FBI conducting ‘court ordered activity’ at Georgia election site

(WASHINGTON) — Former special counsel Jack Smith, testifying Thursday before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, was unequivocal about who caused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,” Smith testified. “We followed the facts and we followed the law — where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.”

Smith, who led investigations into Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, is testifying publicly for first time about his probes.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.

The former special counsel said that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump in his two investigations.

“Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and, who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign and advisors,” Smith said of his election interference probe.

In seeking to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Trump was “looking for ways to stay in power,” Smith testified.

Trump was not “was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election. He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him, things that conflicted with him staying power, he rejected them or he chose not even to contact people like that,” Smith told committee members.

Under questioning from Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Smith discussed the witnesses his team had interviewed in his election interference probe.

“There were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear and put him on notice that what he was saying was false,” Smith said. “And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth, even if it’s going to impose a cost on them in their lives — my experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible, and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that, because they pay a cost for telling the truth.”

Smith said that he got the phone toll records for some members of Congress because his office was investigating the conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

“We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters, that were assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said, arguing that it was a normal piece of an investigation.

In a back-and-forth with Republican Rep. Darryl Issa, Smith said he didn’t target then-President Joe Biden’s political enemies.

“Maybe they’re not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they? They were Harris’ political enemies. They were the enemies of the president and you were their arm, weren’t you?” Issa asked.

“No,” Smith said. “My office didn’t spy on anyone.”

He said that the decision to bring charges against Trump was solely his decision and that he was not pressured by any Biden official.

“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”

In his introductory remarks, Smith also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.

Smith said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.

“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 that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.

“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”

He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.

“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”

In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Trump and other Republicans.

“Democrats have been going after President Trump for ten years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.

Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

“Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts — the opposite of Donald Trump,” Raskin said.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell said that Republicans on the dais “are a joke.”

“They’re wrong. History will harshly judge them,” he said.  

Trump’s Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.

In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.

And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.

“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.

Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.

This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.

His team also said Smith will comply with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report dealing with the classified documents case.

Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House will host America’s oil titans Friday as President Donald Trump is expected to lay out his plan for a post-Nicolas Maduro Venezuela with an economic revamp of its oil industry as its centerpiece.

The president, who said a recovery plan for Venezuela could require years of American involvement, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday that the U.S. would be “running the oil” and that he expected “at least $100 billion” of investment from the major companies.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil and the oil infrastructure, we’ll be in charge of it,” Trump said. “It’s going to do great, make a lot of money, and we’re going to take it from there, but we’re going to rebuild the country. And ultimately, you’re going to have elections.”

A White House official told ABC News that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has led the administration’s Venezuela policy, will attend the meeting that will include Chevron, Exxon, Conoco Phillips, Continental, Halliburton, HKN, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas, Repsol, Eni, Aspect Holdings, Tallgrass, Raisa Energy and Hilcorp.

A handful of those companies are European.

Only hours after American aircraft returned from an audacious mission in Caracas to arrest Maduro and take him to the U.S. for prosecution, Trump identified oil as the key to the U.S. strategy, asserting that American oil companies would quickly seize on a market newly friendly to them, generating revenues for America’s energy industry and establishing favorable ties with Venezuela. Trump and Rubio have said those revenues would ultimately benefit the people of Venezuelan people, some 82% of whom live in poverty, according to a 2024 report by the United Nations.

A risky choice for private industry

Experts told ABC News that the plan’s heavy reliance on the private American oil sector will present the industry with a risky choice to do business in a country some argue is less stable and harder to predict after the toppling of its president.

“The very first thing on oil all the oil companies checklist is going to be the outlook for political stability – durable political stability – that, by the way, needs to last a lot longer than the Trump administration,” said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Centers for Strategic and International Studies who focuses on energy security.

On Tuesday, the White House announced Venezuela would relinquish 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., which would then sell the crude on the market and store revenues in American accounts.

Rubio on Wednesday fleshed out a three-phase strategy, including stabilization in Venezuela, economic recovery, and finally, a political transition there.

“They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if they cooperate and work with the United States,” Rubio said. “And that’s what we are going to [see] happen.”

