oath.
▶ 0:44:16Senator Durbin: They have obviously been warned that any deviation from the big lie could be politically, personally fatal, so they sit before this committee and the cameras and refused to answer probing questions, like "who won the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election"? Nominees with a distinguished education and training look foolish as they carefully avoid speaking the truth in order to carefully avoid bruising the colossal ego in the white house.
▶ 0:44:47Senator Durbin: Now this, jeffrey clark, the architect of the big lie strategy is front and center, the star witness before the senate judiciary committee.
▶ 0:44:58I Chair Schmitt: Healed.
▶ 0:44:59Chair Schmitt: I will introduce the majority witnesses. Senator welch will introduce the minority witnesses. Mr. clark has extensive experience in government service in private practice and most recently served president trump at the white house as the acting administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairs at the office of management and budget and in the -- in the past has served as the assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources and active attorney
▶ 0:45:31Chair Schmitt: General for the civil division and his credentials extend beyond those high-ranking appointments and he was a big law partner in washington, D.C., occupying important posts not just in concert little -- conservative positions but at the american bar association. Dr. dan epstein is the vice president at america first legal and is the associate press or of law at st.
▶ 0:45:57Chair Schmitt: Thomas in miami, florida, who previously advised to start on regulatory matters as the director of a private equity firm whose federal service include serving as a special assistant to the senior associate counsel to the president and as counsel to the house of representatives committee on oversight and government reform. Earlier in his career Mr.
▶ 0:46:22Chair Schmitt: Epstein ran cause of action, a public interest law firm where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory political and public law matters and holds a phd from george washington university and a jd from the emory university school of law with a ba from kenyon college.
▶ 0:46:41Sen. Welch: Thank you. Jeffrey clark --dan schwager was previously chief counsel american oversight 2022 to 2023 and before was general counsel to the secretary of the senate, 2016 to 2022, including on january 6.
▶ 0:47:03Sen. Welch: From 2013, 22011 to 2013 he was chief counsel and staff director to the house ethics committee that I served on for a time, Mr. chairman, serving as counsel with the senate ethics committee from 2009 to 2011.
▶ 0:47:22Sen. Welch: He served as a trial attorney in the public integrity section from 2003 to 2009 and served as an assistant district attorney in manhattan, working in the official corruption unit from 1998 to 2003 and holds a jd from the nyu school of law and a ba in ethical theory from base college. Welcome.
▶ 0:47:48Chair Schmitt: It is customary for the witnesses to be sworn in before testimony. Please rise and raise his right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about to give to this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? Thank you. Have a seat. We will get started with the witness testimony. Mr. epstein, the floor is yours.
▶ 0:48:12Mr. Epstein: Good morning, chairman, great and risk. President donald trump overcame those two addictive weaponization of the justice system against any american leader in our history. Partisan operatives sought to destroy him through a coordinated campaign of law fair that began long before 2020 and reached a peak before -- under the biden administration.
▶ 0:48:39Mr. Epstein: This subcommittee confronts the undeniable evidence of the assault laid bare in the productions released by chairman grassley. The records expose operation octant -- operation arctic frost, the internal by an fbi code name for the sweeping tract targeting the entire political republican apparatus in the america first movement with a committee document revealing election interference investigations that involved hand-picked partisan agents to carry out a political agenda.
▶ 0:49:12Mr. Epstein: The deputy attorney general, monaco, and fbi director ray personally signed off on the inquiry april 4 at 2022. It became the foundation for special counsel jack smith's election interference indictment of donald trump on august 1 of.
▶ 0:49:30Mr. Epstein: He issued at least 197 grand jury subpoenas, with 400 organizations snared, including america first legal itself, an organization that did not even exist on january 6 of 2021. It invaded donor lists, financial records, communications with congress, the media, and more.
▶ 0:49:55Mr. Epstein: Most outrageously they secretly obtained of the personal cell phone records of eight republican senators and one without the legally required notice to congress, seizing the former president and vice president's cell phones, conducting a nationwide sweep of interviews. Committee oversight has forced the facts into the open. It's clear, arctic frost was specifically designed to investigate the entire republican political apparatus.
▶ 0:50:24Mr. Epstein: The biden investigation of the trump records was no less egregious. The mar-a-lago raid was itself built on unlawful referrals and the national archives general counsel announced that the pra has no explicit provision on how to address concerns about the specific removal or destruction of presidential records. The laughton force -- they are not a law enforcement officer.
▶ 0:50:51Mr. Epstein: The former archivist david ferrero formally stated his concern about what's going to happen in 2024, and was at all relevant times biased against the president. His referrals like legal authority.
▶ 0:51:09Mr. Epstein: Neither president obama,, biden, or carter was subjected to personal raids despite retaining records and records were obstructed -- instructed to refer to those negotiations. They flip that prop -- practice solely to target donald trump.
▶ 0:51:31Mr. Epstein: Emails from line agents questioned the predication for the search and concluded that they no longer have real probable cause, these are not republican talking points. They are the words of career fbi agent's who watched and tries delicious prosecution, not malicious law enforcement. The dismissal of justice cannon confirmed as much.
▶ 0:51:58Mr. Epstein: Special counsel possibly violated the appointments clause. The office was funded through improper appointment. America first legal plus relentless litigation has been indispensable in improving conspiracy.
▶ 0:52:15Mr. Epstein: Fl investigation found the manhattan district attorney's office identified 36 responsive records in response to the request for communications with the biden doj mentioning donald trump, also exposing the ties between matthew cole angelo, who decided -- descended to jumpstart the prosecution in the broader strategy, combined with
▶ 0:52:45Mr. Epstein: Arctic frost documents to improve coordination between the federal government and state prosecutors against a presidential candidate in clear violation of federal election law. Reforms are pounced -- possible. They must require special investigations and be constrained by meaningful internal controls.
▶ 0:53:05Mr. Epstein: State courts must never again be permitted to baselessly interfere with the election of federal officials over subject matter for which congress has jurisdiction towards federal authorities. Thank you.
▶ 0:53:18Chair Schmitt: Thank you. Mr. schwager?
▶ 0:53:22Mr. Schwager: Thank you. I have been asked to testify today regarding the role of predication in the examination of evidence in judging investigations, including politically sensitive investigations, based on my perspective as a former corruption prosecutor at the state and federal level.
▶ 0:53:42Mr. Schwager: I am not speaking on behalf of myself or any current or former employer in today I hope to share my perspective on nonpartisan investigations applicable to public corruption or any other complex matter in the role of the nonpartisan review of evidence in determining and overseeing the path of an investigation, including witnesses and subpoena recipients.
