Politics
Here’s what stands out in Jack Smith’s 1,889 page appendix
When it comes to legal briefs, I can be a speed reader. But where evidence is concerned, I always prefer to take a more focused, methodical review where I can.
As of Friday afternoon, I’m continuing to pore over all 1,889 pages of the newly released, heavily redacted appendix of special counsel Jack Smith’s brief defending his superseding indictment of former President Donald Trump. But in the few hours since Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered its release, I’ve found several things that stand out already.
What I have reviewed — and the limited amount we can see — reveals that Smith alternately intends to play it safe and take risks as Chutkan assesses which of the allegations and evidence from the superseding indictment should remain in the case.
[It’s] inexplicable that the witness names are redacted, especially as the dates of the interviews are not.
First, the unsealed content within the first volume of 720-plus pages is excerpted testimony and interviews from the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation. With one notable exception — which I’ll address — those transcripts have long been public.
That makes it all the more inexplicable that the witness names are redacted, especially as the dates of the interviews are not. That means each witness can be identified through both the dates of their interview or deposition and a comparison of the substance of their comments to public versions of the transcripts.
Specifically, the special counsel’s appendix includes portions of interviews with the following, who appear in alphabetical order: former Attorney General Bill Barr, who resigned in late December 2020; former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers; former Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark; former senior Trump White House aide Kellyanne Conway, who left the Trump administration months before the election; Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman; Stephanie Grisham, former chief of staff to Melania Trump; White House speechwriter Vincent Haley, who helped draft the Ellipse speech; Chris Hodgson, then Vice President Mike Pence’s chief aide in the Senate; Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob; Jan. 6 rally organizer Amy Kremer; then-senior campaign adviser Jason Miller; then-campaign adviser Katrina Pierson; Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; former Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey; former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien; White House speechwriter Ross Worthington, who also contributed to the Ellipse speech; and former Trump fundraiser Caroline Wren, who later advised grocery heiress Julie Fancelli on where to direct her money in the post-election period.
What’s most interesting about this group collectively — but also advisable in the wake of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling — is that the vast majority of these witnesses were not executive branch employees, but instead were private citizens, campaign staff or state officials Trump tried to influence. Those who did work within the executive branch — Barr, Jacob, two White House speechwriters and Grisham — were included likely because they observed or participated in an overtly political act, event or conversation or because their own decision-making or communications with others (as with the circumstances surrounding Barr’s resignation, which he discusses in the portion of his interview excerpted) provide context for understanding Trump’s own intent or knowledge.
Now, for that exception: As Blue Light News’s Kyle Cheney observed on X, one interview was provided with fewer redactions than were previously in the public domain. Specifically, earlier this year, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., released a redacted version of the June 10, 2022, interview that a still-unnamed White House valet provided to the Jan. 6 committee.
The version that begins at page 169 of the first volume, however, reveals that the valet, who acknowledged that “sometimes I just don’t know how to deal with my emotions,” had a critical interaction with Trump during the early afternoon of Jan. 6. At 1:21 p.m. ET, the valet notified Trump, who was eager to see footage of his Ellipse speech, that he was not able to record it all because live TV “cut off” coverage in order to show the “rioting down at the Capitol.” According to the valet, Trump then walked straight to the Oval dining room to “go see” for himself as the valet removed Trump’s overcoat, set up the TV, and handed him the remote, at which point the valet left to retrieve Trump’s beloved Diet Coke while Trump “s[aw] it” — meaning the mounting violence at the Capitol — “for himself.”
The version that Loudermilk released in the name of “complete transparency,” however, curiously redacts many of those details.
But, of course, those are just the witnesses whose statements we can see. And while Volume 3 of the appendix contains the cover and several highlighted pages from Pence’s book “So Help Me God,” actual testimony from Pence is nowhere to be found. Or is it merely hiding in plain sight? After all, there are nearly 100 pages of fully sealed material (GA 387-481, for those following along at home) between the apparent end of the excerpt of Miller’s Jan. 6 committee deposition and the start of the portion of Pierson’s transcribed interview. And alphabetically, what, or rather who, falls between them? Pence.
