It's Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 from Peachfish Productions.

It's the gist.

I'm Mike Peska.

Jack Smith testified before Congress today, and I thought he did very well.

The point of the testimony was, of course, not to get at the truth, but it was even a little

different from normal congressional testimony, which is a dog and pony show, meant to either fillet or elevate a witness.

It's something very, very different from a genuine give and take.

Smith was being subject to an extensive perjury trap.

Now, whenever I hear this charge, I usually think, all right, then, to get out of the trap, don't commit

perjury.

But that assumes that those bringing the charges will be adhering to the usual standards of

evidence, and that's just not the case with the Trump Justice Department, as we have seen

with the Comey, James, and possible Powell prosecutions.

Smith measured his answers, knowing that any discordance with previous testimony

spoken or written would be seized on by Donald Trump and his allies and used to prosecute him,

Smith, the former prosecutor. Trump doesn't need a plausible reason to do this. He doesn't need one

that will ultimately stand up in court. He's just looking to torture

the men and women who he deems to have tortured him. And almost every Republican in Congress,

as far as I can see, is going along with this. So before we get to the analysis of how successful

the undertaking was, let's just listen to a sample, give, and take of Smith, in this case

being, quote unquote, interrogated by Representative Brandon Gill of Texas. In May of 23, we did issue. You did, and there were non-disclosure orders in conjunction with those subpoenas as well, right? That's correct, consistent with department policy and the law. So, again, nobody would know what you were doing. The senators would and the representatives would and the American people wouldn't know what you were doing.

Is that right? The toll records that we secured and the nondisclosure orders were consistent with policy.

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