▶ 0:54:03Mr. Schwager: I've got a fierce nonpartisan defender of the prerogatives of the legislative branch and the protection it needs from the potentially abusive and retributive executive branch. My entire legal career however has been rooted in the same career for ethics and integrity around abuses of power. These have always been nonpartisan concerns at their core. I have worked for and with republicans and democrats of great integrity and ethical compass.
▶ 0:54:32Mr. Schwager: In private practice I have represented republican and democratic members of congress and staff with equal conviction and commitment and have investigated, prosecuted, seem prosecuted, and defended public officials on both sides of the aisle accused of breaching the public trust. An investigation of misconduct or fraud looks roughly the same no matter the target or the witness. Unfortunately, political attacks on nonpartisan investigations often look and sound roughly the same as well.
▶ 0:55:02Mr. Schwager: I have been accused of being a tool of the right and a tool of the left even in the same case. Throughout my career as a corruption prosecutor I learned of the valuable tool that we call loads and tolls. Many investigations begin with subpoenas of noncontent phone records of known associates within and without suspicion where potentially relevant.
▶ 0:55:25Mr. Schwager: The records were scoured for patterns, timelines, and missing connections relevant to the investigation and additional subpoenas were sought for the records of the phone numbers within the patterns to understand, test, or expand on the original records. In complex matters, by the time all subscriber information had been subpoenaed, it wasn't unusual for non-subscriber identification of hundreds of related phone numbers and people to have been subpoenaed to.
▶ 0:55:54Mr. Schwager: The only thing that determined whose records were subpoenaed was the fact that the relevance had already come up in the investigation in some way. Neither good nor bad. I have even seen such records lead to the complete exoneration of high ranking officials that were framed by informants. It was usually the case that subpoenas were issued before the subject knew of the existence, scope, or direction of the investigation.
▶ 0:56:22Mr. Schwager: The risk of those being revealed to the subject because our subpoenas became publicly known was usually obvious and for that reason, where nondisclosure orders were appropriate to prevent public knowledge of the investigative steps, they were regularly sought. To be clear, all searches for and seizures of information by the government into -- implicate constitutional rights of regular people.
▶ 0:56:48Mr. Schwager: The constitution and congress authorized them anyways with reasonable to balance those rights against needs to effectively combat crime, fraud, and corruption. The important part in judging an investigation is to examine all the evidence and the predication for these actions.
▶ 0:57:06Mr. Schwager: In the matter at issue in this hearing the public has available evidence demonstrated a well predicated alleged scheme to overturn an american election and the use of violence towards those fraudulent ends. Of course, when the legislative branch is involved in an investigation, common steps can involve additional constitutional concerns.
▶ 0:57:33Mr. Schwager: The speech or debate clause was included in the constitution to temper the risk of a retributive president. However, executive and legislative branches have disagreed in and out of court for years about speech and debate with only limited or contradictory guidelines from the lower courts in even less from the supreme court. Reasonable disagreement does not equal improper conduct.
▶ 0:57:59Mr. Schwager: In summary, no people or investigation is perfect, but based on my training and experience, I believe that the thorough investigation here that was called for by courageous senators from both parties was well predicated, following the policies in place of the time to avoid infringing on anyone's constitutional rights. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I look forward to your questions. Mr. clark? -- chair schmitt: Mr. clark?
▶ 0:58:32Mr. Schwager: Mr. clark, microphone.
▶ 0:58:33Mr. Clark: Mr. chairman, members, bringing members of the subcommittee, I look forward to combating the falsehoods I heard today, and I look forward to my opening statement. Arctic frost was a sweeping, multi agency operation targeting hundreds of americans, season communications of the highest levels of the government, pointing a criminal case dagger at president trump, designed to
▶ 0:59:04Mr. Clark: Destroy the populist republican party. I was in its crosshairs. Let me be clear, this is not about my support for republicans, it's about whether the machinery of government was used in a way that would alarm every american regardless of party. And it was. What was arctic frost?
▶ 0:59:23Mr. Clark: An investigation launched in 2022 under circumstances that flatly violated all fbi particle and standards to allow a politically biased agent to open his own case and from there it expanded dramatically, reaching into six states, entities of sitting U.S. senators. This was a political dragnet.
▶ 0:59:55Mr. Clark: I expressed internal views within the department of justice about the 2020 election. Through proper channels and in privileged settings as a part of my official duty as a lawyer and consistent with my obligations in D.C. for that I became the subject of biased "new york times" leaks, overlapping investigations, and an inspector general probe, bar or referral, and a failed state prosecution.
▶ 1:00:25Mr. Clark: They were not isolated. They overlapped, reinforced each other, and impose great personal and professional costs. At one point the devices of my family were seized. My 12-year-old daughter, 12 at the time, came to me nearly in tears after she learned about the raid and said that her personal diary was then read by the agents. You don't want to have to explain that to your 12-year-old . I received death threats.
▶ 1:00:55Mr. Clark: One called and claimed to be from new jersey and invited me to the pine barons where he said he would dismember me and send to me in buckets to my fatherless family. That is the insane hyper-partisan activists fear -- atmosphere stoped by arctic frost.
▶ 1:01:19Mr. Clark: Third, internal privileged doj discussions in my case were silent aimlessly poked on -- by multiple bodies. The same attacks, the same targets, all designed to impose tectonic pressure.
▶ 1:01:41Mr. Clark: Documents in the public record that I have attached to my extensive testimony show direct coordination on information sharing, multistate state prosecutors and clever attempted evasions of privileges with miraculous reported privileges like the office of the inspector general hitting my heist -- my house one day on june 22 and the next day magically the january 6 committee had a hearing targeted at me. How did that happen?
▶ 1:02:15Mr. Clark: The implications of the fruit plucked from the poisonous tree. If an investigation is launched improperly, what follows is tainted. If internal watchdog materials are merged into criminal probes as happened here with the oig investigation that morphed into arctic frost, you have violated what the inspector general's office is designed to do. We cannot look at the doj conduct your own investigation.
▶ 1:02:48Mr. Clark: Arctic frost did not occur in isolation and it fits within a pattern of biden auto pin wielders system -- expanding investigative powers against political opponents using lower thresholds and broader definitions of threat with increasing coordination across institutions. Even the religious rights of americans were no barrier to the biden doj and fbi.
▶ 1:03:18Mr. Clark: Calling him potential violent extremists, weaponized against abortion protesters that were pro-life. It didn't matter to them that the leftist orthodoxy had to be cowed touted to. The committee has to ask the question, where are the limits and what should they be?
