Jim Jordan vs. Jack Smith: Hearsay, Lawfare, and the Weaponization of Justice
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan joins Sean Hannity to dismantle the credibility of the January 6 committee and special counsel Jack Smith. The conversation focuses on disputed testimony, second-hand hearsay, and why prosecutors ultimately backed away from key witnesses. Hannity and Jordan connect the dots to a broader pattern of political lawfare stretching back years, raising serious questions about civil liberties, accountability, and equal justice under the law. A must-hear breakdown of one of the most consequential political battles in America. Follow Sean and Our Guests on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeanHannity X (Twitter): https://x.com/seanhannity Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@SeanHannity See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour.
Here's our toll-free telephone number this Friday.
It's 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, Jim Jordan, absolute beatdown, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday of Jack Smith.
First, he went through an entire history.
I won't play that now, but of Jack Smith's activities.
And it is a devastating list.
And how it was always about politics with Jack Smith.
Now, one thing that really caught my attention was when specifically Jim Jordan is asking Jack Smith if he thinks that Cassidy Hutchinson was lying about lunging towards the steering wheel.
Remember the whole story mentioned 185 times in the January 6th report?
Cassidy Hutchinson didn't see anything with her own eyes.
She was a hearsay witness from the get-go.
The drivers of the car were asked and told investigators, no, Donald Trump never tried to commandeer the vehicle.
And here's Jordan asking Smith if he thinks Hutchinson was lying.
Listen.
Mr. Smith, is Cassidy Hutchinson a liar?
She was their star witness, January 6th Committee, their star witness in one of those staged and choreographed hearings they paid the former president of ABC News to put together.
She was, in fact, the only witness at this special prime time hearing Tuesday, June 28th, 2022, 8 o'clock in the evening.
And she told some stories.
I mean, these were some stories.
She talked about president lunged across the back seat, grabbed the steering wheel, tried to drive the car to the Capitol.
And I just want to know, you think she was lying?
Chairman Jordan, my assessment of that particular issue is that with respect to the testimony about someone lunging the president lunging towards the driver, my recollection of her testimony about that is that it was secondhand.
She said she'd heard that from somebody.
You familiar with the name Tony Ornado?
I'm sorry.
Are you familiar with the name Tony Ornado?
Yes.
White House Deputy Chief of Operations, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, right?
Remember what he said about it?
As I sit here right now, I do not.
Yeah, he said it didn't happen.
How about Bobby Engle?
You familiar with that name?
Yes, I am.
Secret Service agent who was actually in the car that day.
You know what he said?
He said it didn't happen.
And they both said the first time they ever heard this story was when Ms. Hutchinson testified in the primetime hearing as their star witness of the January 6th Committee.
Now, Jim Jordan, not one to ever back off or back down.
Then he gets Jack Smith to say that he would have precluded Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony because it was hearsay.
And then he slammed Jack Smith over considering using Cassidy Hutchinson as a witness, even though everyone knew she was lying.
Let me play all of that for you.
It's really worth it.
And you also said Ms. Hutchinson regarding this particular claim was a second or even third-hand witness.
We asked you, if you were a defense attorney, how would you handle cross-examining her if she was on the witness stand?
And you said, if I were a defense attorney, Ms. Hutchinson were a witness, the first thing I would do was seek to preclude her testimony because it was hearsay.
You remember saying all that?
Yes, that's correct, sir.
That's correct, right?
Were you going to put her on the witness stand if you ever got to trial?
We had not made final determinations as to who we were going to call as a witness.
We had a large.
You were still considering her?
We had a large choice of witnesses in this.
Are you familiar with what Washington Post reporters Carol Lenning and Aaron Davis said in their book?
They did this book, 300-some pages book on Chronicle and the whole investigation of the Justice Department.
And here's what they said on page 310.
They said Jack Smith had wondered whether some of Hutchinson's claims might be relied upon at trial.
Still, at one point, Smith told the elections team he wasn't ready to give up on Hutchinson's account.
Ultimately, however, Trump administration officials uniformly, fiercely disputed her accounts under oath.
