Things got wild in the House Judiciary Committee when the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), sounded off on former special prosecutor Jack Smith and exposed the various obscene and absurd expenses that Smith’s office racked up during the investigation, including payoffs to J6 sources.
Such came when Smith appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday, January 22 and spoke to the lawmakers about his investigations into then-former President Donald Trump, which ended around when President Trump was inaugurated. Particularly at issue was the shaky testimony given by his witnesses, such as Cassidy Hutchinson.
At one point, for example, Rep. Jordan pressed Smith to describe how many taxpayer dollars he had spent on confidential sources that targeted the president. “How much more money did you pay confidential people, people we don’t know about, with American tax money, going after the guy we elected president?” Jordan angrily asked.
That came after Jordan, commenting on the immense expense of the investigation, asked Smith, “How much of that $35 million of taxpayer money did you give to confidential human sources?” The angry representative further added, as Smith tried not to give an answer, “We know you gave $20k to someone. It just got reported last week.”
Smith, shocked by the question, trying to pass off responsibility by claiming the payoff was related to something else, saying, “My recollection regards the $20 ,000, which was not a payment from me. It was me approving a payment by the FBI to a confidential human source who was reviewing video and photographic.”
Jordan had sunk his teeth in and wasn’t letting go. Pressing Smith on the matter, Jordan asked for the name of the source who got such a large payoff, asking as well about other potential payments to FBI sources that, up until now, have been confidential. Smith didn’t give an answer, instead vaguely saying that he didn’t deal with the day-to-day details of that sort.
Jordan then pressed him again, asking how many different sources he had paid off as part of the investigation. “How many other payments went to this source or other sources?”, he asked. Smith, looking more nervous and shocked by the minute, muttered, “As I sit here, I do not know the answer to that question[…]”
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Interjecting angrily, Rep. Jordan commented on the massive cost of the operation and Smith seemingly not even knowing where the money he was shelling out was going, saying, “$35 million and you’re giving money to people the country doesn’t know who they are and you’re giving their hard -earned money to these folks?”
Further, Jordan questioned why payoffs were being made at all, given that Smith was already subpoenaing so much information, and could have just requested it rather than spent so many taxpayer dollars. “Why did you have to pay people for information when you could subpoena them and get it?” Jordan asked.
Watch their angry House Oversight Committee exchange, and Smith looking quite nervous during the testy exchange, here:
Featured image credit: a screengrab from the embedded video