Sen. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., came to the defense of Special Counsel Jack Smith during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, telling Smith he was sorry for the treatment he had received and charging that Republican colleagues had attacked the investigator while leaving the underlying facts unchallenged.

Mr. Smith, thank you for coming to testify today. I'm sorry that you have been so villainized and attacked today.

Adam B. Schiff at the hearing, saying the words quoted above. Captions from the auto-transcript.

Schiff said he had sat through nearly the entire hearing and laid out a pointed contrast between what Republican senators had said and what they had not said.

The hearing webcast at 3:23:08, as Adam B. Schiff spoke.
The hearing webcast at 3:23:08, as Adam B. Schiff spoke. U.S. Senate committee webcast (public domain)

I want to point out, though, what we've heard, and I've sat through almost every minute of this hearing, what we've heard and what we haven't heard from my colleagues across the aisle. They have attacked you repeatedly, aggressively, inappropriately, scandalously, but none of them have contested what took place on this day. None of them had said...

There was no attack on January 6th. None of them have tried to deny the assault on the police officers. None of them have even suggested the president wasn't involved. None of them have contested any of these things. Now, they've attacked you because they don't want to address the facts. They don't want to talk about this. They would rather attack you.

Schiff then walked through a series of specific factual claims — including a January 2, 2021 phone call in which, he said, Trump pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes, and a December 27, 2020 call with top Justice Department officials — and repeatedly asked whether any Republican colleague had disputed those accounts.

They don't contest those facts. How about this with respect to the Mar-a-Lago? Well, actually, with respect to January 6th, Trump calls top DOJ officials December 27th, 2020, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue. And in that 90-minute phone call, Trump complains the election was stolen from him, even after DOJ officials repeatedly rebut his claims.

No. Did you hear any of them say, oh, Donald Trump never tried to pressure the Justice Department to make stuff up about the 2020 election? Did you hear them make that argument? No.

The exchange came after Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., delivered a sharply personal attack on Smith over subpoenas sent to Verizon for records related to her brother, and accused Smith of trying to intimidate Trump allies. Smith told Graham he believed her brother was a patriotic public servant who was not a target of the investigation. Before Schiff spoke, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., entered into the record two Justice Department letters outlining the parameters of Smith's testimony, dated September 14 and September 27, 2026.