Capitol ERUPTS as Prosecutor CONFIRMS Trump Directed January 6th Directly

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:01]It's no coincidence then that President Trump finally gave in and went out to the Rose Garden at 4:03.

[00:00:10]His staff prepared a script for him to read, but he refused to use it.

[00:00:16]As you can see on the screen, you can see the script is stamped "President has seen."

[00:00:21]The script said, quote, "I'm asking you to leave the capital region now and go home in a peaceful way."

[00:00:27]The president was urged to stick to this script, but he spoke off the cuff.

[00:00:33]Eric Herschmann and Nick Luna went with the president to film the message in the Rose Garden.

[00:00:38]Let's hear what they had to say and see the never-before-seen raw footage of the president recording this video message.

[00:00:51]All right, stop everything you are doing right now because what I am about to tell you has been documented, verified, put on the congressional record, and published in a 137-page federal report. And yet, most Americans still do not fully understand the complete picture of what the special counsel's investigation actually found about Donald Trump's role in January 6th. This is not political commentary.

[00:01:12]This is not cable news opinion. This is what Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to investigate the most serious attempt to overturn an American presidential election in the history of this republic, told the United States Congress under oath in a deposition conducted on December 17th of 2025, his exact words on the official congressional record published and released publicly, "The January 6th attack at the Capitol does not happen without Trump." Those words from the mouth of the federal prosecutor who spent 2 years building a criminal case against the most powerful political figure in American life. And he said more than that. He said Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. He said the crimes were committed for Trump's benefit. He said the other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. and he said that had it not been for Trump's 2024 election victory, which triggered the Justice Department's long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the evidence was strong enough to secure a conviction at trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

[00:02:11]Those are the words he used to lawmakers on the record in a congressional deposition. This is wild. Are you kidding me? The federal prosecutor who built the case against Trump looking lawmakers in the eye and saying, "We have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the only reason this man is not a convicted federal criminal for January 6th is because he won an election that ended the prosecution." That is the documented reality that most people have never had fully explained to them. And today, we are going through every single piece of it, the final report, the congressional deposition, the court filings, the specific evidence, the so-what moment, all of it. So, stay right here because the most important documented account of January 6th that has ever been made public. 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.

[00:03:03]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.

[00:03:15]Please welcome the front runner for the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump. Overnight, former President Donald Trump, the Republican front runner, showing voters he hasn't changed. Mr. Trump again pushing lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election he lost, and going further in his support of people convicted of crimes related to the January 6th attack on the capital. I am inclined to uh pardon many of them. I can't say for every single one because a couple of them probably they got out of control. I would say it will be a large portion of them. You know, they did a very >> [applause] >> And it'll be very early on. The former president also describing his supporters who attacked the capital on that day, which left five people dead, this way.

[00:04:02]So here is the full foundation of what we are covering today. Special counsel Jack Smith was appointed to investigate two separate matters involving Donald Trump, the January 6th attack and the alleged interference with the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office. He spent approximately two years building both cases. He obtained a grand jury indictment on four federal felony counts related to the January 6th case, conspiring to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding and two related conspiracy charges. He obtained a separate 37-count indictment related to the classified documents. And then Trump won the 2024 presidential election. And the Justice Department's long-standing policy, which says that sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office, required Smith to drop both cases before Trump was inaugurated. He did. Both cases were formally dismissed. And on January 7th of 2025, Smith published his final report. 137 pages documenting the evidence his office had gathered, the legal theories underlying the charges, and his assessment of what the trial would have produced if Trump had not won the election. And then on December 17th of 2025, Smith testified in a closed-door congressional deposition before the House Judiciary Committee.

[00:05:13]And the transcript of that deposition, released publicly, is one of the most extraordinary documents in the history of American political accountability.

[00:05:21]Because it contains a federal prosecutor saying on the record, in the clearest possible terms, that the capital attack does not happen without Trump. That he was the most culpable person. That the evidence was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that the only reason he is not in prison is because he won an election. So stay right here. Part two is where we go through every specific piece of that evidence in complete detail. All right. Let us go all the way into what Jack Smith actually found and what the court filings, the final report, and the congressional deposition actually document about Trump's role in January 6th.

