Hello, I’m Alex Swoyer. Joining me for this sit-down session is Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt. He served as Attorney General of his home state before joining the Senate in 2023. He recently authored a new New York Times bestseller, “The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court.”
[SWOYER] I covered the Supreme Court when you had your case there against the Biden administration, obviously pressuring social media companies to censor. It was related to the 2020 election, COVID. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court didn’t really weigh the merits because it was a whole standing issue. Have there been any guardrails in place? Have the social media companies agreed to anything? Is there any status with what legislation has taken place? What’s the latest?
[SCHMITT] I think, honestly, the lasting legacy of that case, and which was a big part of the book, “The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court,” was the exposing of it. I mean, if you go back, when we filed the case in May of 2022, this was viewed as a conspiracy theory, “the conservatives were whining about this,” and it was lampooned, honestly, when we filed it. We made a very important, I think, strategic decision in the case to seek discovery first. So we sued the Biden administration, all these different agencies and the judge granted us discovery. So we got these reams and reams, and tens of thousands of emails, text messages, these secret portals that existed. And really, you’ve got to remember, this is before Elon Musk had bought Twitter and before the Twitter files. So for the first time, the American public saw the lengths with which big government worked with big tech to silence the voices of America itself.
[SWOYER] It was scary.
[SCHMITT] It really was. It was Orwellian, honestly. And so we took the deposition of Fauci. We took the deposition of Elvis Chan. There was a lot going on in that case. But I think, I like to believe that it sort of began a little bit, or at least a part of this renaissance of free speech now. Growing up, I’ve always been conservative. And in college, I kind of lamented the fact that liberals had the high ground on free speech. That’s not the case anymore.
[SWOYER] They don’t like dissent.
[SCHMITT] Yeah. And by the way, I think an important part of this coalition now, for Republicans, I mean, you think of the diffusion of information on podcasts now, Rogan, all these other people want…
[SWOYER] New media.
[SCHMITT] Right. They want to consume information and make their own decisions. And at the heart of it, also subject to the book, during COVID, we saw what the left was willing to do with just a little bit of power to silence people. There was no room for debate. And I think there’s a backlash to all of that, that we talk a lot about in the book as well.
[SWOYER] I have to ask you, news of the day, it seems, has always been the Epstein files. As a former AG, should we expect anything from them? Has it been so long that there wouldn’t be any sort of indictments?
[SCHMITT] I’m sure the statute of limitations has run on a lot of stuff, if there was stuff. I mean, I think it’s important to remember, there was a case against Epstein, over a decade ago. And so it’ll be interesting to see. I mean, I always supported, let’s release all the credible information, have transparency. So we’re going to see that. It’ll be interesting. Just some from emails that we’ve seen so far, you know, like Hakeem Jeffries is trying to meet with Jeffrey Epstein. Did he meet with him? Where did he meet with him? So I think there’s going to be a lot of that that comes out of it.
[SWOYER] Things the Democrats maybe not didn’t think about ahead of time.
[SCHMITT] At the heart of it, I think the victims should always be front and center here, protected to the degree that they can be protected. But if there were bad actors here, they ought to be exposed.
[SWOYER] You were chairman of the Republican Attorney General Association. So I wanted to ask you, during that time, as chairman, you were a target, basically, of Arctic Frost. Do you expect any sort of hearing on this? What’s the next step with some accountability there?
[SCHMITT] I think if you dig into Arctic Frost, right, three days after President Trump announces he’s running again, Jack Smith is, along with the Atlanta prosecution, along with the Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York, you just saw this weaponization we’ve never seen before in this country to get Trump, put him in jail for the rest of his life. But what Arctic Frost sort of reveals is that this was a huge drag net that encompassed a lot of other individuals and organizations whose only crime was they were Republicans. And we can’t let this happen again. And so, you know, we’re in conversations with Chairman Grassley, Ron Johnson and others, I think on the Judiciary Committee to have Watergate-style hearings on this because there’s more there. The only things we know about this so far from whistleblowers who have come forward. So we want to work with the Department of Justice, get as much of that information out there and see where it goes.
[SWOYER] I’ve heard there seems to be a push to hold some sort of hearing. Does leadership seem open to that?
[SCHMITT] Yeah, I think so. I think one thing that we want to do — because I can’t wait for Jack Smith to come in and testify — but I think that before that happens, we need to make sure we have all the information. What you don’t want to have is that Jack Smith’s the only one who’s been privy to a lot of this information in sealed grand jury testimony, and that we’re sort of in the dark and just kind of asking questions where you know we don’t have all the information. So I think we should take the time get all the information. But we absolutely should move forward with hearings here. I think in a 24-hour news cycle, some of this stuff just kind of gets lost. This is a big deal, the fact that Jack Smith, really what he was trying to do was to create this massive nationwide show trial where people got caught up and criminally prosecuted for their political views. He thought he was going to be some hero in this story. I mean, he’s really a villain, and there’s a lot of other ones.
Watch the video for the full conversation.
Read more: Sen. Eric Schmitt says Senate in talks to have ‘Watergate style hearings’ over Arctic Frost
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