BREAKING: DOJ CONFIRMS Trump Was Directing Witness Tampering From White House

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]I said there ought to be serious changes within the management of BBC News. Uh clearly uh Mr. Davyy and Deborah Tess were watching Sky News and decided to quit. So it just goes to show what power you have. Uh I'm not in the least surprised, Jonathan. Always worse than the crime. Let me just take you back a little bit to the scandal involving Martin Bashier and the Princess Diana interview. The BBC has spent over1 million pounds of licensed payers money.

[00:00:32]>> All right, stop everything right now because the story of how Donald Trump used every tool available to him, his social media platform, his pardoning power, his public praise and public attacks, his inner circle of loyalists to pressure, intimidate, and shape the testimony of witnesses in investigations targeting his own conduct is one of the most thoroughly documented obstruction stories in the history of American presidential accountability. and Jack Smith told Congress about it directly under oath in a closed congressional deposition on December 17th of 2025 and then in his first public congressional testimony on January 22nd of 2026. Smith told the House Judiciary Committee that his investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in criminal activity that Trump resorted to crimes after the 2020 election to maintain his grip on power. And Smith told the committee directly that investigators had powerful evidence that Trump had willfully retained classified documents and tried to obstruct justice to hide that he had them. Powerful evidence of obstruction of justice from the prosecutor who spent two years building the cases.

[00:01:32]>> Extremely poor. If you compare that to somewhere like CNN, the Atlanta cable network, they are light years and have been light years ahead of us. So there's a lot of cleaning to be done. It has started this evening. The ability for you to turn on a BBC radio or a television set and know that whatever was being transmitted by news or current affairs was the truth. And we've got to get back to that. And that process, thank God, has started this evening.

[00:02:04]>> And Trump's response to Smith's January 2026 public testimony was itself one of the most revealing pieces of evidence about how the pressure campaign operated. After Smith testified, Trump posted on True Social, calling Smith a sick person who destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy and calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into Smith and some of crooked and corrupt witnesses. Calling on the sitting attorney general to investigate the prosecutor and the witnesses from his own cases while he is serving as president. That is not political commentary. That is the sitting president of the United States publicly calling on his justice department to go after the people who cooperated with investigations into his conduct. and it is documented in a true social post published while Trump was in office.

[00:02:46]This is wild. Can you believe this?

[00:02:48]Today we are going through the complete documented record of Trump's witness pressure campaign, the pardons, the attacks, the praise for loyalty, the documented obstruction evidence Smith found, and the extraordinary January 2026 moment when the prosecutor and the president were publicly confronting each other over the witnesses at the center of it all. Stay right here. But before we go any further, real quick, let's be honest. You can't really trust mainstream media anymore. That's why we built Pump Politics to bring you real stories, real context, and no corporate spin. If you want to stay ahead of the headlines, join our free newsletter.

[00:03:20]We'll send the news straight to your inbox every day. Just click the link in the description to join. And if you just want to support what we're doing, join us. Be part of the community that actually cares about the truth. All right, let's get back to the video. So, here is the complete foundation of what we are covering today. The documented record of Trump's conduct toward witnesses and cooperators in his legal cases falls into several distinct and documented categories. First, the pattern of publicly attacking witnesses and cooperators on social media and at rallies in ways that courts found constituted intimidation. Second, the documented dangling of pardons for associates who were facing criminal exposure and who might have been tempted to cooperate with investigators. Third, the public praise for loyalty and public contempt for cooperation. the documented pattern of calling people who refused to flip brave while attacking people who cooperated as rats and traitors. Fourth, the specific obstruction of justice evidence in the classified documents case where Smith told Congress investigators had powerful evidence that Trump tried to obstruct justice to hide that he had the documents. And fifth, the extraordinary post-election continuation of the pressure campaign, including the mass pardons of January 6th riers and the true social post attacking Smith and calling on Bondi to investigate witnesses. All happening after Trump returned to the White House with the full power of the presidency behind him. That five-part documented pattern is what we are going through today in complete detail. Let us build the full picture. All right, let us build the complete documented picture of Trump's witness pressure campaign.