[00:05:52]Because most people have heard pieces of this story, but they have never had the full picture assembled in one place with the full weight of the evidence laid out completely and clearly. So, let us build it from the beginning. Start with what Smith told Congress on December 17th of 2025. Smith sat for a day-long deposition before the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans running the committee were trying to suggest that Smith's investigation had been politically motivated, that he was trying to hurt Trump's chances in the 2024 election. Smith pushed back forcefully. And in the course of defending his work, he made statements that are now among the most significant things any federal prosecutor has ever said on the congressional record about a sitting president. He said the evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. He said the crimes were committed for his benefit and that the other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. And then directly answering a question about whether the attack itself was connected to Trump, he said the attack that happened at the Capitol does not happen without him.

[00:06:51]Come on. By a large measure, the most culpable, the most responsible, does not happen without him. Those are the exact words of the federal prosecutor who spent two years examining every piece of evidence, interviewing every available witness, and building the criminal case.

[00:07:05]Not political commentary, not partisan analysis, the assessment of a federal law enforcement officer who was trying to secure a conviction and who told Congress he believed the evidence was sufficient to do exactly that. This is wild. And Smith also told Congress about the specific evidence that led him to those conclusions. One of the most significant elements was the breadth and the loyalty of the witnesses who cooperated with the investigation. He specifically noted that many of them were Trump allies and supporters, not political opponents. He cited an elector in Pennsylvania who was a former congressman and who was going to be an elector for Trump in 2020, who told investigators that what Trump's team was trying to do with the fake elector scheme was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal. A former Republican Congressman who was supposed to be a Trump elector telling federal investigators that what was happening was an illegal attempt to overthrow the government. That is not a democratic witness. That is someone who was on Trump's side who looked at what Trump's people were asking him to do and called it what it was. And Smith told Congress that the case was substantially built on testimony like that from Trump world insiders who ultimately could not reconcile what they were being asked to do with their understanding of the law and the Constitution. Now let us talk about the specific evidence in the court filings. Because the October 2024 court filing, which was partially unsealed by federal district court judge Tanya Chutkan at the public's request, provided the most detailed picture ever released of the prosecution's case against Trump. And some of the specific details in that filing are genuinely stunning even for people who have been following this story closely. First, a White House staffer overheard Trump telling family members, and these are his exact words as documented in the filing, "It does not matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell." Those words in the White House said to family members documented by a staffer who was present after the election had been called for Biden and after multiple courts had rejected Trump's fraud claims. "It does not matter if you won or lost, you still have to fight like hell." That statement recorded by a witness who was there is direct evidence that Trump understood he might have lost and decided to fight anyway. Come on. That is not the statement of a man who genuinely believed he had won the election. That is the statement of a man who had decided the outcome was irrelevant to his determination to hold onto power.

[00:09:17]Are you kidding me? Second, and this one is perhaps the most damning single moment in the entire filing. Trump responded, "So what?" when he was told that Vice President Pence had to be evacuated from the Capitol because of the approaching mob. So what? His Vice President, a man who has served him loyally for 4 years, was being rushed to safety through the tunnels of the Capitol Building while an angry mob was hunting for him and chanting "Hang Mike Pence." And Trump's response, when informed of the evacuation, was "So what?" The filing cites this as direct evidence of Trump's state of mind during the attack. A president who cared about the safety of his vice president, a president who was horrified by what was happening and wanted to stop it, would not have responded "So what?" Those two words are among the most significant pieces of evidence the prosecution assembled because they directly contradict every defense Trump has ever offered about his conduct on January 6th. They show a man who was not surprised, not horrified, not trying to stop what was happening. They show a man who viewed the evacuation of his own vice president as an irrelevant detail compared to whatever else he was focused on at that moment. Third, the filing documents Trump's pattern of conducting himself throughout the entire post-election period as a candidate and a private individual rather than as a president exercising official duties.

