Two newly released congressional letters confirm years-long reporting that the anti-Trump Jan. 6 committee had quietly colluded with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump.
The letters, from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and disgraced former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., reveal the lawmakers’ rush to hand over evidence before Republicans took control of Congress in 2023.
In those exchanges, they produced at least 16 interviews, deposition transcripts, exhibits, phone numbers and spreadsheets as part of their investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
One letter, dated Dec. 5, 2022, shows Thompson and Cheney informing Smith that while the body was concluding its work, they wanted to make the evidence they gathered “available to the Department of Justice.”
In that letter, the anti-Trump politicians told Smith he would receive “16 transcripts of interviews and depositions taken by” the committee, including “exhibits associated with those transcripts.” They even promised to facilitate “additional evidence as soon as possible.”
Just four days later, Thompson and Cheney wrote again to Smith, announcing the production of documents obtained from John Eastman and text messages from Mark Meadows, then Trump’s White House chief of staff.
“Along with the latter, we are producing a staff-created spreadsheet of the Meadows texts that contain additional information from privilege logs that Mr. Meadows provided to the Select Committee,” they added.
Even after those documents, they vowed to produce more materials to Smith “on a rolling basis.”
Now, the never-before-seen letters confirm what many suspected: the controversial committee worked “hand-in-hand” with Smith, the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday.
Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to target Trump after the 2020 election. Smith later used those materials to indict Trump, first over a document dispute between Trump and the Biden-led National Archives, and later over his objections to the certification of the 2020 election results.
The origins of that collusion trace back to the Jan. 6 committee itself, which was created in 2022 by then–Speaker Nancy Pelosi and excluded pro-Trump lawmakers.
Hellbound and Down 
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