Jack Smith, a Simple Name

Jack is a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor at the center of the US Department of Justice case against US President Donald J. Trump. Now, nearly a year after the 47th US president took office and a New Year commences, Jack Smith’s deposition is released…

With the release of a closed-door December 17th interview before the House Judiciary Committee, Jack Smith’s testimony about the 2020 ‘riot’ at the US Capitol and its attempt to block the result of the presidential election has ‘gone public’. Jack’s legal testimony is a matter of record, one in response to a Congressional committee pursuing him and a report to the American people today and tomorrow.

Here, from the (redacted) deposition is the “legal heart of the case”:

Deposition of: Jack Smith

When Mr. Smith is asked directly whether Trump’s claims of election fraud were protected speech, protected by the US Constitution’s First Amendment, Jack answers with two words, then explains…

Q. But the President’s statements that he believed the election was rife with fraud, those certainly are statements that are protected by the First Amendment, correct?

Smith: Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.

Jack Smith goes on to explain when asked about other US presidential ‘disputed elections’ …

Q. There is a long history of disputed elections—1800, 1960, 2000—where candidates believed they were wronged… those statements are at the core of First Amendment rights, right?

Smith: There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case. As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate Federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. That he was not allowed to do.

This was, and remains, the legal heart of the Department of Justice case … matters of law, of free speech, and of the future of a democratic constitutional republic functioning “under the law”.

The history of the 2024 US election is in the history books but the full story is still to be felt.

As 2026 comes forward, and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, the question to be asked is how will history adjudicate the results of the 2024 US presidential election — and the consequences …

Perhaps the question to follow is that asked of a founder of the United States as he left Constitutional Hall in Philadelphia — Strategic Demands associate, Green Policy, reports Benjamin Franklin’s memorable words here… In Defense of Democracy and Freedom.

We recall a quote of Benjamin Franklin responding to a question in 1787 about the newly announced birth of the US as he left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention:

We have “a Republic, if you can keep it.”