[00:04:47]Because the full account assembled from Jack Smith congressional testimony, the Smith final report, court filings, the documented gag order violations, and Trump's own public statements is far more detailed and far more damning than most people have had presented to them in one complete account. So, let us go through it systematically. We start with the most direct piece of documentary evidence about obstruction. what Jack Smith told Congress about what his investigation found in his December 2025 closed dooror deposition before the House Judiciary Committee. Smith told lawmakers that his investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged criminal activity, not that there was evidence suggesting possible misconduct, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the legal standard for criminal conviction. Smith also told the committee that investigators had powerful evidence that Trump had willfully retained classified documents and tried to obstruct justice to hide that he had them. Powerful evidence of obstruction of justice from a prosecutor who was not given to overstatement, a public corruption specialist who had built careers prosecuting difficult evidence inensive cases involving powerful people and who had been specifically appointed to bring the same rigor to the Trump investigations. And when Smith testified publicly before the committee in January of 2026, he said directly, "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts, today I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or a Democrat." Those words under oath before Congress from the man who spent two years examining the evidence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, criminal activity. He would do it again. That is the documented foundation of everything else we are covering today. Come on. Are you kidding me? Now let us talk about the classified documents obstruction specifically because this is where the documented evidence of Trump personally directing obstruction activity is most detailed and most specific. The classified documents case produced some of the most specific alleged obstruction conduct documented in any of Trump's four indictments. The indictment filed in June of 2023 alleged that Trump and his codefendants took specific affirmative steps to hide documents from investigators after receiving a grand jury subpoena demanding their return.

[00:06:55]Specific prosecutors alleged that Trump directed his aid Walt Nada to move boxes of classified documents from the storage room at Mara Lago to Trump's personal residence before government officials arrived to retrieve them. that Trump's attorney showed investigators a signed certification, stating that all classified documents had been returned.

[00:07:12]When prosecutors alleged Trump knew this was false because documents have been hidden, that Trump told his attorney about classified documents he was hiding and directed efforts to conceal them from the government, directed his aid to move by his attorney to present false certifications and continue concealment of documents he knew the government was demanding. That is the specific alleged obstruction conduct that Smith's team documented across the 40count indictment. And when Smith told Congress his team had powerful evidence that Trump tried to obstruct justice to hide that he had the documents, he was summarizing a documented detailed specific course of conduct that involved personally directing specific people to take specific action designed to prevent investigators from obtaining evidence they had a legal right to receive. This is wild. like a sitting president's personal direction of document concealment documented in a federal indictment approved by a grand jury.

[00:08:04]Now, let us talk about the witness pressure pattern across Trump's cases.

[00:08:07]Because the obstruction story is not limited to document concealment, it extends across years of investigations and multiple cases through the documented mechanism of public pressure, praise for loyalty, attacks on cooperators, and the dangling and eventual granting of pardons. Trump's public relationship with potential witnesses and cooperators in his investigations has followed a remarkably consistent documented pattern. People who refused to cooperate with investigators who invoked their rights, stayed silent, or refused to flip, were praised publicly as brave, loyal, and strong. People who cooperated, who provided testimony, produced documents, or accepted plea deals that involve providing information about Trump were attacked publicly as rats, liars, criminals, and traitors. Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer who cooperated with investigators after his own prosecution, was attacked repeatedly and viciously on social media, at rallies, and in public statements. Trump called him a rat, a liar, a criminal, a disloyal, weak person. those attacks on a cooperating witness who was providing testimony that was used in multiple prosecutions were the subject of formal gag order proceedings in the hush money trial precisely because Judge Merchant found they posed a realistic risk of witness intimidation and witness influence. The attacks were not random political commentary. They were targeted and specific. They named individuals who were witnesses in active legal proceedings and they came with the amplification power of a platform with millions of followers who could and did direct harassment toward the named individuals. And then there are the pardons because the documented record of Trump's use of pardon power across his legal battles is the most direct institutional expression of the witness pressure campaign available. Throughout Trump's first term, associates who were convicted or who faced conviction and who might have been tempted to cooperate with investigators, received pardons or commutations. Roger Stone, convicted on seven counts, including witness tampering and obstruction, pardoned in December of 2020 after a Stone campaign characterized by public attacks on the investigation and loyalty maintenance throughout. Paul Maniffort, convicted on eight counts, and who had initially cooperated before ending cooperation, received a pardon. Michael Flynn, convicted of making false statements to the FBI, pardoned. The pattern across these pardons was visible to anyone watching. Loyalty to Trump meant protection. Cooperation with investigators meant public attack. And the pardons communicated to everyone in Trump's orbit who might be facing legal pressure. You do not need to cooperate to protect yourself. If you stay loyal, you will be protected. That implicit message conveyed through the specific pardons that were granted and the specific attacks that were mounted against cooperators is what Smith's team and Mueller's team before them described as a pattern of conduct that had the effect of witness influence even if each individual action was arguably legally protected. Are you kidding me? The consistent documented pattern of pardons for loyalists and attacks on cooperators spanning years across multiple investigations. That is the documented obstruction pattern. Now, let us talk about the January 6 mass pardons because this is where the witness pressure story takes its most extraordinary recent turn. On his first day back in office, January 20th of 2025, Trump granted clemency to all persons convicted of offenses related to events at the capital. On January 6th of 2021, all of them, including hundreds who had been accused or convicted of assaulting police officers, including people who had received substantial prison sentences after trials where juries found beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed serious violent crimes.