▶ 1:03:35Mr. Clark: You need to expose it on the record, all of the arctic frost documents as senator grassley and chair grassley have been doing so that the american people understand the multistate , multiagency, all of government as chair schmitt indicated was weaponized against president biden and his allies.
▶ 1:03:56Chair Schmitt: Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses. I will start up. Mr. clark, you have referenced being targeted not just by arctic frost, but in fulton county. Multiple proceedings. In that precedent specifically you and your lawyers sought documents, communications, including the nathan wade billing inquiries on white house counsel in an interview with the D.C.
▶ 1:04:25Chair Schmitt: White house where judge mcabee had certain materials under seal. Why are those sealed communications so important?
▶ 1:04:37Mr. Clark: Thank you for that question. We don't know what's in those communications until we see them. We think we have a right to show them and we think that part of the correspondence showed that the justice department did not give to eat authorizations to finding willis so that she could put witnesses from the justice department in front of the grand jury and we pose the obvious question of if you cannot introduce any witnesses against
▶ 1:05:07Mr. Clark: Me, how can you possibly proceed with the case? The judge erred in not recognizing that was a serious brady issue and he decided after looking at the documents to put them under seal. That this body and the justice department could get access to those materials.
▶ 1:05:29Chair Schmitt: Zooming out from where -- what you endured, you described it as an effort to not simply punish individuals but destroy the infrastructure around president trump in a movement. Explain what you mean by that. >> maybe it's easiest to start with the weaponization of the bar complaint process, which some call part of law fair. -- law fair. Others call it bar fair.
▶ 1:05:58Chair Schmitt: It was created by david brock, a super leftist democrat activist, who specifically admitted in a scoop story he gave to axios that his whole purpose was to make conservative lawyers, lawyers who represented president trump, toxic and their legal communities so that they could not get jobs and so that their reputations would be destroyed, so that no one else would represent the conservative movement.
▶ 1:06:28Chair Schmitt: A complete act of destruction aimed at our adversarial system in which only one party can have election lawyers. David boys, professor laurence tribe, faced no ethical consequences, but somehow if you are a republican lawyer, john eastman, rudy giuliani, or me, you are treated to an entirely different standard that is designed to try to shame.
▶ 1:06:56Chair Schmitt: Dr. epstein, I want to ask you, this is a myriad web, right? You've got doj and oig, jack smith, the biden white house, fulton county, manhattan, you've got all of these actors. Does this look like some isolated law enforcement effort? Does it look like a coordinated attempt to take down a chief political rival that anyone had anyone -- any support for?
▶ 1:07:31Mr. Epstein: This was not something where the starting philosophy was going through an orderly process. The fact that the national archives was consulting with the white house counsel office on how to get documents to the fbi in debating whether they should go through the clear path of communicating with presidential counsel to get consent or concoct statutes in a way that allowed them to not do that?
▶ 1:08:00Mr. Epstein: The fact that you had coordination between bragg's office in the department of justice, when the house of representatives announced that question to the attorney general denied it, the existence of responsive records indicates that there were communications and it raised a significant risk that this was not a sober investigative process. It was very much tainted by political interests.
▶ 1:08:26Chair Schmitt: And he raised the possibility that this wasn't just a bad judgment or political bias, but it was a lawful conduct, correct? Of the conspiracy against rights you would've those charges?
▶ 1:08:39Mr. Epstein: Under section 241, absolutely. This committee has done very good work on investigating that. As you pointed out, the process is the punishment. When you have very aggressive bureaucrats who want to coordinate with prosecutors in a way that doesn't follow the process, doesn't follow fair procedures, it raises the conspiracy risk.
▶ 1:09:08Chair Schmitt: Senator welch?
▶ 1:09:10Sen. Welch: Professor epstein, who won the 2020 election?
▶ 1:09:15Mr. Epstein: That is a political question. Obviously, in the constitution, the determination of who one is delegated to the electors and is voted on in the house. Throughout american history at that -- there have been content stations of who one.
▶ 1:09:37Sen. Welch: I'm asking specifically who won the 2020 election. I'm taking your nonanswer to be consistent with everyone else who came in.
▶ 1:09:46Mr. Epstein: I'm not a pulser. I will tell you this --
▶ 1:09:51Chair Schmitt: I'm not at --
▶ 1:09:55Sen. Welch: I'm not asking you about a pollster. I'm asking you who won the election.
▶ 1:09:58Mr. Epstein: Biden was elected president.
▶ 1:10:01Sen. Welch: Did he win?
▶ 1:10:03Mr. Epstein: He won under the constitutional mechanisms we have to determine who is the president.
▶ 1:10:10Sen. Welch: Was there a violent attack by people who did not believe he won the election and that it was stolen? Mr. epstein: that's in the record.
▶ 1:10:20Sen. Welch: I'm asking you for a yes or no on that.
▶ 1:10:22Mr. Epstein: Based off the publicly available evidence, that appears to be what occurred.
▶ 1:10:27Sen. Welch: Appears to be?
▶ 1:10:29Mr. Epstein: I was not there.
▶ 1:10:31Sen. Welch: Did you watch any tv of mobs watching the cap -- attacking the capitol? I don't own a television. -- Mr. epstein: I don't own a television.
▶ 1:10:43Sen. Welch: Mr. clark, who won the 2020 election?
▶ 1:10:47Mr. Clark: Joe biden received the necessary number of electoral college votes and in joint session congress certify the results.
▶ 1:10:55Sen. Welch: So, you were promoting efforts to raise questions about the electors in states, despite the fact that attorney general barr said there was no evidence to indicate fraud on any level that would come close to resulting in a reversal of the election. Is that correct?
▶ 1:11:18Mr. Clark: With all due respect, lawyers disagree with each other. It may be news to you.
▶ 1:11:24Sen. Welch: I understand. You disagree with attorney general barr.
▶ 1:11:29Mr. Clark: Attorney general barr supported me in my bar proceeding.
▶ 1:11:34Sen. Welch: Let's stay on the question asked. I'm glad you are good friends with attorney general barr. You said he followed procedures at the justice department. Attorney general rosen, acting deputy ag, said you contacted the president without informing them that you were going to do that? >> the president contacted --
▶ 1:11:59Mr. Clark: The president contacted me, under article two, the ultimate procedure.
▶ 1:12:05Sen. Welch: And you did not report that to your superiors?
▶ 1:12:08Mr. Clark: I spoke to jeff rosen about that the saturday after it happened.
