{"id":535055,"date":"2026-01-22T17:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/535055\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T17:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:21:13","slug":"jack-smith-testifies-at-public-hearing-on-his-trump-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/535055\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Smith testifies at public hearing on his Trump investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith<\/a> on Thursday defended his investigations of Donald Trump at a congressional hearing in which he insisted that he had acted without regard to politics and had no second thoughts about the criminal charges he brought.<\/p>\n

Smith testified behind closed doors<\/a> last month but returned to the House Judiciary Committee for a public hearing, his first since leaving the job last year. The hearing split along partisan lines as Republican lawmakers sought to undermine the former Justice Department official as Democrats hoped to elicit new and damaging testimony about Trump\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always about politics,\u201d said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe for them,\u201d retorted Rep. Jamie Raskin, the panel\u2019s top Democrat, during his on opening statement. \u201cBut for us, it\u2019s all about the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith told lawmakers that he stood behind his decision as special counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases that accused the Republican of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election<\/a> after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and hoarding classified documents<\/a> at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after he left the White House. He said that, as special counsel, he had \u201cfollowed Justice Department policies, observed legal requirements and took actions based on the fact and the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIf asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The hearing unfolded against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump administration retribution campaign targeting the investigators who scrutinized the Republican president. The Justice Department has fired lawyers and other employees who worked with Smith, and an independent watchdog agency<\/a> responsible for enforcing a law against partisan political activity by federal employees said last summer that it had opened an investigation into him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, these people are the best of public servants, our country owes them a debt of gratitude, and we are all less safe because many of these experienced and dedicated law enforcement professionals have been fired,\u201d Smith said of the terminated members of his team. <\/p>\n

Smith was appointed in 2022<\/a> by Biden\u2019s Justice Department to oversee investigations into Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing. Both investigations produced indictments against Trump, but the cases were abandoned<\/a> by Smith and his team after Trump won back the White House because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.<\/p>\n

Smith was summoned to the hearing by Jordan, who on Thursday advanced a talking point frequently advanced by Trump that the investigation was driven by a desire to derail Trump\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should never forget what took place, what they did to the guy we the people elected twice,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n

Smith vigorously rejected those suggestions and said the evidence placed Trump\u2019s actions squarely at the heart of a criminal conspiracy to undo the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThese crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the start, Republicans sought to portray Smith as an overly aggressive hard-charging prosecutor who had to be \u201creined in\u201d by higher-ups and the courts as he pursued Trump during his campaign. <\/p>\n

Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from California, portrayed Smith as an overly aggressive prosecutor who did not show the same \u201chumility and restraint\u201d shown by other past special counsels. Kiley accused Smith of seeking \u201cmaximum litigation advantage at every turn\u201d and \u201crepeatedly circumventing constitutional limitations to the point that you had to be reined in again and again throughout the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and other Republicans pressed Smith on the decision to seek and review phone records of more than a half-dozen Republican lawmakers who were in contact with Trump on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters stormed the Capitol<\/a> in a bid to halt the certification of his 2020 election loss. The records revealed the length and time of the calls but not the content of the communications.<\/p>\n

Smith explained that collecting the phone records was a \u201ccommon practice\u201d and said he sought the data because he wanted to understand the \u201cscope of the conspiracy\u201d to overturn the election.<\/p>\n

It was unlikely that Smith would share new information Thursday about his classified documents investigation. A report his team prepared on its findings remains sealed by order of a Trump-appointed judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon<\/a>, and Trump\u2019s lawyers this week asked the court to permanently block its release.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage for former special counsel Jack Smith at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/jack-smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his investigations of Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[236817,3881,327,12785,84,69,90,6064,723,57,4228,88,187769,117491,82,74552,362,50,80,235115,89,94,322,67,8128,326,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-535055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-aileen-cannon","10":"tag-ap-top-news","11":"tag-congress","12":"tag-dc-wire","13":"tag-district-of-columbia","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-fl-state-wire","17":"tag-florida","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-indictments","20":"tag-jack-smith","21":"tag-jamie-raskin","22":"tag-jim-jordan","23":"tag-joe-biden","24":"tag-kevin-kiley","25":"tag-legal-proceedings","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-send-to-apple-news","29":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","30":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","31":"tag-u-s-republican-party","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-united-states-congress","34":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}