On MS NOW’s ‘Deadline: White House,’ in his first ever TV interview, exclusively on Deadline White House, former special counsel Jack Smith breaks his silence to Nicolle Wallace on the dangers of a weaponized Justice Department:

NICOLE WALLACE: Do you see, again, in things that are covered and things that are public facing, conduct ahead of the midterms that you investigated in the January 6th case? JACK SMITH: Well, I’ve been thinking about it more in terms of what needs to be done based on what we saw happen last time. And you know, it’s a different situation now based on, you know, the people who perpetrated January 6th that probably learned from how they did that. My personal view is I think the state attorney generals have a tremendous role to play here. They can make sure the rule of law functions in their state. And I would also say that I think a thing that all of us can do is support election workers and election officials. The last time around, we saw that those people stood firm and they were, in many cases, the difference. It’s clear to me anyways that what I’ve seen publicly, that those people are going to be put under great pressure and my experience, not only just the special counsel, but you know, I was the chief of the public integrity section at the Department of Justice for five years, had a number of cases with election officials. These are people also, they’re not tooting their own horn. They’re not self-promoters. They just care about our democracy. We need to show them that we have their back. I think those two things are central to getting ready for the elections that are coming up. WALLACE: What is your advice to state attorneys general? SMITH: I would be ready to litigate everything. I would brainstorm, and I think they are. I get that sense. Every possible permutation and don’t let reason be a limitation. Imagine everything that could possibly be tried. WALLACE: That Trump will do. SMITH: Yes, and I also think it’s important for them to be proactive and initiate litigation where it’s appropriate and where it would make sense to. If you have a sense or reason to believe that something’s going to be done to interfere with people’s right to vote and participate in democracy. WALLACE: The strength of the evidence that you and your investigators developed is at least as detailed in the report that was released, seems to be that you were able to develop, and I’ll say this as a non-lawyer, sort of the 360 evidence that you understood the state of mind, you had evidence that Trump knew he was lying. There were all sorts of interactions where he said to people, well, that national security issue will be dealt with by Joe Biden because I lost. He said to another aide, quote, I can’t believe I lost to that guy. So you were able to establish, and I think the congressional committee established some of this as well, people that he acknowledged losing to. How much of the ability to hold people accountable is based on being able to see inside meetings and have witnesses that cooperate? And I guess I’m getting back to the pardon conversation we just have. I mean, how much do you think Trump has learned in terms of how to evade an indictment like the one you brought? SMITH: Yes, I think the one thing to start on this sort of topic is we did this case the way I’ve done cases throughout my career. Same investigative techniques, same use of the tools that a federal prosecutor has. And our proof was the same sort of proof you have in all sorts of cases, not just political corruption cases, but all sorts of cases I’ve done in my career.

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