Tom Cotton calls Jack Smith evidence against Trump a ‘temper tantrum from a deranged fanatic’

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Republican Senator Tom Cotton blasted Jack Smith’s latest filing in the federal election interference case against Donald Trump as a “temper tantrum from a deranged fanatic.”

The senator from Arkansas, speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, dismissed the special counsel’s detailed findings in a 165-page filing stuffed with new and expanded evidence against the former president.

“This is unverified, un-cross-examined hearsay from grand jury testimony, which usually isn’t revealed publicly for that reason,” Cotton said. “He went to court. He asked for special permission to file a brief that’s four times as long as a normal brief and to have it disclosed less than 30 days before the election. This is professional misconduct in all likelihood by Jack Smith and it should be investigated.”

Smith’s filing — the fullest picture yet of his criminal case against the former president’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election — argues that Trump “resorted to crimes to try to stay in office” and “launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost.”

Trump is also accused of failing to stop a mob of his supporters from storming the Capitol on January 6 as a last resort to do what he failed to do in court and in Congress.

The special counsel’s filing follows the renewed attempt to prosecute Trump in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that granted him some immunity from criminal prosecution from actions stemming from his official duties in office.

Smith argues that Trump is not immune from criminal charges because Trump and his alleged co-conspirators acted in their “private” roles, not as public servants. “Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” Smith wrote.

Cotton called Smith’s filing “unverified, un-cross-examined hearsay.”

“This is a perfect example of actual election interference,” Cotton said. “Jack Smith violating Department of Justice regulations to try to get out as much unverified so-called evidence as he has because he’s angry that he lost and the Democrats don’t think they can beat Donald Trump on issues like inflation and immigration.”

Asked whether he will admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, Cotton — who broke from an effort led by senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to reject electoral college results on January 6 — said that President Joe Biden was elected president in 2020 but repeated his baseless assertion that the election was unfair.

Trump is accused of relying on knowingly false claims of widespread election fraud to fuel his spurious legal efforts to challenge results, then helped launch a pressure campaign targeting election officials to unlawfully swap Joe Biden’s victories for his own, despite losing.

Smith’s filing lists multiple instances in which Trump’s own advisers disproved his claims, to which Trump allegedly replied: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

Trump is charged with four crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. He has pleaded not guilty.