▶ 1:12:12Sen. Welch: As you know, the president was fishing around for someone who would be willing to take his bogus case, and you did.
▶ 1:12:22Mr. Clark: The case was not bogus.
▶ 1:12:25Sen. Welch: You disagree with the attorney general?
▶ 1:12:28Mr. Clark: Yes.
▶ 1:12:29Sen. Welch: The claim here, -- by the way, were crimes committed on january 6 from the people who attacked the capitol?
▶ 1:12:41Mr. Clark: There were crimes committed.
▶ 1:12:44Sen. Welch: Do you believe it was a crime for people to attack officers and hit them, pull their helmets off, to attack them with sticks, mace, and a bear spray?
▶ 1:13:02Mr. Clark: Police officer should not be assaulted. I believe that's criminal. I don't believe that anyone in D.C. got a fair trial. That's like trump rightly pardoned them.
▶ 1:13:13Sen. Welch: 94 percent? You are saying the people of D.C. have no capacity to make a determination based on the evidence of criminal conduct that may have been committed?
▶ 1:13:23Mr. Clark: I think I can when we are not talking something politically hyper charged in something the media tries to drown in as a narrative. When politics are at stake, I don't think so.
▶ 1:13:38Sen. Welch: What you think about the attacks on these officers were standing between the mob and nancy pelosi or vice president pence and who stood their job? And there was evidence presented in there was evidence and those people were convicted? Where they rightly pardoned because it was a bogus trial?
▶ 1:14:04Mr. Clark: If you don't get due process, that is one of the mechanisms to ensure people get justice.
▶ 1:14:13Sen. Welch: Mr. schwager, the premise here is that it was a bogus investigation. All the things that are part of a normal investigation, subpoenas, making links, having a wide investigatory outreach, is there anything different about this investigation and what would be a thorough investigation of any other crime once there is a predicate for
▶ 1:14:43Sen. Welch: Pursuing an investigation?
▶ 1:14:44Mr. Schwager: I think the alleged crime is historic in nature. However, the tools used in the investigation are common to complex matters.
▶ 1:14:54Sen. Welch: Thank you. >> you did not opine about the novel legal theory. Senator blackburn.
▶ 1:15:04Sen. Blackburn: Welcome to the three of you. We appreciate that you are here. Mr. chairman, at our last arctic cross hearing, the democrats brought forward a witness that said he was perfectly fine with weaponization that took place in arctic cross.
▶ 1:15:32Sen. Blackburn: He claimed politics did not it -- exist under the by the fbi. Politics were absent there. As I noted at the time, that was a laughable claim.
▶ 1:15:48Sen. Blackburn: Everyone knows that jack smith leveraged the fbi and the doj to go on a years long crusade against president trump, members of congress, and hundreds of conservative organizations and individuals. I include Mr. epstein and Mr. clark in this group that was targeted. So was I and some of our colleagues.
▶ 1:16:18Sen. Blackburn: Mr. clark and Mr. epstein, I will start with Mr. epstein, I want to hear from each of you on this. As you are impacted by arctic frost. Do you think politics was absent from the biden fbi or was politics practiced? Mr. epstein first.
▶ 1:16:44Mr. Epstein: There is no question that politics was very much involved there. I can speak to my own organization. We did not exist on january 6 and our records were subpoenaed.
▶ 1:17:00Sen. Blackburn: Mr. clark.
▶ 1:17:02Mr. Clark: It was absolutely political, senator blackburn. I would start with the fact that the agent who opened his own case in violation of fbi protocol was actually effectively disciplined by the special counsel for violating the patch act, an indication of the fact he was getting into political matters. The entire day but the operation arctic frost indicates it was political. Why?
▶ 1:17:32Mr. Clark: It was changed to that name. It's a type of orange. If the people running the investigation, so-called, were not political, if they were more brazen they would've called it orange man bad. It is right in the name of arctic frost. It's an indication of the fact that it was a politicized effort to destroy president trump.
▶ 1:17:53Sen. Blackburn: Mr. epstein, I want to talk about a component that has gotten lost. That is the fact that this case ultimately came about because of an unlawfully appointed special counsel.
▶ 1:18:14Sen. Blackburn: Specifically, we know jack smith was not appointed pursuant to any explicit statutory authority, has ken starr, john durham and other special councils were appointed. In fact, and then attorney general garland's appointment order naming smith as the special counsel, none of the statutes that garland cited authorized such an appointment, nor was jack smith nominated and confirmed with the advice and consent of the U.S.
▶ 1:18:44Sen. Blackburn: Senate as is required by the appointments clause of the constitution. In a recent amicus brief before the 11th circuit, america first legal made the argument without either of those authorities being satisfied. It is clear that jack smith did not serve as special counsel lawfully. Is that correct?
▶ 1:19:10Mr. Epstein: That is absolutely correct. The closest statute attorney general garland could provide was 515-a, but that's only triggered if congress has a specific statute authorizing the appointment of the special counsel which it didn't. I did note the independent counsel act that expired. The other sources that garland relied upon referenced specifically the fbi.
▶ 1:19:41Mr. Epstein: There was no clear statutory authority to appoint someone from the outside as being an inferior officer of the united states. His appointment was a matter of constitutional law unauthorized.
▶ 1:19:56Sen. Blackburn: When I talked to tennesseans, one of the things they mentioned regularly is they want to see people held to account. So that jack smith and his team will be held responsible for what they did. They are disappointed nothing has happened so far. I appreciate the fact -- my time has expired. I appreciate the fact the two of you are here.
▶ 1:20:26Sen. Blackburn: I will submit a question for writing to you to comment about the importance of accountability when we see the weaponization of these agencies. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:20:40Chair Schmitt: Senator durbin.
▶ 1:20:44Sen. Durbin: All these questions and charges, where is jack smith? Months ago I said to the chairman, bring him here and put them under oath and asked the questions directly. Were not going to do it. That tells the whole story. I believe he should be here to tell his version of the story under oath. The white house visitors log only appears to record appointment to the on december 22, 2020, and january 3, 2021.
▶ 1:21:12Sen. Durbin: We know you had more conversations with president trump between those dates, because deputy attorney general donahue reprimanded you on january 2, 2021 for continuing to violate the department of justice white house contacts policy. Mr. clark, what was your primary form of communication with president trump during this time?
▶ 1:21:30Mr. Clark: I'm not going to answer questions about my communications with the president well is in the executive branch. That is privileged.
▶ 1:21:39Sen. Durbin: You can't even tell us you had a conversation? You already volunteered that.