Prosecutors on your team told Smith they wouldn't want to use Hutchinson as a witness in court, and Smith agreed.
Are Carol Lenig and Aaron Davis who wrote this?
Are they lying?
My recollection is that I certainly had not made any final determinations about who we were going to call her.
And that's the point.
That is the point.
The fact that they used her in a primetime hearing and you won't rule out using her or didn't rule out using her, putting her on the witness stand when everybody knows she wasn't telling the truth.
That says it all.
That's the degree the left and Democrats were willing to go to get President Trump putting on the witness stand someone everybody knows is making it up.
Everybody knows that.
All right, joining us now is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, our friend Jack Smith.
While you're on your A game, you know, today, great job, sir.
Thank you, Sean.
Good to be with you.
Yeah, I think you said it right.
It was always about politics.
And I don't know if you can see any difference between Jim Comey, Alvin Bragg, Bonnie Willis, and then sort of the culmination of this decade-long effort to go after President Trump, Jack Smith.
It was all in the same vein, so much so that he, as you pointed out, Sean, was willing to use Cassidy Hutchinson.
He hadn't ruled out putting her on the witness stand, if in fact he ever got to trial.
Someone that the whole country knows wasn't telling the truth when she was in that primetime hearing for the January 6th committee.
Didn't she also revise her testimony later?
Well, she's revised it several times because I think the General Assistance Committee brought her in like three or four times and to meet with her and do a deposition with her.
So it's been all over the place.
And then when they finally got it, it seems to me, when they finally got her to say these things that she said, that the president dove over the seat, grabbed the steering wheel, started turning the wheel towards the car.
I mean, like all this stuff.
And I was like, nobody.
In fact, I asked Jack Smith, I said, did anybody confirm what she said?
And his answer was, no, no one confirmed it.
And he admitted, as you pointed out, Sean, in his deposition one month ago that we took, Jack Smith admitted that it was second and thirdhand hearsay.
And we specifically asked him, if you were a defense lawyer and you had to cross-examine Ms. Hutchinson at trial, what would you do?
He said, the first thing I would do was move to have it, you know, precluded because it's hearsay.
So yet he was still considering putting her on the witness stand, hadn't ruled her out.
That's how much they were focused on doing anything and everything to get President Trump.
You know, it was fascinating to me.
Jack Smith said that he thinks that he's going to be indicted.
You went through his history of his activities, and I want you to create a synopsis for people so they fully understand.
I always thought I was good at lists, but I think you're much better than I am because your memory is incredible.
I'm not better than the guy who's got the longest running shows in radio and TV history.
So I know that.
It just means I'm old.
But go through Jack Smith's history.
Because it was always about politics and why this is so imperative that this man be held accountable.
Well, first of all, he was slapped down by several courts.
There was the Pellet Court on the gag order.
There was Judge Eileen Cannon who threw out the whole classified documents case because Jack Smith was never properly appointed because he was never confirmed for any position he ever held in the federal government by the Senate.
And so she threw that case out.
And then, of course, the immunity decisions on the United States Supreme Court.
So he got slapped down by a number of courts.
But if we could just focus in on the one in particular, because the Washington Post editorial page did an editorial on this and they said Jack Smith blows a hole in the First Amendment.
The gag order he got on President Trump that went to the three judge appellate court and three Democrats said, no, no, no, we got to change this dramatically.
You can't limit what the former president, now candidate for president, gets to say.
So that to me was the most egregious.
He so wanted to get the president, so wanted to frame this, so wanted to impact the elections.
He went and put a gag order on the guy.
We've elected president twice while he's running for the job.
That's the essence of the First Amendment: people running for political office get to say things, and you can't stop that.
That's how, I mean, the Washington Post, of all people, of all entities, did that editorial.
So that's how.
Well, the idea, he knew there were one, was there one or two people that had firsthand knowledge, for example, that Donald Trump did not try to commandeer the vehicle that was driving him on that day?
Yes.
Tony Ornado, Deputy Chief of Staff at Head of Operations, and then the guy in the car, Bobby Ingle.