[00:11:29]Smith was asked about those pardons directly during his January 2026 congressional testimony. And he said, "The people who assaulted police officers and were convicted after trial are dangerous to their communities. Some of these people have already committed crimes against their communities. Again, I do not understand why you would mass pardon people who assaulted police officers. I do not understand from the prosecutor who built those cases, who assembled the evidence, who secured the convictions, who had powerful evidence that these were real crimes committed by real people who pose real risks to public safety. And every one of those convictions was erased by a presidential signature on inauguration day. The institutional message of that mass pardon to everyone who might have information about January 6th and about Trump's role in it was unmistakable.

[00:12:12]Trump protects the people who stay loyal. He erases the convictions of the people who were in the capital that day and those who cooperated with investigators, those who provided testimony, those who accepted plea deals in exchange for information. Those people are the ones Trump calls corrupt witnesses and asked Pam Bondi to investigate. And that brings us to the most extraordinary recent development in the witness pressure story, the January 2026 true social post that Trump published after Smith testified publicly before the House Judiciary Committee.

[00:12:40]Smith had testified that he had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in criminal activity, that he would bring the same charges again if faced with the same facts, that his investigations were driven by evidence and the law. And Trump responded by posting on True Social, calling Smith a sick person who destroyed many lives, and calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into Smith and some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses. the crooked and corrupt witnesses, the people who provided testimony to the investigators, the president of the United States publicly calling on his own justice department to investigate the witnesses from his own criminal cases while serving as president after having pardoned the January 6th defendants after having fired or driven out every DOJ employee who worked on the investigations. In March of 2026, Deputy AG Todd Blanch told the Conservative Political Action Conference that every Justice Department employee who had worked on the Trump investigations, over 200 people, according to Blanch, had departed. Every single one. Over 200 investigators, prosecutors, and support staff gone. While Trump publicly called the remaining witnesses crooked and corrupt, the documented sequence of mass pardons, DOJ employee purges, and calls to investigate witnesses is the most comprehensive institutional witness pressure operation in the history of the American presidency. And it is all documented in public statements, congressional testimony, and reporting from Reuters, Time, Alazer, and NPR.

[00:14:07]Okay, let us bring this all the way home right now. Fort completely developed honest points that give you the full picture of the witness pressure campaign, what the documented evidence shows and why it matters so enormously for American institutional accountability. Point one, Jack Smith's congressional testimony is the most authoritative public account of the obstruction evidence and it specific language deserves to be understood in its full weight. Here's what Smith actually said on the permanent congressional record about the obstruction and witness pressure conduct he documented in his December 2025 closed door deposition. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in criminal activity. In his January 2026 public testimony, powerful evidence that Trump willfully retain classified documents and tried to obstruct justice to hide that he had them. In his public statement before the committee, our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts, today I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or a Democrat. Those words, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, powerful evidence of obstruction of justice. I will bring the same charges again, are the formal testimony of the most qualified person who has ever spoken publicly about the evidence of Trump's obstruction conduct.

