Jack Smith delivers the judgment of history (again)

January 23, 2026

For the second time in a month, special counsel Jack Smith provided a summary of his two investigations of Donald Trump. In plain language, Smith made clear that his team collected sufficient evidence to convict Trump of attempting to overturn the 2020 election and of retaining highly classified documents after he departed the presidency. The full video testimony of Smith’s opening statement is here: CNN, Jack Smith testimony: Full opening statement on Trump probes

As in his December deposition, Smith was calm, measured, and precise in his delivery. Future historians reviewing Smith’s testimony will conclude that he was an honest prosecutor who performed his job in accord with the highest standards of the legal profession.

Smith’s reports and his testimony will constitute the judgment of history about Donald Trump’s criminal conspiracies to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and to retain highly sensitive documents after he left the White House.

Republicans, on the other hand, once again embarrassed themselves with buffoonish, thuggish behavior designed to distract attention from their inability to shake Smith’s confidence in the evidence developed by his team. GOP members of the committee devoted much of their time attempting to dispute inadmissible hearsay testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson that would have never been offered at trial.

They also attempted to create confusion by suggesting that Smith first took his oath as special counsel while in Europe—an oath that was re-administered when he returned to the US to remove any doubt about its validity. In other words, Republicans had nothing. See Politico, Republicans tried to snag Jack Smith on technicalities. But they didn’t engage with the facts.

But even as Republicans were falsely accusing Smith of taking direction from Joe Biden, Trump was using Truth Social to encourage Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict Jack Smith—a breach of the independence of the DOJ that would’ve been unthinkable before Trump was sworn in for the second time. See Politico, Trump is watching Jack Smith’s testimony — and has thoughts.

Trump went further, calling Jack Smith “a deranged animal” at the very moment that Smith was testifying in a dignified and professional manner before the House Judiciary Committee.

There are dozens more anecdotes and hundreds of small details that illustrate how far the president and the Republican Party have fallen in their insane effort to convince Americans that the insurrection on January 6 was a peaceful protest that was attacked by out-of-control Capitol police. No one believes them, and they are disgracing their family names for generations by spreading Trump’s lies about the most serious threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

By performing his assignment with dignity and professionalism, Jack Smith has ensured that his testimony and two reports will be the definitive record of Trump’s criminal culpability. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to Smith, who has willingly placed himself in the sights of a vengeful and vainglorious president.

Jack Smith represents the best of what the Department of Justice represented before Trump brought it low. When we rebuild the DOJ beginning in 2029, Jack Smith should be the model of what is expected from attorneys who swear to protect and defend the Constitution.

NYTimes Sienna Poll shows further erosion of support for Trump’s policies

The NYTimes and Sienna Research Institute published a poll that surveyed reaction to Trump’s first year of his second term. It was bad news all the way down for Trump. Before discussing the survey, I want to remind readers that polls are not elections, that the time period between now and November 2026 is equal to infinity in the current political landscape, and that we could lose it all if we do not maintain focus.

The New York Times' most recent poll is relevant because it aligns with a nine-month trend showing significant erosion in support for Trump among the voters who swung the 2024 election in his favor. In the aggregate, these polls should give us confidence that our views are shared by a strong majority of Americans.

So, even as we face increasingly dark and desperate days, we have reason to be hopeful that we can win in 2026 and 2028, so long as we do not relent!

The article is here, but I have run out of gift subscriptions, so it is behind a paywall: Few Voters Say Trump’s Second Term Has Made the Country Better, Poll Finds. If a reader posts a gift copy in the Comment section, I will pin it to the top.

The poll shows that Trump is seriously underwater on virtually every issue he campaigned on in 2024. The net negative spreads are as follows:

• (-16) Job as president

• (-14) Managing the federal government

• (-13) Venezuela

• (-17) Immigration

• (-18) Economy

• (-19) Foreign relations

• (-17) Israeli-Palestinian conflict

• (-29) Cost of living

• (-24) Russia’s war on Ukraine

• (-44) Handling of the Epstein files

The only net positive spread was on the issue of “the border between the US and Mexico,” (+3).

So, while it may not always be obvious that we are making progress, every measurement point confirms that Trump is becoming increasingly unpopular and that the grassroots uprising against Trump is on the right path!

Lies by White House

In the before times, if the White House was caught in a single lie, it was a major story for weeks. Under Trump, the lies fly so fast and furiously that they are like motes of dust on the top shelf of a college dorm room bookcase—ubiquitous, invisible, and unremarkable.

On Thursday, the White House released a photo of a protester who was arrested for disrupting a church service being conducted by a pastor who was also a senior officer in ICE. The original photo showed the protester with a placid expression on her face. The White House photo was altered to depict the protester as crying as she was being whisked away by federal agents. See CBS News, White House posts an altered photo of Minnesota protester’s arrest to make it look like she was crying

When asked about the falsified photo, White House spokesperson Kaelan Dorr said the altered photo was a “meme,” and that “the memes will continue.”

The White House's flippant response was obviously drafted by someone whose parents failed to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Trying to cover up a lie by describing it as a “meme” is unworthy of a high schooler—let alone a presidential spokesperson.

But it gets worse. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced on Thursday that Belgium had joined Trump’s pay-to-play “Peace Board,” in which members must contribute $1 billion for the privilege of joining. (The initiation fees are supposed to be used to redevelop Gaza. Anyone who believes that fiction should look up the promised financial report on Trump’s second inauguration—which have never been released. See NOTUS, Democratic Lawmakers Demand Answers on Trump Inaugural Fundraising ‘Discrepancies’.)

After Leavitt announced that Belgium was joining the Peace Board, the Belgian government issued a statement saying it had not agreed to join the board. See NewsBreak, Karoline Leavitt blasted by Belgium over fake claim it joined Board of Peace.