▶ 1:21:42Mr. Clark: The public information that has come out about that in terms of what was in the january 6 report is one example. I will not dispute back. I will not tell you exactly what I talked to him or how I talked to him. These are privileged matters.
▶ 1:21:59Sen. Durbin: There's a conversation where president trump indicated he would appoint you acting attorney general in person or not?
▶ 1:22:07Mr. Clark: You are asking about matters that are privileged.
▶ 1:22:12Sen. Durbin: You have avoided answering key questions by consistently invoking the fifth amendment against self-incrimination while under oath. However, like nearly 1600 january 6 insurrectionists and other election deniers, you are now received an appropriate but equally legally valid presidential pardon for your conduct. That you have no basis to invoke the privilege -- now you have no basis to invoke the privilege. Now you tell it to be about the president?
▶ 1:22:39Mr. Clark: I did not evoke the privilege. I will evoke four religious. Executive privilege, law enforcement, deliberate progress and attorney-client privilege. I fully maintain those.
▶ 1:22:50Sen. Durbin: Interesting story. The president ask you to take over the department of justice apparently. All this is a matter of record that has been disclosed. Even when he has been parted by president trump he will not tell us when he met with him or spoke to him. Mr. clark, let me ask you, did you meet directly or correspond with white house chief of staff mark meadows or any other senior official of the white house executive office of the president?
▶ 1:23:19Mr. Clark: I similarly think that is privileged and also covered by the same four privileges I just invoked.
▶ 1:23:28Sen. Durbin: We have jack smith prepared to testify in answer the questions and they don't want to see him. They want to bring us Mr. clark.
▶ 1:23:31Mr. Clark: Let's talk about jack smith.
▶ 1:23:34Sen. Durbin: I get to ask the questions and you answer them if h questions and you answer them if you wish. You should reach out to kash patel who had worked for redcliff to find a trustworthy fbi agent. Did you reach out to patel?
▶ 1:23:51Mr. Clark: I want to say something about jack smith. The single most salient fact to me is that he referred to me initially in the indictment against trump as unindicted co-conspirator number four. After the supreme court decision in trump beat united states, he issued -- a got a superseding indictment that dropped all reference to me. The D.C. bar should have dropped the case.
▶ 1:24:16Sen. Durbin: If only we can get him under oath ask a question like that.
▶ 1:24:20Mr. Clark: It sounds like that is coming. I did not speak to current director patel. I speak to dni head radcliffe.
▶ 1:24:34Sen. Durbin: Did you make contact with the fdic suggested?
▶ 1:24:35Mr. Clark: There was no time to do it before the meeting on january 3 you referred to. I spoke to him on january 2.
▶ 1:24:43Sen. Durbin: Let's talk about another interesting conspiracy theory. Rudy giuliani was peddling the italian I.t. Contractors worked with the fbi to use military satellites to manipulate american voting machines. Attorney general rosen declined the meetings. Did you meet with rudy giuliani during this period?
▶ 1:25:06Mr. Clark: I did not and that's an interesting story. Cassidy hutchinson said I was regularly going to the white house to meet with rudy giuliani and I did not meet him until january of 2025. She confused me with justin clark, who was engaged in campaign matters and then magically that story disappeared from politico which was trying to push it. I was not coordinating with rudy giuliani. I did not meet him. I just knew about him from the news.
▶ 1:25:34Sen. Durbin: Did you make a public statement that this italian I.t. Contractor conspiracy theory needed to be investigated?
▶ 1:25:44Mr. Clark: I did not to my knowledge or memory. I investigated it after, several years after, and a doubly that is a valid theory.
▶ 1:25:52Sen. Durbin: Thank goodness I yield.
▶ 1:25:54Chair Schmitt: There's been discussion about jack smith. I would like to enter an opt I would like to enter an oped -- op-ed for the wall street journal that the facts are getting uglier. Senator britt.
▶ 1:26:08Sen. Britt: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I want to thank chair grassley for his work on oversight of this issue of monks a number of issues but really working to expose some of the most troublesome aspects of the arctic frost investigation.
▶ 1:26:30Sen. Britt: Whether it was by an fbi agent who engaged in political partnership and violated the fbi's no self approval rule, this mass targeting of nearly 100 republican groups, including turning point usa, the republican attorneys general association, the america first policy institute and the republican national committee, for of course, the decision to subpoena the phone call records of multiple members of congress, including members of the senate judiciary committee.
▶ 1:27:01Sen. Britt: Beyond that, I have concerns about evidence suggesting coordination between the biden administration and clearly partisan prosecutors in manhattan or fulton county, georgia, and pursuit of trump-related investigations. We even have people that campaigned on taking him down. It is absolutely ridiculous.
▶ 1:27:25Sen. Britt: It paints a picture of criminal investigations that evolved into indiscriminate dragnet and targeted and harassed hundreds of entities, individuals, members of congress are all on the political right. Is highly concerning with respect to the law, the separation of powers and americans' faith in the system on the blighted administration of justice.
▶ 1:27:48Sen. Britt: I'm glad this committee has engaged in public oversight to learn about what occurred and the steps that can be taken to prevent this from happening moving forward. Mr. epstein, there have been a lot of discussions regarding jack smith. We have heard it today and his team use of nondisclosure orders throughout the course of the arctic frost investigation. This includes when such orders were sought and granted to accompany subpoenas related to the toll records of multiple members of this body.
▶ 1:28:19Sen. Britt: Many have argued those indio'-- ndo's violated federal law. The fact that at least one telecom provider, at&t, refused to comply with that subpoena and the smith team did not push back his evidence they probably knew their request was illegal in the first place.
▶ 1:28:45Sen. Britt: What is your view on that issue and are there additional steps we need to take to reform existing law or create new ones to better protect all americans from ndo's used any politicized or improper manner?
▶ 1:29:01Mr. Epstein: As a matter of law that needs to be consultation with the senate before phone providers provide those records. Obviously that is rooted in speech or debate which has direct constitutional text. You cannot force senators to speak, members of the house to speak without their consent.
▶ 1:29:26Mr. Epstein: I would say as another statutory matter, congressional records are preserved and transferred at congress' discretion to the national archives. If there was interest in getting that information with a more constitutionally appropriate method, the team should have gotten as many element records from the archives.
▶ 1:29:52Mr. Epstein: If they are not preserved by or transferred rather by the senate, again, that revolves back to speech or debate and whether the senate can censor those things in the telecom providers have received the consent.