And they interviewed both of them and they said it didn't happen.
More importantly, they both said the first time they ever heard this, this story, this whopper of a story, was when Cassidy Hutchinson testified at that primetime hearing choreographed by the former head of ABC News that the January 6th Committee put together.
I mean, this whole staged effort, that's the first time they ever heard of it.
And they're looking at each other like, this is the dumbest thing we've ever heard.
So again, now all of these records are gone.
How did Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney get away with getting rid of those records?
And is there any evidence that maybe they were working in conjunction with people that they were bringing in?
Here's what I know.
When we deposed Jack Smith last month, we made available the transcript and the video of that entire seven-hour deposition.
But somehow it's tough for us to see all the video they took of their depositions, the January 6th Committee.
So again, it seems like Republicans always follow the rule, follow the laws, follow what we're supposed to do.
Procedure and protocol don't always seem to get the same from the other side.
Do you think that there is a possibility of a violation of law and civil rights by Jack Smith and his team against President Trump?
Well, I'll say it this way, Sean.
We've deposed both Jack Smith and a number of his assistants, Mr. Cooney, Mr. Bratt, Mr. Wyndham.
We actually did a criminal referral.
You and I have talked about this before.
We don't do these criminal referrals just willy-nilly.
The facts have to be there.
But we did it for Mr. Wyndham, who took the fifth 71 times, was trying to obstruct our investigation.
And so we've sent that to the Justice Department.
What they may do with that and or Jack Smith, that is a call for Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, and the team over there, a good team over there.
Pam and Todd are doing great work.
But I leave that call to them.
Our job is to get the facts, do the oversight that the Constitution requires, and then get information to the Justice Department if we think it's appropriate and let them do their job.
And that's where we're at right now.
All right, quick break more with the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on the other side.
Your call's coming up: 800-941-Sean as we continue this Friday.
All right, we continue.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is with us after the hearing with Jack Smith yesterday.
So I know the Department of Justice, I know Kash Patella said publicly that they're looking into a grand conspiracy going all the way back to 2016, straight on through this last election in 2024,
and that there was abuse of deep state operatives and people within law enforcement to destroy Donald Trump, knowing that what they were saying and doing was not just, not accurate, not fair, not true, and a violation.
For example, Lindsey Graham responded to the hearing yesterday and said he's going to sue Jack Smith for taking his phone records.
You had your phone records taken, and so did many other senators and other elected officials.
Do you have a case?
Does Lindsey have a case?
Well, I mean, maybe Lindsey wants to go after his carrier, Verizon or ATT.
I don't plan to do any of that, but maybe he does.
What we're focused on is how we can change the law to make sure that this doesn't happen to other Americans.
We want to stop this weaponization.
You've been on the receiving end of this and that all this 10-year effort, this decade-long effort to go after President Trump.
They've come after some of your stuff before as well.
And things you've tweeted.
They've had thousands of my personal text messages that they never got from me that they released publicly without my permission.
By the way, some of them with you.
I know.
I know.
So that's how bad this was.
And it's one of the things I highlighted yesterday.
So bad that Jack Smith wanted to get the president so much so that he was willing to, 16 days after Kevin McCarthy becomes Speaker of the House, go get his phone records.
I mean, the number two guy to the president, the guy who's the top Republican in government, knows that they know that the Biden Smith Justice Department knows who Kevin talked to, when he talked to him, who called him, when he called them, how long the call lasted.
They get all that information and they put in the subpoena to get the gag order so he doesn't even know about it.
They put in that subpoena.
He's a flight risk.
You got to be kidding me.
He's a speaker to house.
Holy cow.
So that's how ridiculous this all was.
And the good news is the American people saw through it.
And yesterday, I think they saw that, yes, Jack Smith was just a continuation of this decade-long weaponization lawfare activity against the president.
Let me ask you this: Do you think a grand conspiracy can be proven?
Because that would eliminate the statute of limitations.
I think there is strong evidence for that.
And this is broader than just what we've covered here in the effort, but it goes to, I think, even like Brennan and Clapper and these individuals and what they did with the dossier.
