{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.welch.senate.gov/welch-underscores-legitimacy-of-jack-smiths-investigation-into-president-trump-what-continues-to-be-beyond-dispute-is-that-january-6th-did-happen/", "Welch\u00a0Underscores Legitimacy of\u00a0Jack Smith\u2019s Investigation into President Trump:\u00a0\u201cWhat continues to be beyond dispute is that January 6th\u00a0did happen.\u201d", "2026-09-29", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "VT", "Peter Welch", "W000800", "www.welch.senate.gov", "welch", "https://www.welch.senate.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, discussed the legality of the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) investigation into President Trump\u2019s role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection with former DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith.\n\nIn his remarks, Senator Welch emphasized how President Trump\u2019s repeated falsehoods about the results of the 2020 presidential elections and his conduct leading up to the January 6th riots warranted Smith\u2019s investigations into President Trump.\n\n\u201cMany of the questions or statements directed toward this prosecutor\u2014you could put any other prosecutor there\u2014but whoever was the one that was pursuing the question of legality of January 6th and documents in Mar-a-Lago, be facing the same personal attacks, system attacks, as Mr. Smith. What keeps puzzling me is why we can\u2019t make a distinction between our legitimate political differences\u2014we can fight it out\u2014and the reality that January 6th happened. That happened,\u201d said Senator Welch. \u201cThe idea that we are going to put a blindfold on as though January 6th didn\u2019t happen, as though there weren\u2019t documents down in Mar-a-Lago, means that we\u2019re just giving a pass to what was the first time in the history of our country that violence was used in the United States Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people.\u201d\n\nWatch the Senator\u2019s full remarks below:\n\nRead key excerpts from Senator Welch\u2019s exchange with Mr. Smith:\n\nSen. Welch: From a justice standpoint, January 6th happened. So, Mr. Smith, you didn\u2019t have any decision on whether or not to bring the prosecution, except after you were appointed, correct?\n\nMr. Smith: Yes.\n\nSen. Welch: And you had to do what any prosecutor has to do, and that\u2019s to make an exhaustive effort to accumulate the evidence and come to a conclusion about whether you have probable cause to proceed to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. Is that correct?\n\nMr. Smith: That\u2019s correct, we sought to collect facts, look at the law, and make a decision.\n\nSen. Welch: Alright, and the other point that I think is really disturbing my colleagues\u2014and with some understandable basis, as Ranking Member Durbin said\u2014is getting the phone logs of Members of Congress. But as I understand your explanation, if you were doing an investigation that involved information that Rudy Giuliani called certain numbers\u2014and he was a suspect, and you had his own words talking about pressuring to delay the outcome of this election\u2014you\u2019re not going after me individually. My number shows up in his call log, so then that\u2019s how you get my number. Is that correct?\n\nMr. Smith: Yes, and that we had an ample basis, in my view, evidentiarily to seek these toll records because they corroborated other information that we had from a variety of sources about this attempt to exploit the violence of January 6th in furtherance of the conspiracy.\n\n\u2022\u2022\u2022\n\nSen. Welch: We all know January 6th happened\u2014we all were here, most of us were here. It was an assault, people were injured, property was desecrated, and it was a determined effort to overturn that election. And you proceeded on the basis of the facts found during your investigation, is that correct?\n\nMr. Smith: Yes, that\u2019s why and how we proceeded.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-30T10:57:52Z", "2026-09-30T10:59:04Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.welch.senate.gov/welch-underscores-legitimacy-of-jack-smiths-investigation-into-president-trump-what-continues-to-be-beyond-dispute-is-that-january-6th-did-happen/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0675040539354086, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}