▶ 1:30:05Sen. Britt: Mr. epstein, one of the principal concerns people have brought up with arctic frost investigation and related state-level investigations is they tried to criminalize conduct that was not actually illegal. It is not illegal for someone to say there may be fraud present. It is not illegal to question what happened and how it happened and try to figure out a pathway moving forward.
▶ 1:30:38Sen. Britt: Yet we saw time and time again Mr. smith focus on that and try to make that conduct illegal. No american was to live in a world where you say show me the man and I will show you the crime. Outside of conducting public oversight and the things you have mentioned to ensure public accountability, what steps do you think we can take or should consider to make sure we don't fall into the same trap in the same way that some of those individuals involved with arctic frost and related investigations
▶ 1:31:09Sen. Britt: Appear to?
▶ 1:31:11Mr. Epstein: One thing is to make clear is a statutory matter that the way in which jack smith was appointed was invalid. To specify as much as possible into statutes with appropriate appointments look like.
▶ 1:31:28Mr. Epstein: I also think that when I think about the bragg prosecution and judge merchan, that was a case where they were interpreting federal election law, which is totally inappropriate for them in primary jurisdiction is something I teach clearly laid with the fec.
▶ 1:31:53Mr. Epstein: There are mineral -- many opportunities about primary jurisdictions to prevent the states from going on roving political investigations that they don't have jurisdiction for. There's also the power of oversight. There are questions that congress can ask. They can ask the states. They can ask these prosecutorial offices.
▶ 1:32:17Mr. Epstein: If america first legal can use foia to get documents, surly congress can conduct oversight.
▶ 1:32:23Chair Schmitt: Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:32:26Sen. Whitehouse: Thanks very much. Mr. clark, could you -- are you aware the fbi executed a search warrant with respect to the fulton county election records and sees a considerable number of records?
▶ 1:32:48Mr. Clark: I am aware from the news, yes.
▶ 1:32:51Sen. Whitehouse: Did you have any contact with any person within the department of justice or the fbi relevant to that search warrant application or search?
▶ 1:33:03Mr. Clark: No, if I remember correctly I was at omb.
▶ 1:33:09Sen. Whitehouse: No reached out to you?
▶ 1:33:12Mr. Clark: No one reached out to me .
▶ 1:33:16Sen. Whitehouse: How about the witnesses in the search warrant application? Did any of them have any contact with you related to that search warrant application or search?
▶ 1:33:30Mr. Clark: I don't know who the witnesses are. To my knowledge, no.
▶ 1:33:34Sen. Whitehouse: Let's go back to your georgia letter when you are in the department of justice . As I understand it, you had been in the environment natural resources division which has no authority over elections. You had been acting chief of the civil division as people peered out at the end of the trump administration with no role in elections.
▶ 1:34:05Mr. Clark: Incorrect, senator.
▶ 1:34:06Sen. Whitehouse: You had no prior experience in elections law, is that correct?
▶ 1:34:11Mr. Clark: Though things are incorrect. I ran the two divisions, the environment division and civil division, a total of 1400 lawyers simultaneously. Civil division had several election cases. They were two major sets of them.
▶ 1:34:26Sen. Whitehouse: Three directly involved in any of those cases?
▶ 1:34:30Mr. Clark: Yes. There is one in particular I will tell you about.
▶ 1:34:34Sen. Whitehouse: Let me continue. When you wrote the letter, who in the civil division did you contact with respect to its context?
▶ 1:34:46Mr. Clark: That is something that would be law enforcement privileged inside the justice department.
▶ 1:34:49Sen. Whitehouse: It is not.
▶ 1:34:51Mr. Clark: It absolutely is. What lawyers I consulted and what they said and what I said to them, all of that is something --
▶ 1:35:00Sen. Whitehouse: Maybe what you said but what lawyers you consulted -- I'm entitled to know if you bother to consult a single lawyer in the civil rights division before you did that. I will turn to a different question. Who from outside the civil rights division or outside the department of justice give you advice about that letter?
▶ 1:35:21Mr. Clark: In terms of the letter, anything related to how that letter was formulated is law enforcement privileged.
▶ 1:35:27Sen. Whitehouse: That just ain't so. The record to include the board of professional response ability opinions with respect to throwing out Mr. clark's claims, false claims of privilege.
▶ 1:35:49Sen. Whitehouse: Let's just say that somebody from outside the department put you up to writing a letter and told you what they wanted and it. What privilege without require? -- without require? -- would that require?
▶ 1:36:08Mr. Clark: I'm quite capable of writing a letter thinking about it and making legal decisions.
▶ 1:36:14Sen. Whitehouse: No one contributed text to you? No one contributed ideas to you? Know entity or person asked you to do this?
▶ 1:36:25Mr. Clark: Again, these kind of things would be part of privilege.
▶ 1:36:31Sen. Whitehouse: You are just wrong about that.
▶ 1:36:33Mr. Clark: You can say that but I disagree with you.
▶ 1:36:36Sen. Whitehouse: You asserted privilege before and you have been wrong. You asserted it was willy-nilly with no real basis for it. By the way, it is not even conceded that those privileges matter in congress. In fact, chairman grassley repeatedly said under a number of privilege -- many of agree with it -- it doesn't pertain to congressional investigations because of the separation of powers.
▶ 1:37:03Sen. Whitehouse: What we are asking about is whether you were put up to this by outside entities, whether those entities help to get you the meeting in the oval office with representative perry who was behind that, and who was behind finding you a dark money funded landing pad once the department of justice tenure was over and you were picked up by a dark money funded advocacy group. Those are legitimate questions that I intend to pursue.
▶ 1:37:34Sen. Whitehouse: My time is expired.
▶ 1:37:34Chair Schmitt: Senator hawley.
▶ 1:37:38Sen. Hawley: . Thank you for calling this hearing on this so-called investigation, which is an absolute mockery of the term. All the investigation was was an attempt to browbeat ordinary citizens out of their constitutional rights and expressions of their constitutional right including first amendment. It was an attempt to spy on congress, including myself, who had our phones tapped. It's an outrage that I hope will never happen again in american history.
▶ 1:38:08Sen. Hawley: I want to talk about another outrage in process and the attempt by the american left to destroy the independence of the united states supreme court. We have had out of this court in the last few days another series of leaks will stop I'm holding a print out. The private papers of the justices. A few years ago somebody leaked and unpublished internal draft opinion for the first time in the history of the supreme court and it attempt to derail the dobbs decision and derail an opinion of the court.
▶ 1:38:39Sen. Hawley: Now we have from the justices' private papers that by law belong to them we have multiple leaks from february, january and 2016 leaked to the press. For the sin of the court's supposed failure to address the global climate crisis. That is what the new york times tells us.