And it gets even worse. After ice agent Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good, Vice President JD Vance asserted that federal officers have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for acts taken in the course of performing their duties. Vance said,

“That guy’s protected by absolute immunity.”

See Common Dreams, ‘To Be Clear,’ Contrary to Vance’s Claims, ICE Agents Do Not Have ‘Absolute Immunity,’ Say Legal Experts.

Vance now claims he never said Jonathon Ross was protected by absolute immunity. See Raw Story, Vance flip-flops on ICE immunity claim.

On Thursday, Vance said,

No, I didn’t say, and I don’t think any other official within the Trump administration said that officers who engaged in wrongdoing would enjoy immunity. That’s absurd. What I did say is that when federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that is typically something that federal officials would look into.

In short, we should believe nothing that Trump, Karoline Leaitt, JD Vance, or the White House spokesperson says. If they get caught in a lie, they excuse it as a “meme” or deny words that are recorded on videotape (like Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland).

Private autopsy indicates Renee Good was shot on the left side of head

We all saw the video. ICE Agent Jonathan Ross shot at Renee Good from the left side of her vehicle, after Ross was no longer in any (alleged) danger of being run over. A private autopsy confirmed that Renee was shot in the left side of the head—a wound that confirms what we all saw on the video. See NBC News, Renee Good was shot in the head, autopsy commissioned by her family finds.

The DOJ has said that there is no investigation of Jonathon Ross. That decision is corrupt. The lawyers responsible for making that decision should be investigated and disbarred at the first possible opportunity.

US withdraws from World Health Organization.

Trump signed an executive order early in his administration declaring the intention to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. On Thursday, the decision became final in the US, which announced it was breaking ties with the world’s leading global health organization.

WHO is part of an early warning network of global health organizations that identifies and fights infectious diseases. The decision is reckless beyond description. See Washington Post, Formal US withdrawal from WHO is decried as ‘scientifically reckless’

Per WaPo,

“Withdrawing from the World Health Organization is scientifically reckless,” Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement. “It fails to acknowledge the fundamental natural history of infectious diseases. Global cooperation is not a luxury; it is a biological necessity.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in June that the U.S. would no longer contribute to Gavi, an independent public-private financing group that buys vaccines and distributes them in low- and middle-income countries. As part of sweeping HHS staffing cuts last year, the CDC’s Global Health Center lost its director and some other employees.

“It’s almost laughable that the Trump administration thinks they can lead in global health,” said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University and director of a WHO Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law. “They’ve decimated the global health capacities of the CDC. They’ve slashed global health funding around the world.”

Concluding Thoughts

Professor Laurence Tribe has published an essay in The New York Review that touches on two subjects frequently raised by readers of this newsletter: (1) The fear that Republicans will convene a “rogue constitutional convention” under Article V and (2) the hope that we will be able to amend the Constitution to reform the Supreme Court and overrule many of its most egregious decisions (Citizens United, Trump v. US, Shelby County v. Holder, etc.)

Although the article is behind a paywall, TNYR allows posting of articles to BlueSky, which I have done here: Is the Constitution ‘Dead, Dead, Dead'?

Despite the somewhat alarming title (referring to a quote by Justice Antonin Scalia), Professor Tribe’s essay argues that the ability to amend the Constitution ensures that it remains “as a vast living organism with limitless potential to once again light the path to moral progress around the globe.”

Professor Tribe also notes that the Constitution has “unwritten elements--judicial decisions, congressional interpretations, ever-changing popular beliefs—that can keep a written constitution alive over time regardless of the obstacles to formally altering its written text.”

Professor Tribe’s essay is in response to another Harvard professor, Jill Lepore, whose newly published book, We the People: A History of the Constitution, suggests that because Article V makes it too difficult to amend the Constitution, our great charter is a relic of the past that is incapable of responding to the challenges of a rapidly evolving world. (That is my gloss on a far more nuanced description in the article.)

I recommend the article because it is a pleasure to read about the Constitution through the lens of a deeply thoughtful debate between two respected scholars, rather than in a shadow docket “midnight special” limited to the question of “How can we give Trump what he wants?”

I have often told anxious readers that we should not fear a “constitutional convention” organized under Article V. Proposed amendments at any such convention would require ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures—i.e., 38. If a proposed amendment garners support from 38 state legislatures, 10 of those legislatures would be wholly or partially controlled by Democrats (to get to 38). Any amendment that garners that level of support deserves to be part of our Constitution.

I have been less sanguine about proposals to reform the Supreme Court that rely on constitutional amendments—for the very reason that 38 states must ratify any amendment. But as Professor Tribe notes, we amended the Constitution by ratifying the 27^th Amendment in 1992 and the Equal Rights Amendment in 2020 (despite the refusal of the National Archivist to list the ERA as the 28^th Amendment because an unenforceable deadline for passage had expired).

Two amendments in three decades is a good track record and should give us hope that real reform is closer at hand than we believe. To undo the most egregious damage inflicted by Trump, we will need constitutional amendments. But we can also make significant headway by expanding the Supreme Court through legislation that requires only a majority vote in each chamber of Congress.

If you are still with me, thanks for listening, and check out Professor Tribe’s discussion in the article. I have failed to do justice to his spirited defense of the Constitution’s ability to respond to new challenges, especially through the 9^th and 14^th Amendments. The article left me feeling more hopeful about a post-MAGA path to restoring the rule of law by relying on our Constitution--exactly as the Framers intended.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Pro-Democracy Protest Photos

Fairbanks, AK

Asheville, NC

San Luis Obispo, CA

Berkshire, MA Visibility Brigade

“Rooted in Resistance San Gabriel Valley” on the Wilson Ave overpass in Pasadena, CA

West Los Angeles Bridge Brigade