Republicans tried to snag Jack Smith on technicalities. But they didn’t engage with the facts.

Republicans finally had their moment to take on the man who tried to put President Donald Trump in jail. But they didn’t land any significant blows.

During Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Jack Smith, GOP members spent almost no time challenging the facts of the criminal case that the former special counsel brought against Trump: that he conspired to corrupt the results of the 2020 election and seize a second term he didn’t win.

Instead, Republican committee members spent much of the hearing challenging the technical aspects of Smith’s probe into Trump’s election interference, including whether the veteran federal prosecutor properly signed his oath of office as special counsel and if he was sufficiently cognizant of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause that protects Congress from executive branch overreach.

They questioned whether Smith was too friendly with a Justice Department official who recommended him for the special counsel position and challenged his approval of a $20,000 payment to a confidential human source for the FBI who was reviewing video and photos for the bureau.

House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan pressed Smith on his view of the House’s now-defunct select committee to investigate the events of Jan. 6, 2021, which also probed Trump’s 2020 election gambit. He also questioned that panel’s reliance on former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to implicate Trump in plans to overturn the results favoring Joe Biden.

“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years. For a decade. And the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.

This nibbling around the edges by Republicans underscores the GOP’s lingering discomfort with Trump’s bid to subvert the election — an effort that preceded a violent attack on the Capitol by a mob of the president’s supporters. Several Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were among those who fled the rioters that day and condemned the violence at the time, and none at the hearing suggested Trump actually prevailed against Biden.

The posture of committee Republicans Thursday also gave Democrats ammunition to claim that Republicans had no legitimate argument with the substance of Smith’s findings — both in the election interference case and in the case alleging mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

“Our Republican colleagues want to try to dirty up his investigation, but they want to try to avoid as much as possible the underlying facts, because it's all about what is incontrovertibly true: Donald Trump's determined plan to overthrow the 2020 presidential election,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, in an interview during a break in the hours-long hearing convened to receive Smith’s first-ever public testimony.

Raskin and other Democrats feel so emboldened by Smith's testimony Thursday that they are now asking Jordan to hold a continuation of the hearing as soon as a report is unsealed that would allow Smith to go into more detail about the classified documents charges he sought to bring up against Trump.

The most forceful attack on Smith came from Trump himself who appeared to have watched or been briefed on aspects of the hearing during his trip to Europe.

“Jack Smith is a deranged animal, who shouldn’t be allowed to practice Law,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me.”

Smith, who later said he expected the Trump administration would pursue federal criminal charges against him “because they have been ordered to by the president,” forcefully defended his office’s work throughout the hearing Thursday. He denied that politics played any role in his team’s findings and calmly parried the attacks Republicans lobbed at him over his investigative tactics and decision to bring charges at all.

And he repeatedly suggested the failure to hold Trump accountable for his 2020 election maneuvering could invite future attacks.

“I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My feeling is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” Smith said. “The rule of law is not self-executing.”

Smith’s hearing, which came weeks after the public release of his closed-door deposition testimony to the panel late last year, also provided a venue for relitigating the events of Jan. 6 — specifically who was responsible for the violent event. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) called the hearing “theater” for Republican lawmakers seeking to rewrite the history of the attack, noting the presence in the audience of police officers who defended the Capitol that day.

Also in attendance at the hearing was Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 riot and sentenced to 18 years in prison before Trump commuted his sentence last year.

“I want to see true transparency in our government,” Rhodes said in an interview, adding that it was “really kind of surreal” to be back in the Capitol complex after being banned prior to his commutation.

At some points emotions ran high, such as when former Metropolitan Police Force officer Michael Fanone coughed “Fuck yourself” when Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) opined that police bore responsibility for the Jan 6. security breach at the Capitol. There was also a tense confrontation between Fanone and Ivan Raiklin, an activist and advocate for Jan. 6 defendants, that almost culminated in a physical altercation.

Throughout the day Smith remained straight-faced and measured, offering little visible reaction as the occasionally irate Republicans repeatedly condemned his work and attacked his character in deeply personal terms.

He also appeared unmoved amid the effusive praise from Democrats, who repeatedly thanked him for his service to the country and urged him not to bow to intimidation from Trump and his allies.

Democrats eagerly teed up the evidence Smith amassed in his Trump investigations that underscored their view that Trump knew he lost the election but attempted to stay in power anyway.

Smith has said Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that resulted in hundreds of assaults on law enforcement officers. He has also said Trump exploited the violence to try and pressure Congress to block Joe Biden’s victory.

“I’m so pleased you’re here on national TV telling the American people that Trump was indicted, he was indicted lawfully and multiple grand juries secured those indictments,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said during the hearing.

But Republicans spent little time questioning that narrative: Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) asked whether Smith’s subpoenas for GOP lawmakers’ phone data — revelations that reignited the party’s determination to compel Smith’s Capitol Hill testimony — violated the Constitutional speech and debate clause that protects correspondence about the legislative process.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) suggested that Smith was appointed special counsel because of a friendship with another Justice Department staffer in the Biden administration.

Even when a handful of Republicans did question Smith’s case against Trump, they focused largely on whether Trump could be excused for his conduct if he genuinely believed he won the election — even though he was defeated and the results were certified in Biden’s favor.

“I’ve talked to Donald Trump over a period of time. Donald Trump is 100 percent certain he won that election,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.). “There is zero percent chance that he believes he lost.”

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.) noted that Trump relied heavily on a team of legal advisers as he worked to reverse the election results and said Smith needed to prove Trump “knowingly” sought to subvert the outcome.

Smith, both in the indictment against Trump and his testimony Thursday, repeatedly argued that Trump knew he lost.

“He was looking for ways to stay in power,” Smith said. ”When people told him things that conflicted with staying in power, he rejected them.”