[00:10:30]The prosecution's core argument, the one that the court filings were designed to establish, was that Trump's scheme to overturn the election was a private criminal effort conducted in his capacity as a candidate, not official presidential acts protected by immunity.

[00:10:42]At its core, the filing states, "The defendant's scheme was a private criminal effort." In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process, pressuring state election officials to change certified results, organizing fake electors in multiple states, pressuring the vice president to reject legitimate electoral votes, directing supporters to march on the Capitol. All of this, the filing argues, was Trump acting as a candidate desperate to retain power, not Trump acting as president carrying out constitutional duties. And that distinction between candidate conduct and presidential conduct is the line that determines whether the immunity doctrine protects him or leaves him fully exposed. And the prosecution assembled evidence across every phase of the scheme to demonstrate that Trump crossed that line consistently and deliberately. Now, let us talk about what the final report said.

[00:11:31]Because Smith published a 137-page document in January of 2025 that lays out the full evidentiary picture in unprecedented detail. And the report makes several things crystal clear.

[00:11:43]First, Smith believed the evidence was sufficient to convict Trump at trial. He wrote explicitly that the evidence would have led to Trump's conviction but for Trump's election and his imminent return to the presidency. Not that the evidence was borderline. Not that the case was closed. That the evidence would have led to conviction.

[00:12:01]only barrier was the DOJ policy that prevented the prosecution of a sitting president. Second, Smith documented the extraordinary lengths to which Trump and his allies went to obstruct the investigation. Trump asserted executive privilege to block witnesses from providing evidence. He used social media to target witnesses, courts, and prosecutors in ways that required gag orders for protection. He posted on Truth Social, "If you go after me, I am coming after you." And what investigators said was a direct threat to potential witnesses. The pattern of obstruction was so extensive that Smith devoted significant sections of the report to documenting it. And third, Smith noted one of the most consequential limitations of the investigation, that while prosecutors believe arguments could be made that Trump's rally speech met the legal standard for criminal incitement, they had not been able to develop direct evidence of Trump's subjective intent to cause the full scope of the violence that occurred on January 6th. Smith was honest about that limitation. The circumstantial case was overwhelming.

[00:12:58]The direct evidence of specific violent intent was not there. And that distinction matters for understanding could and could not prove about the most serious potential charge. And here is the final element of this story that ties everything together. Smith also addressed the communications between Trump and Republican members of Congress on January 6th. He told the House Judiciary Committee that Trump directed his co-conspirators to call specific Republican senators to further delay the certification proceedings. Trump chose to do that. He chose to use his allies to pressure Republican senators to help obstruct the certification. And the phone records that Smith's team obtained and analyzed, the records that caused Republican fury at the deposition, documented exactly those communications.

[00:13:39]Trump directing people to call Republican senators on January 6th to pressure them into helping delay or stop the certification of Biden's victory.

[00:13:46]That is documented in the congressional record on the official deposition transcript said by the man who built the case.

[00:14:03]Okay, let us bring this all the way home right now. Four completely developed honest points that give you the full picture of what Smith found, what the evidence shows, and why this story matters enormously in 2026. Point one, Jack Smith's congressional deposition is the most significant public accounting of January 6th ever given by a federal prosecutor, and its content has not been adequately absorbed by the American public. Here is what the December 17th, 2025 deposition actually established on the permanent congressional record. A federal special counsel who spent two years gathering evidence, who obtained a grand jury indictment, who interviewed hundreds of witnesses including Trump allies, told lawmakers directly and specifically that the January 6th attack does not happen without Trump. That Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in the conspiracy. That the crimes were committed for his benefit. And that the evidence was proof beyond a reasonable doubt of guilt. Those statements were not made in a press conference. They were not made in a book or a media interview. They were made under oath in a congressional deposition in the formal institutional setting that carries the highest legal weight of any venue outside an actual courtroom. And the transcript was released publicly. Every American has access to it. And what it says is that the man who spent more time than anyone examining the evidence against Trump concluded clearly, specifically, and under oath that Trump bears the primary responsibility for what happened at the capital on January 6th of 2021. That is the documented record. It belongs in every conversation about accountability. Point two, the so what moment and the fight like hell statement are the two most damning specific pieces of evidence in the entire case and they have not received sufficient attention. Here's what those two pieces of evidence actually mean in context. When Trump said it does not matter if you won or lost the election, you still have to fight like hell to family members in the White House, he was admitting something that directly contradicts every public defense he has ever offered. He was acknowledging that the question of whether he had actually won or lost was irrelevant to his determination to fight. That is not the statement of a man who genuinely believed he had won and was fighting to have a legitimate victory recognized.

