By Don Terry | Thursday July 30 2026 | 8 min read
In a functioning democracy, lying to Congress is a serious allegation. In today’s upside‑down political universe, it’s become a punchline—because the latest “perjury referral” against Special Counsel Jack Smith isn’t based on anything he said. It’s based on what Jim Jordan wished he had said.
Jordan’s claim is simple and absurd: Jack Smith “lied” because he told the truth. During hours of testimony, Smith accurately described what his team subpoenaed—metadata from Republican lawmakers’ phone records during the January 6 investigation. Toll records. Billing records. Call durations. Exactly what he was asked about.
What he wasn’t asked? Whether the National Archives separately possessed text messages obtained through Presidential Records Act processes. That question never came. Not once. And yet Jordan now insists Smith should have read his mind, anticipated the question he meant to ask, and volunteered information outside the scope of the inquiry.
This is not how testimony works. It’s not how the law works. It’s not how truth works.
Anyone who has ever prepared a witness knows the rule: answer the question asked—nothing more, nothing less. You don’t speculate. You don’t wander. You don’t try to guess the examiner’s hidden agenda. You treat each question like a ball in a batting cage: hit it cleanly, let it go, and wait for the next one.
Jack Smith followed that rule. Jim Jordan is now trying to criminalize it.
The entire referral is a political stunt designed to create false equivalence. Todd Blanche—now leading the Department of Justice despite having previously represented Donald Trump—is under scrutiny. Grassley’s committee conveniently receives leaked investigative materials from Blanche. Jordan weaponizes those leaks to fabricate a scandal around Smith. And suddenly, the narrative becomes: “Everyone’s corrupt, so confirm Blanche.”
It’s a cynical loop, and it’s not subtle.
Jordan’s staff combed through transcripts after Grassley’s leak revealed that the National Archives had preserved roughly fifty text messages from lawmakers—records Trump didn’t manage to destroy before hauling boxes to Mar‑a‑Lago. They went hunting for a contradiction. They didn’t find one. Instead, they found a hole in their own questioning.
They never asked Smith about the Archives.
They asked about carrier subpoenas—Verizon, AT&T, metadata. Smith answered truthfully. They moved on. Only later did someone on Jordan’s team realize the blunder:
“Boss… we didn’t ask the question we needed.”
So the solution, in their minds, is to accuse Smith of perjury for not answering a question they failed to ask. It’s legislative malpractice dressed up as righteous indignation.
Covington & Burling, Smith’s counsel, responded within hours: if Congress adopts Jordan’s theory, every witness in American history could be prosecuted for failing to volunteer information outside the scope of a question. It would turn oversight hearings into mind‑reading contests. It would obliterate the distinction between testimony and speculation.
And it would be unconstitutional.
But this isn’t really about law. It’s about vengeance. Trump has spent years calling Smith “corrupt,” “an animal,” “a criminal.” Now his DOJ—run by his former defense lawyer—is being directed to target the man who once prosecuted him. The wall that once separated the White House from the Justice Department has collapsed. Ethics rules that once prevented conflicts of interest have evaporated.
The referral against Jack Smith is not a legal document. It’s a political weapon. A smoke screen. A distraction engineered to shield Todd Blanche and muddy the waters around Trump’s legal exposure.
Answering a question truthfully is not a crime. Failing to answer a question that was never asked is not a crime. And expecting witnesses to respond to imaginary questions is not oversight—it’s harassment.
The outrage we’re seeing today from MAGA Republicans is performative. It wasn’t there on January 7, when they were still shaken, still hiding from the mob, still acknowledging Trump’s role in the violence. But outrage is useful now. Outrage is currency.
And Jack Smith is simply the latest target in their manufactured war.
How Vindictive Prosecution Would Flip the Script
If Smith were prosecuted, he could argue vindictive prosecution, and his prior prosecutions of Donald Trump would suddenly matter—but only in a narrow, legally controlled way. Smith wouldn’t be relitigating the election interference case or the classified documents case. He’d be showing motive. He’d be showing retaliation.
His argument would be devastating:
He prosecuted Trump twice. Trump and senior officials then launched a public campaign to paint him as corrupt. Trump demanded investigations into Smith. Now Trump’s DOJ, led by his former defense lawyer, is trying to indict him for answering a question truthfully. That’s not justice. That’s payback.
To prove it, Smith could point to: – Public attacks from Trump and allies – Suspicious timing of the investigation – Internal communications showing political pressure – Departures from DOJ norms – And the looming presence of Cannon’s unreleased report, dangled like a political weapon
His indictments of Trump would be relevant only as context—evidence of why he’s being targeted now. No judge would allow Jordan or Blanche to turn Smith’s trial into a circus where Cannon’s unreleased report becomes a prop. Courts don’t allow shadow trials. They don’t allow litigants to wave around documents that aren’t public.
If the government tried to argue Smith acted improperly during those investigations, then the door opens wider. The judge might allow evidence about how Smith ran the investigations, whether his decisions had legal grounding, whether misconduct claims have factual support. But even then, the focus stays narrow: Was this prosecution legitimate, or was it political retaliation?
Enter Judge Aileen Cannon’s Unreleased Report
Floating above all of this is the unreleased report by Judge Aileen Cannon—a document no one has seen, yet Trump’s allies invoke like scripture. They treat it as a sealed indictment, a secret weapon waiting to be deployed against Smith. Its contents are unknown, but its political utility is obvious: it creates a cloud of suspicion that can be used to justify retaliation.
And here’s the final twist in this entire manufactured scandal: if Jack Smith were ever prosecuted on Jordan’s fabricated charge, Judge Aileen Cannon’s unreleased report would instantly be dragged into the spotlight. Not because it proves anything—no one outside her chambers has seen a single page—but because its mere existence would be weaponized to imply that Smith is already “under investigation.” That’s the playbook. That’s the strategy. You build the fog first, then claim the storm was inevitable.
This is how political retaliation works in the Trump era. You don’t need evidence. You don’t need a crime. You just need enough smoke to convince people there must be fire somewhere. Cannon’s unreleased report becomes the perfect prop: a sealed document that can be invoked without ever being scrutinized, a mystery that can be filled with whatever narrative Jordan, Blanche, or Trump’s allies need at any given moment.
It’s the same tactic they’re using against Smith now. They couldn’t find a lie in his testimony, so they invented one. They couldn’t find misconduct in his investigations, so they’re trying to criminalize his honesty. They couldn’t ask the right question, so they’re pretending he failed to answer it. And when all else fails, they point to an unreleased report and whisper, “Just wait.”
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But the truth is simple. Smith answered the question he was asked. He followed the rules every witness follows. He didn’t volunteer information outside the scope of the inquiry because that’s not how testimony works. And now he’s being targeted not for what he did, but for who he prosecuted.
If this ever reached a courtroom, Smith’s defense would expose the entire scheme: the timing, the leaks, the coordination, the pressure, the political motives, the collapse of DOJ independence, and the way Cannon’s unreleased report is being dangled as a threat rather than a legal document. It would show exactly what this is—a retaliatory strike dressed up as oversight.
And that’s why Jordan’s referral won’t age well. Because once you strip away the theatrics, the leaks, the talking points, and the mysterious “report,” you’re left with a simple, unavoidable fact:
They’re trying to prosecute Jack Smith for telling the truth.
And they’re using an unreleased report to pretend the truth is somehow suspicious.
That’s not justice. That’s not oversight. That’s the fog machine of political retaliation—running at full blast, hoping no one notices the storm was manufactured from the start.
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