When you and I first got focused on all this, and frankly, it was just you and a couple people in the journalism world and about half a dozen of us here in Congress.
It was a small team.
But we started figuring out, like, wait a minute, this is all BS.
And it was driven by what Brennan did with the intelligence community assessment.
We've actually referred him, by the way, to the Justice Department because we know he lied to us last Congress when we deposed him in a different issue.
But we asked about the dossier and he told us things that were not accurate.
And that's because, and we know that because of what Tulsi Gabbard put forward this past summer with the report that talks about that initial intelligence community assessment used way back in 2016.
Unbelievable.
Great work, though.
We're very grateful for all you do.
And I hope some of these people can be held accountable.
It's sad that the statute of limitations on so many issues and so many corrupt individuals has passed.
The only way to get over that would be a grand conspiracy.
That's very hard to prove, but we'll watch.
Anyway, Jim Jordan, thank you.
Appreciate you.
By the way, you're going to have snow in Ohio.
You ready for a lot of snow?
Well, yeah.
But we're actually flying to, I'm actually flying to Texas where they're going to have lots of ice, I guess.
And we'll see how that goes.
You're going to have snow and ice in Texas, too.
I mean, it's pretty much all across the country except my free state of Florida.
Dogs and Taxes Debate00:09:58
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Well, have a great, have a great weekend and always good to be with you.
Take care.
All right, Jim Jordan, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right.
Let's get to our busy phones, shall we?
Carol in Arizona.
Happy Friday.
Carol, glad you called.
Happy Friday.
I'm so happy with you.
Pleasure is all mine.
Glad you called.
I'm glad I did too.
First of all, I applaud you.
I watch your show.
You are DVR every night, just so you know that.
By the way, thank you.
And please, everyone, always set your DVR because you're going to hear about a segment.
You're going to wish, oh, I wish I saw that.
And then you can go back and see it.
I absolutely.
And you're on twice a night here.
At any rate, there's no snow here either.
At any rate, honey, what you did last night with this woman from the docks?
I don't know where she's from.
Peter?
The PETA lady, yeah.
That's pretty crazy.
I applaud you.
I applaud you for what you said, not letting her get a word out, except one exception, and only one, and you missed it.
And I wish you would go back tonight on television and say this.
What she said is rather than, I don't care who bought dogs for whom, rather than buy the dogs, adopt them.
And the reason I say that is my children, my son and daughter-in-law, for 30 plus years have been adopting greyhounds.
They have three and four at a time.
And because those dogs are so abused when they are racing, they get them when they're like three years old after the track.
And the adoption is the part that you missed.
Everything else, you were spot on.
It's a disgrace what she is doing, an absolute disgrace.
Well, look, I don't care if, for example, I like a particular breed now that I'm actually thinking about getting another dog.
I haven't had one in a while.
I love dogs and I'm fascinated with border collies because they're the smartest dogs out there.
And it might make me walk more than I normally would, which I think would be good for me.
But they're so smart.
But I, you know, and Lawrence Jones, who works on Fox and Friends, I mean, he's very active in the dog community training.
I mean, he trains dogs to be killers.
I mean, it's amazing what he does.
And it's a passion of his, and I admire him for it.
And I said, if I gave you a dog to train, would you be able to like train it so it listens to everything I say, every command?
And he goes, yeah, like that's, that's a no-brainer.
I said, now don't turn it into one of your killer dogs.
He started laughing.
So, but I don't care where you get a dog.
They were critical of Kim Kardashian giving her children, I think she has four kids, puppies for Christmas.
Now, little children love the puppies.
Little children are going to hug the puppies.
They're going to walk the puppies.
They're going to sleep with the puppies.
And the puppies are going to lick them and be happy.
And they'll be happy when they're played with and when you feed them and wash them and take good care of them.
Now, then I can challenged her because PETA has killed shelters.
And for example, I brought up the issue in Virginia because they have to release the statistics publicly.
67% of the dogs they take in, they euthanize.
They murder them.
This is PETA complaining about, you know, those of us that eat meat and chicken and beef and pork.
