WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Jack Smith faced sharp questioning Tuesday from Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who accused him of unlawfully pursuing President Trump and Republican lawmakers.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Smith had overseen a “corrupt operation” that “undermined the rule of law and threatened our very political institutions.”
Grassley also described Smith’s investigation as a partisan effort that “broke the rules, lied to the court, and engaged in bad faith throughout his operation.” He argued that the special counsel’s work and conclusions “has no credibility.”
Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel in November 2022. Smith was assigned to oversee two federal cases involving Trump: one alleging that he improperly retained national security documents at Mar-a-Lago and another focused on efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Grassley pointed to what he characterized as a contradiction in the classified-documents case. “Mr. Smith prosecuted Trump for allegedly mishandling classified information,” he said. “[But] his team left a classified facility open, causing a security violation while prosecuting Trump for effectively the same offense.”
Smith defended his record in his opening statement, telling senators that he stood by his decision to charge Trump. “I made these decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” Smith said.
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Smith maintained that the investigation uncovered evidence supporting criminal charges. “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” he said. “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 Republican or a Democrat.”
Across the two cases, Smith’s team filed a total of 41 felony counts against Trump.
A Florida federal judge dismissed the Mar-a-Lago case after ruling that Smith had been appointed unlawfully. The election-related case was later brought to an end after Trump returned to office in 2024.
Democrats on the committee defended Smith’s work. Ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) invoked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, describing it as the moment “when this cathedral of democracy was overrun by violent insurrectionists at the direction of the president.”
Durbin later argued that Smith and his team of career prosecutors were qualified to handle the cases. “The aspersions cast on Mr. Smith nonstop are petty, personal and political,” he said. “They are nothing but a smokescreen.”