[00:15:19]not a partisan critic, not a political opponent. A career federal prosecutor who built public corruption cases for decades and who was specifically appointed to apply rigorous prosecutorial standards to the most significant political corruption investigation in modern American history. His testimony under oath before Congress on the permanent record is the most authoritative assessment of the obstruction evidence available and it says that the evidence met the standard for criminal conviction. Point two, the pardon pattern is the most institutionally alarming dimension of the witness pressure story because it used the constitutional pardon power itself as a mechanism for witness influence. Here is the documented significance of the pardon decisions across Trump's legal battles. The constitutional pardon power is one of the broadest presidential authorities in the American system. A president can pardon anyone for any federal offense for any reason or no reason. The power is essentially unreable and Trump used it systematically. Stone, Maniffort, Flynn, and eventually the January 6 mass pardon in ways that communicated a specific message to everyone in his orbit who might be facing legal pressure. You will be protected if you stay loyal. Your conviction will be erased if you do not cooperate. The legal system cannot touch you if Trump decides to use his pardon power on your behalf. That message conveyed through specific documented pardon decisions is exactly what Smith and Mueller's teams described as having the practical effect of witness influence even when each individual pardon was constitutionally within the president's authority. In the January 20th, 2025 mass pardon of January 6th defendants executed within hours of taking the oath of office was the most dramatic expression of that message in the entire documented record.

[00:16:56]Every person who had been convicted of crimes related to the capital attack, every person whose testimony might be relevant to understanding Trump's role.

[00:17:03]every person who might face pressure to cooperate with future investigators or congressional inquiries. All of them pardoned, all consequences erased on the first day of the second term. That is not a coincidence. That is a documented institutional act with documented witness influence consequences. Point three, the purge of over 200 DOJ investigators and prosecutors is the most direct and most consequential obstruction of ongoing investigations in the history of the American executive branch. Here is the full significance of the documented fact that deputy AG Todd Blanch told CPAC in March of 2026 that every DOJ employee who had worked on the Trump investigations, over 200 people had departed. Over 200 investigators, prosecutors, analysts, support staff, people who had spent years building the most complex and most significant political corruption cases in the modern era. every single one of them gone from a department now led by the man who served as Trump's personal criminal defense attorney and who is now the acting attorney general overseeing the same department. That purge documented in Blanch's own CPAC statement has institutional consequences that will be felt for years. The institutional knowledge of those investigations who the witnesses are what the evidence shows where the vulnerabilities in Trump's defenses are. Which witnesses provided the most valuable testimony walked out the door with those 200 people. The cases that were built over years of work are now orphaned. And the department that is supposed to be the institutional repository of that work is now led by people who have every incentive to ensure it is never used.

[00:18:31]That is not hypothetical obstruction.

[00:18:33]That is documented institutional comprehensive purging of the investigative infrastructure by the subject of those investigations himself.

[00:18:40]Point four. Trump's public call for Bondi to investigate the witnesses is the most direct contemporary expression of the witness pressure campaign and his publication. While Trump is serving president makes it the most significant single statement in the entire documented record, here is the biggest picture takeaway from everything we covered today. In January of 2026, after Jack Smith testified publicly under oath that he had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in criminal activity, Trump posted on True Social, calling on his attorney general investigate Smith and some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses. Those words, crooked and corrupt witnesses directed at the people who provided testimony to a federal investigation published by the sitting president of the United States on a public platform.

[00:19:21]While the witnesses they describe still have legal exposure to a justice department entirely controlled by Trump's own appointees, is the clearest possible contemporary expression. The pressure campaign, it is not a historical description of past conduct.

[00:19:34]It is real-time witness pressure happening now in 2026 from a man who has already pardoned the January 6th defendants, purged every investigator who worked on his cases, fired the attorney general who was supposed to enforce the law independently, and replaced her with his personal criminal defense attorney. The complete documented picture, Smith's testimony that the evidence was proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the pardon pattern, the 200 person purge, and the true social call to investigate witnesses is the most comprehensive documented account of presidential obstruction of justice in the history of the American republic. And every piece of it is verified. Every piece of it is public.

[00:20:09]Every piece of it is documented in congressional testimony, court records, and news reporting from the most credible news organizations in the world. And speaking of what comes next next video we are going somewhere that takes every threat of the obstruction and witness pressure story and asks the most urgent question it raises. When Trump leaves office in 2029 with the witnesses he has attacked still alive with the investigators who were purged still able to testify with the documentary evidence still in the record. Is there any realistic legal or institutional pathway to accountability for what the documented record shows happened? You are absolutely not going to want to miss that