‘A temper tantrum from a deranged fanatic’

On Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page legal brief detailing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s alleged criminal activities related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. On Sunday, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton called the move “a temper tantrum from a deranged fanatic” on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“This is unverified, un-cross-examined hearsay from grand jury testimony, which usually isn't revealed publicly for that reason,” Cotton (R-Ark.) told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker. “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.”

In Smith’s legal brief, he argued that Trump is not immune from charges of orchestrating multiple criminal conspiracy theories, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling over the summer that granted presidents broad immunity for official acts. "Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was a fundamentally private one,” Smith and his team wrote in detailing the evidence collected.

Cotton emphasized that Trump did not incite violence at the riots, instead telling protesters to be peaceful and patriotic. He said that Smith’s assertions are “unverified, un-cross-examined hearsay.”

“This is a perfect example of actual election interference, 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,” Cotton said.

One point from the Smith case filings was that Trump told his daughter and son-in-law, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” according to a Trump White House aide who overheard him.

When asked if Cotton would definitively say that Trump lost the 2020 election, Cotton said that President Joe Biden was elected president in 2020 but called it an unfair election.

“You had states that were changing their election practices or election laws, sometimes in violation of the Constitution,” he said. “You had networks combining with big tech to suppress what we now know to be a truthful story about Hunter Biden's laptop and the evidence that it exposed about Biden family corruption.”

Cotton added: “Everything has gone to hell in a handbasket as a result of it,” citing inflation, rising and immigration rates.