[00:16:09]That is the statement of a man who had decided the outcome did not matter, that he was going to fight regardless.

[00:16:15]And when Trump said so what upon being told that Pence had to be evacuated, that two-word response is direct evidence of his state of mind at the most critical moment of January 6th. A president concerned about the safety of his vice president and horrified by the violence does not say so what. That response is inconsistent with every version of the story Trump has told publicly about his own conduct that day and both of those statements were documented by witnesses who were present, White House staffer and an unnamed official in the Pence evacuation chain and were included in official court filings reviewed and partially unsealed by a federal judge. They are not allegations, they are documented evidence entered into the official record of a federal criminal proceeding.

[00:16:54]Point three, the reason Trump was not convicted is the DOJ policy against prosecuting sitting presidents and that policy was not designed for this situation. Here is the constitutional reality that Smith's final report and his congressional deposition both make explicit. The reason Donald Trump is not a convicted federal criminal for his role in January 6th is not that the evidence was insufficient. Smith said directly that the evidence was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason is that Trump won the 2024 presidential election and winning that election triggered the DOJ's long-standing policy that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, prosecuted while in office.

[00:17:30]That policy was created in a different era. It was designed to protect a president from politically motivated prosecutions by political opponents. It was not designed to provide a pathway for a person to escape accountability for criminal conduct by winning an election. And yet, that is the consequence it produced in this case. A man who a federal prosecutor believed was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiring to overturn an election, escaped the legal consequences of that conduct by winning a subsequent election. The tension between that outcome and the principle that no one is above the law is one that the American constitutional system has not resolved.

[00:18:03]And Smith, in his final report and in his congressional deposition, did not pretend otherwise.

[00:18:08]He acknowledged the outcome. He defended the legal basis for his decisions. And he left the record, 137 pages of documented evidence and a congressional deposition as the permanent accounting of what his office found and what it believed. Point four, this story is not over and the evidence Smith gathered will shape the historical and legal understanding of Trump's presidency for generations. Here is the biggest picture takeaway from everything we have covered today. Jack Smith's investigation is over. The criminal cases were dismissed.

[00:18:36]Trump is in the White House serving his second term and cannot be prosecuted while he holds that office. But the evidence Smith gathered, the testimony, the documents, the phone records, the witness accounts, the court filings, the final report, that evidence is part of the permanent public record. It will be studied by historians. It will be analyzed by legal scholars. It will be referenced in every future discussion of presidential accountability and the limits of the DOJ's policy on prosecuting sitting presidents.

[00:19:03]And it will be part of the context in which every future decision about Trump's legal exposure is made. If Democrats win the House in November and begin oversight investigations, Smith's evidence will be part of the foundation they build on. If state cases proceed in Georgia or elsewhere, Smith's evidence will be part of the backdrop against which those cases are evaluated. And if Congress ever considers reforming the DOJ policy that prevented this prosecution, Smith's case will be the primary exhibit in the argument for why reform is necessary. The political and legal consequences of January 6th are not finished. They have simply moved to different venues and different timelines. And the documented record that Smith left behind, including his congressional statement that the attack does not happen without Trump, is the most consequential single contribution to that ongoing reckoning that any official has made. And speaking of what comes next, next video we are going somewhere that takes the Smith evidence and follows every thread of it forward into the Georgia state case, the ongoing civil suits, and the question that nobody in Washington wants to answer directly. What happens when Trump leaves office in 2029, and the DOJ policy no longer protects him? You are absolutely not going to want to miss that one.