Rubio said the U.S. would continue enforcing a legal “quarantine” of illicit oil tankers transiting to and from Venezuela to bend Caracas to Washington’s will, citing the U.S. seizure of two such tankers this week. A third was seized Friday morning.

“We don’t want [Venezuela] descending into chaos,” he said, arguing the threat to the tankers would force the government, run by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, to the table.

Venezuela’s leadership, which has condemned the U.S. attack on its capital and the ouster of its president, has signaled a lukewarm embrace of cooperation on oil.

“Venezuela is open to energy relations where all parties benefit,” Rodriguez said.

Democrats called what the administration labels “leverage” as a form of brute control over the country.

“This is an insane plan,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat. “They are talking about stealing the Venezuelan oil at gunpoint for a period of time – undefined – as leverage to micromanage the country. I mean, the scope and insanity of that plan is absolutely stunning.”

‘Realist’ view of facts on the ground

Kimberly Breier, a former assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs during the first Trump administration, said the U.S. plan – which removed Maduro from power but kept the rest of his regime, including other U.S.-sanctioned officials, in place – was a “very realist” view of the facts on the ground.

“I think this is a transition to a transition,” Breier said. “I think this current situation is an intermediate step where there’s a hope and a plan that you’re going to be able to get the regime to do some of the harder things that are going to need to be done to allow for a real democratic transition to the rightfully elected government.”

Whether the energy dimension of the plan, which would require U.S. energy companies to work with the same regime that was hostile to them, is only “a hope and an aspiration” at this stage, said Seigle. “We don’t know how feasible it is.”

Oil executives who will sit down with the president in Washington will bring a checklist of questions on sanctions, tax regime, property rights, and political stability, experts told ABC News. Investments the White House might ask of them, which would include rebuilding and modernizing infrastructure, would require years and billions of dollars, they said.

“When it comes to energy, item number one is giving confidence in enduring political stability,” Seigle said.

The administration knows that oil companies “are looking for stability,” said Breier, who is now a senior adviser at Covington. “I think they’re looking for a leader that they think is not a transitional leader.”

“Certainly, oil companies operate all over the world in places that are not democracies. But from a policy standpoint…the durable, lasting leadership of Venezuela is the democratically elected one,” she said, referring to Edmundo Gonzalez, who won the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election but has been exiled.

Oil execs may not be ready to jump in

Oil companies will “express interest and to sincerely look into the matter and try to understand what their contributions could be and maybe some of the associated planning,” Seigle predicted. “But I do not think that we will see major new commitments from U.S. oil companies to leap into the Venezuelan operating environment until a lot of things on their checklists are satisfied.”

“The problem is [the administration] got the sequence backwards,” he said. “The sequence is the oil companies need to see that Venezuela is an attractive environment with a long runway of stability, and then in the future, the oil can flow.”

Breier said the energy dimension of the president’s plan is part and parcel of a broader set of objectives to counter migration and drug flows and promote a democracy in the country.

ABC News reported that the administration has made two demands to Rodriguez that must be met for the U.S. to allow the country to pump more oil. Venezuela must cut its economic ties with China, Russia, and Iran, sources said, and must agree to partner exclusively with the U.S. on oil production and favor America when selling heavy crude oil.

Breier said the reporting rings true with her experience at the State Department, where she worked with the former opposition leader of Venezuela, another elected president in exile, Juan Guaidó.

“With the Guaidó team, there were conversations about…not going [through] all this trouble for [Venezuela] to then cut deals with the Russians and the Chinese and the oil sector,” she said. “So that’s a very consistent approach.” Breier said the administration’s approach will be “private sector led” by Western companies, including the Europeans.

The White House “view[s] US companies as the most nimble and able to go in and start rebuilding the sector quickly so that you don’t end up with the U.S. taxpayer having to put the tab for reconstructing Venezuela,” she said.

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(NEW YORK) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, announced Monday that he would drop his bid for reelection as governor of Minnesota, saying that he would not be able to give a campaign all of his attention as he works to defend Minnesota against allegations of fraud and right-wing scrutiny.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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