But don’t take it just from me. Smith’s immunity brief recounts, in bulleted form, a series of conversations between Pence and Trump, at pages 12-14. In some cases, Smith cites Pence’s book as a source. But Smith more often credits pages from the government’s appendix within the same range I identified above. And that likely means Smith has ample testimony from Pence about his many post-election conversations with Trump about its outcome — and whether either of them had any reason to doubt or try to change it.
Whether we’ll ever read that testimony, however, is unclear. And before we ever get to courts’ analyses of whether, during the conversations he likely testified to, Pence was functioning as Trump’s adviser, rendering the evidence inadmissible, or his running mate, making it fair game, the bigger determining factor seems to be the outcome of this election.
Lisa Rubin is an BLN legal correspondent and a former litigator. Previously, she was the off-air legal analyst for “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Alex Wagner Tonight.”
WASILLA, Alaska — Three weeks out from Election Day, President Donald Trump took a helicopter to a plane to another helicopter to a motorcade to an ice hockey rink in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley, traversing nearly 4,000 miles over more than eight hours to turn out his base here to help Republicans defend the Senate.
But Trump’s trek might not be enough to save Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s running in a tougher-than-expected race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a state where the president’s approval rating is underwater and independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.
Alaska strategists and voters who spoke to Blue Light News acknowledged that Sullivan faces a difficult path to reelection, despite Trump’s time investment and the outside money pouring in.
“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse.”
Even some Trump supporters at the Tuesday night rally admitted the outlook appeared bleak.
“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” said Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.
What did he wish the president would do differently? “I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.
The president was in Wasilla — population 10,556 — because the outlook is darkening for his party in a state he carried by 13 points just two years ago. In a midterm year defined by the cost of gas and groceries, the Last Frontier has been hit particularly hard, with the average price of diesel nearing $7 per gallon. In the Senate race, Peltola is flush with cash and leads Sullivan in most polls. MAGA Inc., the cash-rich Trump-aligned super PAC, is increasingly focusing on Alaska as one in a slate of states that can help Republicans hold the Senate.
Enter Trump, who has been spending the cycle’s crucial final weeks holding rallies in red states to juice support among his base, which tends to see depressed turnout in years when he’s not on the ballot.
“That was a lot of flying,” the president said at the top of his remarks. “In fact, they were thinking about canceling. They said, ‘Sir, you’re very busy, this is very tough.’” But, Trump continued, he refused to cancel for a state he won three times.
Echoing his comments at other red-state rallies, Trump asked the roaring crowd for “one big favor” — to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win.” He repeated his promise that Americans will receive $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold both chambers.
“What this is about is getting out the vote,” Sullivan told reporters before Trump’s speech. “A rising tide of enthusiasm lifts all the candidates.”
Unlike some other Republican candidates in tight races, Sullivan has shied away from distancing himself from the least popular aspects of Trump’s presidency.
Sullivan proclaimed on stage at the rally that “the conflict in the Middle East is temporary. The true forever war is the national Democrats’ war against Alaska oil and gas and our jobs.” And although a campaign aide released a statement condemning Trump’s move to import Russian diesel, Sullivan did not join four of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Murkowski, who called on Trump to reverse the decision.
Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska, said that “most of the people who support” Sullivan “think that he should” break more with the president.
Hackney, who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” attributed that choice to loyalty — but suggested the president’s demand of fealty, and treatment of frequent dissenter Murkowski, could also be part of Sullivan’s calculus.
“A lot of his longtime supporters and the people who are in the industries that would benefit from that wish he would be more blunt,” Hackney said. “But with what Murkowski has done, if Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”
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Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.
Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.
One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.
Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”
Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.
Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.
The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.
“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”
As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.
“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.
Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.
“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.
In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.
NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”
Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.
The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.
“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”
Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.
“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”
The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.
Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.
He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.
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