Former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal criminal cases against President Donald Trump during the Biden administration, defended his investigations in a closed-door deposition Wednesday with members of the House Judiciary Committee.
His testimony — stretching over eight hours, with breaks — was the culmination of a months-long congressional effort to investigate Smith and compel the former Justice Department official to appear on the Hill. It was also wrought with potential legal risks after Trump has openly and repeatedly called for Smith’s prosecution.
In his opening statement to lawmakers, portions of which were obtained by POLITICO, Smith defended his findings of allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents and sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” said Smith, according to a copy of portions of that statement.
He maintained that this team found evidence to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
Smith also said his team found “powerful evidence” in the classified documents case and alleged that the president “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice.”
“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” Smith said in his statement. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”
He added that he would have made the same decision if Trump had been a Democrat or a Republican — a nod to the GOP members of the committee who believe Smith was pursuing a partisan witch hunt against the president. Their fury has only intensified in the wake of recent revelations Smith secretly obtained phone records of at least eight Republican senators in his election interference probe.
Smith also defended that decision to request lawmakers’ phone data, for which Smith’s team did not receive the content of the calls.
“Exploiting that violence, President Trump and his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election,” Smith said. “I didn’t choose those Members; President Trump did.”
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, in a statement said that “Jack Smith is a lying hack who willingly weaponized the justice system against President Trump to try and benefit his Democrat cronies.”
In the wake of repeated calls for his prosecution from Republicans and Trump himself, Smith faces unique political and legal dangers. His testimony is hamstrung by grand jury secrecy rules and Justice Department policy — as well as an order from a federal judge in Florida that the second volume of his report surrounding the classified documents case remain under seal.
Smith, however, defended his record as a career prosecutor from Republican allegations that he shepherded a weaponization of the Justice Department against conservatives — to the extent he could.
Walking into the deposition room, Smith did not answer shouted questions from reporters.
“The hunters become the hunted, huh?” someone shouted from the rowdy crowd swarming the former prosecutor.
Smith is represented by the big law giant Covington & Burling, which was sanctioned by the Trump administration earlier this year after revelations that it was providing free legal services to Smith. The move suspended security clearances for lawyers at the firm.
“In today testifying before this committee, Jack is showing tremendous courage in light of the remarkable and unprecedented retribution campaign against him by this administration and this White House,” one of Smith’s attorneys, Lanny Breuer, told reporters. “Let’s be clear: Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, conducted this investigation based on the facts and based on the law and nothing more.”
Breuer said his client “looks forward” to answering questions surrounding both of the cases he oversaw: the classified documents case and the case surrounding Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Smith was forced to drop both cases after Trump’s electoral victory in 2024, citing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
A number of lawmakers filed into the deposition room Wednesday morning to watch the questioning — among them Reps. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), Ben Cline (R-Va.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and Hank Johnson (D-Ga.). House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) are also attending.
“Jack Smith has just spent several hours schooling the Judiciary Committee on the professional responsibilities of a prosecutor and the ethical duties of a prosecutor,” Raskin told reporters Wednesday afternoon, while declining to provide details on Smith’s remarks.
“He didn’t come with any particular message,” Raskin continued, “but I’ll just say that he’s answered every single question to the satisfaction of any reasonable-minded person in that room.”
Smith had been requesting a public forum for his testimony to set the record straight about the scope of his work and the cases he would have pursued against Trump.
Jordan, however, declined that request, instead opting for a deposition behind closed doors. After the conclusion of the deposition, however, Jordan told reporters that he had not ruled out the possibility of Smith appearing in a public venue.
Democrats agreed that Smith should be given a chance to speak in an open hearing. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) noted that previous special counsels have been given their own hearings.
“We’re having a deposition behind closed doors because this chairman, this administration, this president — these Republicans want to hide from the American people the results of this investigation,” she said. “There’s also no reason to keep Jack Smith from testifying … to the American people about what was in his investigation and why he came to the conclusions that he did.”
After the hearing, Breuer told reporters that “[a] person who listened today to the deposition would know without any doubt that Jack Smith’s investigation was based purely on the facts and the law and the evidence, nothing more and nothing less.”