▶ 1:39:02Sen. Hawley: The court is not managed to global crisis properly and therefore whomever it is the supreme court once to destroy the independence of the body is now leaking the justices' private papers. This is part of a coordinated attack on this institution that has gone on now for years.
▶ 1:39:20Sen. Hawley: The point is that to destroy the independence of the supreme court, the browbeat that court into doing what the left in this country wants and hold up a clear threat to the court that if they don't, they will be packed with new justices, be personally threatened, their papers will be leaked, their security will be threatened in the left will do everything they can to destroy the court as it is did -- edit -- as an institution.
▶ 1:39:49Sen. Hawley: I have litigated as a private lawyer and the attorney general of the state of missouri. I can tell you what is happening now is absolutely a coordinated effort to destroy the court. It has been years in the making. Years in the making. It all the way back to when president obama stood in the well of the house of representatives at the podium and to the face of the justices browbeat and criticized them personally for decisions he didn't like.
▶ 1:40:18Sen. Hawley: I have heard a lot of fussing from the other side that they don't like president trump is critical of the court. Really? I don't remember a word when barack obama stood and looked at the justices and personally attacked them at a state of the union address. That was just the merest beginning. We have had an assassin it attempt of the life of a justice, brett kavanaugh.
▶ 1:40:41Sen. Hawley: We have the current minority leader of the senate go to the floor, the steps of the supreme court, chuck schumer, go to the steps and threaten the justices by name -- by name. We had a leak from within the court meant to derail the dobbs opinion and destroy it.
▶ 1:40:58Sen. Hawley: We had dark money groups, left-wing dark money groups, funding illegal protest at the justices homes after an assassin attempt on the justices that the biden justice department and fbi refused to stop despite the fact they were illegal. For months these illegal protests meant to threaten the security of the justices went on. Months and months and months. The biden justice department could not lift a finger.
▶ 1:41:30Sen. Hawley: I don't remember hardly a peep from the other side of the aisle. This is a deliberate attempt to tell the court do what we want you to do or we will destroy you. This is just the latest attempt. I don't know what's going to be left. If the private papers can be leaked -- I will give the times credit. They are honest.
▶ 1:41:50Sen. Hawley: They said they talked to two different individuals who were formerly -- 10 different individuals who were familiar with deliberations over pivotal emergency orders and spoke on conditions of anonymity. Because confidentiality was a condition of their employment. Multiple people from within the court who were delighted to violate their own employment agreements in order to devote the private deliberations of the justices into view with the sole purpose of trying to destroy this institution's independence.
▶ 1:42:21Sen. Hawley: I happen to believe in our system of government. I believe the three branches were designed for a reason. I believe the independence of the supreme court is vital. I believe if you don't like decisions of the court, and there plenty I disagree with -- plenty, from citizens united to many more, but you don't address those differences of opinion by trying to destroy the institutional legitimacy and independence of the court. That's exactly what the american left is trying to do in a coordinated fashion. We need to follow the money.
▶ 1:42:54Sen. Hawley: Those protests at the justices homes that were designed to threaten their safety were funded by somebody. They were funded. I want to know who funded them. I want to know where the money from this pressure campaign, this multiyear pressure campaign is coming from. We need to have hearings in this committee to unveil the sources of this funding, of this campaign and this attempt to undermine our system of government.
▶ 1:43:21Sen. Hawley: It's a clear and present danger to the operation of our constitution, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:43:26Chair Schmitt: I would like to enter an article on arctic frost documents that said documents described the investigative actions that were not merely aggressive, partisan and sweeping in scope, but it's increasingly clear this was an overreach of monumental proportions in a manner that transformed the justice system into a political weapon.
▶ 1:43:54Chair Schmitt: That is the definition of law fair. Senator padilla.
▶ 1:43:59Sen. Padilla: Let me recognize the obvious. If the objective here from the subcommittee was to get down to anything, we would have jack smith before us to testify and answer questions. I can't help but recognize this hearing for what it truly is.
▶ 1:44:22Sen. Padilla: Another opportunity for people who want to refuse to come to grips with the fact that donald trump lost in 2020, to air their grievances and spread the big lie conspiracy. It's rich for us to be even having this debate focused on conspiracy and coordination. That is part of the title to hearing.
▶ 1:44:46Sen. Padilla: When the president himself with the help of his enablers are leading a coordinated effort to undermine the sanctity and validity of our upcoming elections. That is what we should be talking about, colleagues. President trump and his allies have been raging about our elections. He even said in the 2016 iowa caucuses that they were rigged when senator cruz beat him.
▶ 1:45:16Sen. Padilla: Trump has been trying to undermine confidence in our system of voting, attacking elections officials who don't agree or go along with him, even exploiting his power to have the fdic's ballots in the state of georgia -- the fbi sees ballots in the state of georgia. The executive order on day one of the second term, the effort failed in the courts.
▶ 1:45:45Sen. Padilla: His friends on capitol hill have tried to help him do it with this so save america act. To save him at his party from the consequences at the ballot this november.
▶ 1:46:00Sen. Padilla: But after weeks and weeks of debate were democrats exposed how outrageous the bill is and how many barriers it would create for americans not only to register to vote but to stay registered to vote and actually cast their ballot, thankfully the bill seems to be put on ice. Good riddance. Congress should not be working to restrict access to the ballot for eligible americans.
▶ 1:46:29Sen. Padilla: We should be striving to expand access to the ballot for eligible americans. We have a president whose newest executive orders is attempting to force states to rely on a federal list of "eligible voters" created by the department of homeland security with no history of background on this. He was to hand over authority for absentee and mail voting to the trump administration.
▶ 1:47:01Sen. Padilla: If stay still comply with all his demands and the postal service will deliver voters absentee ballots. Talk about the weaponization of government. The president is trying to order the postal service to not deliver lawful ballots from eligible voters. That is profoundly un-american and know that also illegal and unconstitutional and will face up her fate in the court of law.
▶ 1:47:31Sen. Padilla: I'm introducing a bill, the absentee and mail voter protection act, to stop this executive order, to nullify it in any other similar action in its tracks the same way we stopped the save america act.
▶ 1:47:47Sen. Padilla: If we want to be doing something about conspiracy, we ought to be focusing our time and attention on the endless campaign by the president designed to undermine public confidence in our elections and our fundamental. Right to vote .