And they've institutionalized murdering dogs while they're older.
Well, you don't know how long a dog's going to live.
That's up to God.
You're not God.
Here's a little bit of that exchange.
Let me read.
This came from Grock.
Apparently, PETA files with the VDACS the year 2024.
You took in a whopping in your shelter 3,317 animals, dogs, cats, and other companion animals.
Is that true?
It is true.
We run a shelter of last resort in Virginia where people in desperate need bring us their animals.
And is it true, Ashley, that you euthanize 67% of them?
Well, people are bringing in animals asking them to euthanize them because they are in desperate poverty.
And these animals are sick.
I know you're trained well by PETA communications teams.
Here's my question.
You destroyed, you murdered 67% of the shelters.
67%.
We're giving up ourselves at the end of our lives.
And we're fortunate to be able to pay to do so.
We're fortunate to be able to kill little puppies and dogs.
I'm like, I couldn't believe it when I researched that.
But I hear what you're saying.
I'll tell you what I'll do, Carol.
We'll invite Ashley on this program next week.
We'll have a little shootout on the show, okay?
In your honor.
Anyway, Carol, appreciate it.
Good call.
You have a great weekend.
Let us say hello to Glenn in Florida, my free state.
What's up, Glenn?
How are you?
Yeah, hi.
I'm glad you took my call.
Listen, I have a real issue with the incident that happened at the church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
You know, I think that all religious organizations need to unite and denounce and condemn the deplorable actions of the left-wing lunatic activists that did the protesting at that church.
I think if the left-wing heretics are not held accountable and get away with this, I really, in my heart, I believe that it's going to be the beginning of the end of our country.
Because if you take away our religious rights, there's no reason to be in this country.
And, you know, I think we're going to be like a sheep being led to slaughter if they're allowed to persist.
So I just hope the FACE Act.
Now, liberals, and this is what Keith Ellison was trying to argue, but he purposely distorted the law.
And because the FACE Act, yes, it does protect people's rights to go into a clinic and in some cases get an abortion.
It does protect the rights to do that.
But it also specifically allows that you cannot, you know, injure, intimidate, interfere by force, threat of force, physical obstruction against anyone exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.
That is the provision in the law that I think is going to stick.
And if you don't have an abusively corrupt and biased judge, they'll get convicted.
Yeah, well, that's what I'm afraid of.
I'm afraid that if there are biased judges and the left are actually able to prevail in doing this ever again, again, it's going to be a sharp decline for America.
And I think it's going to, like I said, I think it's going to be the beginning of the end of America once they start taking our religious rights away from us.
I mean, our God-given rights.
That's just how I feel.
And I wanted to express that.
Thanks.
All right, my friend.
Thank you.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Chris in Maryland.
Hey, Chris, how are you?
I'm good.
How you doing, man?
I'm good.
Happy Friday.
Yeah, you too.
Thanks for everything you do, man.
You are a great American for sure.
You too, my friend.
What's going on?
Thanks, man.
Hey, I just wanted to call attention to the fact that I think it's kind of ironic since only half the country pays any income taxes.
I doubt all these people out there protesting actually have real jobs.
And so basically, they're just protesting for the other half of us who are working to pay for all the people they want to see here.
Thought that's kind of ironic and silly.
You know, it really is frustrating to me.
And California is a great case in point because you have more illegals in California, I believe, than any other state by far.
I mean, their sanctuary, city, and state policies entice people, but taxpayers are on the hook.
They're paying for their medical care.
They're paying for their education.
In many cases, they're paying for welfare benefits and other taxpayer-funded goodies.
And at some point, I mean, when you're the highest, have the highest income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, and now you're chasing billionaires out of your state because you want to confiscate 5% of their entire net worth and wealth.
They're all leaving and you want to do it retroactively.
And that's on the ballot in November in California.
You can't destroy a state more than Gavin Newsome has destroyed California.
We actually have Ron DeSantis on tonight.
We're going to go back and maybe pull some clips from when Gavin debated Ron DeSantis on my TV show because it was such a, you know, there is a clear, clear choice in terms of ideology governing philosophy.
