Jack Smith Faces Congress, Defends Trump Prosecutions as Lawful and Nonpartisan

For the first time since leaving office, former special counsel Jack Smith stepped into the public spotlight on Thursday, testifying before the US House Judiciary Committee about his investigations into Donald Trump. The hearing quickly turned into a political brawl, with Democrats praising Smith’s record and Republicans accusing him of weaponising the justice system.

Trump, watching from afar, jumped in on social media, calling for Smith to be criminally prosecuted, without offering evidence to support that demand.

“Based on his testimony today, there is no question that Deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions,” Trump wrote. “He destroyed the lives of many innocent people, which has been his history as a prosecutor. At a minimum, he committed large scale perjury!”

Inside the hearing room, Smith projected calm defiance. He told lawmakers his work had been guided by evidence, not politics, and that there were solid legal grounds for the two federal indictments brought against Trump between his two terms in office.

“I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold.”

Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor at an international tribunal in The Hague, was appointed special counsel in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden. Special counsels are meant to operate at arm’s length from political leadership at the Justice Department, but Smith’s mandate was uniquely volatile: investigating a former president who would soon become a political rival again.

The heart of Smith’s work focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his actions surrounding January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to block certification of the vote. Smith concluded Trump had intentionally tried to subvert the election.

In August 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding. A second federal indictment followed in June 2023 in Florida, centred on Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and his refusal to comply with a subpoena demanding their return. That case included 40 charges, ranging from obstruction to violations of the Espionage Act.

Both prosecutions were dropped after Trump won re-election in 2024, in line with Justice Department policy barring criminal cases against sitting presidents. Smith resigned shortly before Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.

But on Thursday, Smith made clear he has no regrets.

“I want to be clear: I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump,” he told lawmakers. “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican.”

Smith said the evidence left him no alternative.

“The law required that he be held to account,” he said. “So that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would’ve been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor.”

Later, he underlined how close the cases came to trial.

“We were ready, willing and able to go to trial in the case.”