▶ 1:48:10Sen. Padilla: Another critical topic this subcommittee could be investigating instead of repeated election denials, the migration policy institute recently estimated 15,000 people have been deported to countries of which they are not nationals under agreements this administration has entered.
▶ 1:48:28Sen. Padilla: The agreements have no transparency, including what incentives the administration is promising or pressure they are using to get countries to take people who are not there nationals but victims of trump's mass deportation agenda. The worst part is these people often don't have proper notice or an opportunity to challenge their removal to the countries. That is not my assessment.
▶ 1:48:55Sen. Padilla: That's the recent finding of a federal judge who also criticized so-called safety assurances provided by these countries and their agreements with the united states. A question for Mr. schwager. Do you believe this is the best use of this subcommittee's time or should we instead be more focused on the day-to-day constitutional violations we are seeing from this administration?
▶ 1:49:22Mr. Schwager: I defer to the west discretion of the senate committee and far be it for me to tell you what to do.
▶ 1:49:28Sen. Padilla: That's a great answer. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:49:33Sen. Durbin: Senator cruz.
▶ 1:49:36Sen. Cruz: Thank you to the wise chairman. In the last hearing we proved arctic frost was no rogue operation. It was authorized at the highest level of the biden justice department. Today we are asking the next question. Who coordinated it, who profited from it and who paid the price?
▶ 1:50:00Sen. Cruz: Professor epstein, on april 4, 2022, merrick garland and lisa monaco and christopher wray personally signed off on opening arctic frost. Their signatures on a document authorizing a federal investigation into virtually the entirety of the opposing political party. Are you familiar with that?
▶ 1:50:27Mr. Epstein: Yes, senator.
▶ 1:50:30Sen. Cruz: The operatives and watergate hit their names. They were embarrassed to be part of weaponizing government. Here the top leadership of the department of justice flaunted their abuse of power. Mr. epstein, my power at the top gets permission, allies below move quickly. That's how washington works, isn't it?
▶ 1:50:59Mr. Epstein: I think so, senator. Yes.
▶ 1:51:00Sen. Cruz: Arctic frost quickly grew beyond the department of justice. Are you familiar with the names jack smith and thomas wyndham?
▶ 1:51:11Mr. Epstein: Some of those names. Certainly jack smith.
▶ 1:51:15Sen. Cruz: He led the investigation of president trump. Smith prosecuted him as special counsel and wyndham with smith's senior deputy. Does that sound right?
▶ 1:51:28Mr. Epstein: Yes.
▶ 1:51:29Sen. Cruz: All three coordinated with fani willis who brought the georgia rico case against president trump. Sharing witnesses sharing documents, helping prepare when his interviews? When it was all over, these three men found it a law firm together.
▶ 1:51:50Mr. Epstein: It appears so.
▶ 1:51:52Sen. Cruz: Washington has a lot of revolving doors with this one spun from prosecution to profit. You did not take my word for it. Follow the money. Nathan wade, fani willis's special prosecutor and romantic partner billed georgia taxpayers $20,000 for six federal coordination meetings in 2022 loan.
▶ 1:52:23Sen. Cruz: Two with the white house. Three with the january 6 committee. One on that same day that jack smith was appointed special counsel. This was a coordinated, organized operation by the biden white house, the biden justice department and the democrat party to try to destroy their political opposition because they were terrified the voters would do what they did, which is november of 2024 reelect
▶ 1:52:55Sen. Cruz: President donald trump. This was the single greatest assault on democracy or nation has ever seen. Our democrat friends are not shy about saying they are defending democracy. Except when it comes to actually letting people vote. There they are willing to use all political power to stop people from voting. Nathan wade, under oath -- he was asked about every one of those meetings. Wade said I don't remember.
▶ 1:53:29Sen. Cruz: Anyone want to guess how many times? 58 times. His answer about that means was I don't remember. Mr. epstein, when a prosecutor can't remember something 58 times, what is it tell you?
▶ 1:53:42Mr. Epstein: The inferences is he's not telling the truth.
▶ 1:53:47Sen. Cruz: I think that's a fair inference. Should the architects of this scheme face criminal prosecution?
▶ 1:53:55Mr. Epstein: I certainly think there is a number of things to investigate the activities that occurred.
▶ 1:54:04Sen. Cruz: What bases come to mind?
▶ 1:54:08Mr. Epstein: The way in which they are was ignoring proper constitutional appointment of jack smith. The evidence of potential bias amongst some fbi agents in the washington field office. The ways in which there was coordination with the white house counsel's office.
▶ 1:54:28Mr. Epstein: Ways I think was inconsistent with the proper interpretation of the presidential records act and gave no ability for former president trump to assert constitutional privileges. The record shows the national archivist was biased and made referral to the fbi that were likely unauthorized, giving it through his inspector general.
▶ 1:54:52Mr. Epstein: The evidence this committee has shown shows there was unfortunate coordination for partisan motivation. These documents shocked the country.
▶ 1:55:07Sen. Cruz: Weaponizing the department justice for partisan ends to try to steal an election. Mr. clark, you are here because you have faced this subversion of justice not as a statistic but as a target. You are a at kirkland and ellis and spent 30 years as a lawyer, is that right?
▶ 1:55:32Mr. Clark: That is correct.
▶ 1:55:33Sen. Cruz: You drafted a memo raising election concerns. That memo was never sent, never enacted. Doj leadership rejected?
▶ 1:55:44Mr. Clark: That's correct.
▶ 1:55:44Sen. Cruz: In response to your writing a memo there was a predawn raid on your home with 12 agency ransacked your home for three and a half hours.
▶ 1:55:57Mr. Clark: That is correct and they took computers that have nothing to do with my legal work.
▶ 1:56:00Sen. Cruz: Georgia indictment arrest booking. Three years of concurrent proceedings from a federal scrutiny and litigation, hundreds of thousands in legal fees.
▶ 1:56:13Mr. Clark: Billions in legal phase. 5, 6 years of legal proceedings.
▶ 1:56:15Sen. Cruz: Last july, D.C. recommended your disbarment. Your 29-year law license potentially gone for writing a memo in the department of justice?
▶ 1:56:27Mr. Clark: For writing a privileged memo leaked by my political opponents.
▶ 1:56:32Sen. Cruz: Every democrat involved should be ashamed of the weaponization and the persecution that has occurred.
▶ 1:56:38Chair Schmitt: How want to thank the witnesses for their testimony today. Written questions for the record can be submitted until tuesday, april 28 at 5:00 p.m. We asked the witness is to submit the responses within two weeks, by tuesday, may 5, at 5:00 p.m.. This hearing is adjourned.