And Florida is so different.
They don't have a state income tax in Florida.
They don't have high gas taxes in Florida.
They're even trying to eliminate property taxes in Florida.
And that'll be a referendum coming up on the ballot in November, or at least, you know, roll it back to pre-COVID levels because that then becomes a big payment for people because property values, because so many people have migrated to Florida, out of places like California and New York, that it's, it becomes too cost-prohibitive for people.
So they're looking for relief.
And I think Governor DeSantis will be successful in that effort.
So it's, it's just sad.
When you had Newsom on your program that time, it showed how vulnerable he is because he doesn't do debates.
And it just showed that he really didn't know what he was talking about.
Ron DeSantis basically cleaned the floor with him.
New York's Concealed Carry Conundrum00:03:47
It was awesome, man.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And then they got mad at me because I did my research.
They never once questioned the facts that I put on the screen.
California's taxes.
Here's Florida's taxes.
California's gas prices.
Florida's gas prices.
Homeless rate in California.
Homeless rate in California in both states.
I put them all up there together.
You know, crime statistics.
I went down the list and they were mad because every statistic from California looked atrocious compared to Florida.
Anyway, that was a fun thing to do.
Thank you, Chris.
Have a good weekend.
God bless you.
Stay out of the snow.
Dave in New Jersey.
Dave, you ready for the snow?
Hey, Sean, how you doing today?
I'm good, buddy.
Just go to your store, get your provisions.
Don't overstock.
Leave some for the rest of the people that need to get stuff.
And, you know, be ready to hunker down, watch a little football, chill out this weekend, okay?
Get some extra beer.
No, I'm not a panicker, Sean.
I got everything I need.
I don't panic to the stores.
So, but I do want to say that you are a total confirmation to all us conservatives out there watching your show at night, the radio show.
It's really great for us.
So I just want to let you know that.
It's great that I get to do what I love and that you give me this microphone on that camera.
I'm very grateful.
Yeah, well, we are too.
So anyway, I wanted to ask you: are you a concealed carry owner?
Can you?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, in every state I've lived in, New York, Rhode Island, California, Alabama, Georgia, now Florida, I always have a concealed carry permit.
I have one now, yes.
Right.
So do I.
So I was wondering, because one of the things that one of the things Trump said was he was going to try to make a reciprocity from state to state for, you know, concealed carry.
And I haven't seen that yet.
Do you know anything about that?
About the nationwide concealed carry.
My understanding is, you know, the laws, like, for example, in New York, have been lessened.
But what I'm also hearing from friends of mine in New York, it's one thing that a court decision allows people that right.
And it's another thing to expect a leftist state like New York to actually abide by the laws of the land.
It's unbelievable, actually.
Yeah, because I live a quarter mile from New York, and I can't carry there.
Yeah.
Well, look, the only reason I got a concealed carry in New York City, which applies to the whole state, is I'll be very blunt, because of the threat level and the number of threats that I had.
And at that point, they can't deny you a weapon when you can prove that you have real threats.
I even had a fatwa in my head at one point.
Without going into too much detail, look, if you're in the public eye, you get political opinions, they're going to be people that don't like you.
I've always accepted that risk and understand it, but I also try to protect myself and I'm careful where I go and who I'm with.
And I try to protect others around me as well.
And I never want that confrontation.
Never.
If I was on video running away from a confrontation looking like a coward because I knew I could win that confrontation, I don't care.
I'd rather look like a coward because I'm confident in my situational self-defense skills, which I've been training in 15 years and my firearm skills.
But I never, ever want to go there, ever.
Never Want That Confrontation00:00:55
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern, Fox News, the Attorney General Pam Bondi on the Church Invaders in Minnesota.
Also, Ron DeSantis takes on Gavin Newsom again.
He's not going to let this go, well, unreported on in the right way.
Stephen Miller tonight, the great one Mark Levin, Kevin Cork, Jimmy Phela.
We'll have complete weather updates throughout the show, considering this is going to impact 34 states.
Nine Eastern, set your DVR so you never, ever, ever miss an episode.